Narrative Poem: Shrimp Toast.

 

My Dear Children:

So we bought two pounds of cooked shrimp yesterday at Smith's. Why? I dunno. We just saw the shrimp glowing white and orange in the butcher's display case and decided we must have some at all costs. I'm afraid I'm becoming a bad influence on your mother -- since that's the kind of thing I'm always doing, but she is much more circumspect and prudent.

Anywho. So we brought it home and ate tons of it. But two pounds is a lot of shrimp. So I made a shrimp salad for the neighbors. But when your mother learned I only used 6 shrimp in the salad (they were BIG shrimp!) she gave me a pitying look and said something about somebody being cheap. I will not repeat her exact words, as they have no direct bearing on this story.

So this morning I decided to make something with a boatload of shrimp in it. Working purely on adrenaline and intuition I laid down a layer of buttered bread in a tin foil pan, then topped it with shrimp, then topped THAT with processed cheese, and finished with a slurry of buttermilk, sour cream, whipping cream, and parmesan cheese. I poured that over the whole mess, then sprinkled it with smoked paprika. Covered it and popped it in the over for 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

But your mother took it out and told me that it was just a gooey melted mess, and not cohering. So I put it back in and baked it uncovered for another 20 minutes. The bottom got burned and it still did not solidify -- until I took it out and let it cool. The next hurdle was what to name the darn stuff. Shrimp toast? Shrimp scampi? Shrimp chowder? Shrimp gone bad? Shrimp a la Torkilini? I can't believe it's Shrimp? We settled on Welsh Rarebit.

Placed on a bed of lettuce and drizzled with olive oil, with a bit of canned diced tomato on top, it didn't look too bad. Both of us were afraid to taste it, so we gave it away with a lot of your mother's peanut butter cookies as a bribe. 

Now, at least, the shrimp is all gone. But somebody just gave us a rotisserie chicken, which we will turn into chicken salad for tonight. I insisted we put grapes in it. Your mother decided not to fight me on this whim. I can get pretty feisty when I'm aroused -- or just bored of doing rewrites all day. I accidentally erased one of the rewrites just as it was getting ready to submit, and we couldn't get it back. So had to start all over again. Thunderation! I'd rather be out on the street getting quarters with my Clown for President sign. 

Roses are red/violets scream/life is a sleep/in which we all dream.

Love,

Heinie Manush.

Haiku Triptychs: オンライン銀行取引明細書 Online bank statement 路地の雪 snow in the alley

 

online bank statement --

captures water flowing on;

leaving what behind?

online bank statement --

numbers on a flat white screen;

so this is my life.

online bank statement --

if I stare at it longer

will it grow much more?

***************************************

snow in the alley --

trashcans white and dignified;

whitewashing the stink.

snow in the alley --

tracks leading to green dumpster;

black scat on white flakes.

snow in the alley --

the garbage truck crushing white;

silent agony.

Haiku Triptych: 夜の静か Quiet of the night

 

quiet of the night --

nothing moves in the late dark;

except a girl with green hair.

Walking her backpack. 

静かな夜-

暗闇の中で何も動きません。

緑髪の女の子を除いて。

彼女のバックパックを歩きます。

quiet of the night --

a universal humming;

what is it saying?

静かな夜-
普遍的なハミング;
何言ってるの？


quiet of the night --
I listen to my nose hairs
whistle as I breathe. 
静かな夜-
鼻毛を聞く
呼吸しながら笛を吹く。

Haiku: 災害を予想しながら豊かさを楽しむ The bitter white snow.

 

the bitter white snow --

so mingy upon the ground

it feels like chalk dust.

the bitter white snow --

afraid of returning green;

its death will be soft.

the dog has no teeth --

the blue cat has no whiskers;

a little bird yawns.

Cold sweet potatoes --

yielding to the tongue and teeth;

with a hard boiled egg.

yarn on the table --

yellow domestic fetters;

I'm soaking my feet.

is a broken rock

such a thing as exists when

what size is a rock?

pink dust from the moon

settles on the shadow of

a napping field mouse.

Essay: What does your wife think of you?

 A discussion again.

Today I woke from a dream with Kathleen and Steve, their daughters Alice and Aartje, the talk about the poetry contest and attending it, my blog post and Kathleen’s edit of it, rowing a boat to the steps of the house where we lived, and the feeling about where we lived had Grandma Aartje Smith’s feeling but we didn’t see her.

The discussion I have is about the communication involved here. Then what happened to me and Tim as we communicated in our living together today. The special thing about our communication was that there was no stern speaking even when Tim bumped his head on a cupboard door corner that I had left open. I just felt badly that he bumped his head. He said Amy, would you be willing to close the doors of the cupboards when you use them? I said yes I will, I am sorry that I left it open.  There is so much that you can feel from the tone of someone’s voice when they speak. Especially when they are hurt. You can tell if they want to blame you for your part in what happened to them. You can tell if they have hope for the future. You can tell if you are their target or if there is something else. You can tell if you can talk more about it or leave it alone because of their feeling of negativity.

I thought of the many interactions we’ve experienced since we’ve been married again. He is more willing to ask what he calls probing questions. I am more willing to assess the nature of the probing questions before I answer. Sometimes he has many questions, one after the other, before I have a chance to answer, as I still consider the situation he’s talking about. I have told him how I appreciate his kindness for considering me. I told him once again this morning as we decided about who should shower first. And again as we talked about the food we were preparing for the community. He loves to prepare food! It takes planning. It takes energy and creativity. It is interesting to me how his food preparation equates with his writing. He is very intelligent about putting together words. He gets ideas going and forms stories and random thoughts can often teach a lesson for you to choose how you feel. He doesn’t pretend to know so much about philosophy or philanthropy to persuade someone to think or feel one way or another. What he does know is asking questions and postulating answers that are opposite of truth! And he knows that the things he writes are opposite of obvious truth because it makes people laugh!!!

He will do things around the house that I see as bungling. When I see him do bungling things I ask why he does that and he says It’s just me. An example is when he rinses his hands in the kitchen sink he will then search for a towel. I have a hand towel to the left of the sink and he will look at it and turn away from it and look for the dish towel. Another example is when we put things in our gym bag. I have my things on one end and his things on the other. He will search through my things first and when he doesn’t find his stuff then he will go to the other end and find one thing. Then search through my things again, when he doesn’t find his stuff he will go to find another thing on his side. He will do this enough times that my things are all in disarray and his stuff is finally out of the bag. I am mentioning this because there are times that if a person wanted to be efficient they could be with the way I packed things. He isn’t concerned about efficiency in the gym bag and so I watch and am amazed. However this same behavior is pervasive and he knows it not, that is to say he doesn’t know it! 

He was working with the electronic things on the computer trying to get efficient with his re-writing time. He would be frustrated with taking so much time at paring down an article or working with the word processing part of editing. I tried to show him keyboard shortcuts but that was a type of information that was not ready to become part of his idea of efficiency. So he hunts and pecks for document editing. He then creates new words instead of rearranging what is already there. I recognize that his habit is looking where something is not before looking where something might be. He has worked through much anger in the process of going to the wrong place first. He is learning the joy of stopping himself from feeling too much anger and then thinking what else he can do. Sometimes he will call me and we’ll talk about the process. I have never treated him with any negativity or belittling when he does. He will always be thankful for being shown the thing to do. I always say you’re welcome. There have been times that I wanted to ask why he does the wrong thing first but then I have seen it as his pattern so I allow it.

Allowing without judgment or recrimination is the way we learn best. This was done for me. I have had patterns of wrong thinking that have actually hurt other people’s feelings and hurt their life. Allowing me to see my own actions is the only thing that taught me. How else is life to be experienced for good?  Know this that every soul is free to choose his life and what he’ll be.  For this eternal truth to us is given, that God will force no man to heaven. He’ll call, persuade, direct right, instruct in wisdom, love and light. In nameless ways be good and kind but never force the human mind.

The word kind is a keyword. We think it means one thing and it actually means another. “Kind” is the law of the harvest. What you plant is what you will get. If you plant one KIND of seed you will get that KIND. (not the plant of your imagination but the plant of your actual seed.)  When you plant a seed of corn you will get a corn plant. You will get the fruit of the corn plant if you wait long enough for it to mature. Planting the seeds of the spirit is realized in the same way. You get what you plant. Recognizing the plant you have is the elusive part. As children are born into this world they are blessed with the childlike trust in God that we as adults want when we see it. They have many spiritual gifts that experiences can either help them develop or they can choose to deny. That is the choice in life given to every single person. Every single moment, every single person, every single day.

Where all this is going is a point of spiritual awakening. God always gives us the kind of thing we want. Sometimes (nearly 99.9% of the time) we don’t know what it is we wanted! We thought we wanted the riches and honor of the world. But what we really wanted was greed! What does greed look like when we get it? It looks like the nasty thing we see in others as they “hurt” us or “annoy” us. Think about what your spirit was desiring when you thought of the riches and honor. What were you going to do with it? Were you going to praise God and help his children? Were you going to consume the riches and honor upon yourself?

Narrative Poem: The Ukrainian Chips of Tom Brady, and his trained Prion Gummy Bears.

 

My Dear Children;

Your mother is still warm and snug and asleep in bed this Sunday morning, while I have been up for an hour chopping and frying and stirring things together in the slow cooker for dinner today at 12:30. I'm calling it Potatoes & Sausage Italiano. 

There are a lot of new people moved into our senior apartment building, so I'm hoping to entice some of them to come to our door for a free meal today.

One guy in particular, named Tom Brady, is a puzzle. He says he's retired and doesn't do much of anything. Then the next moment he claims to be getting ready for playing in the Super Bowl. I think he's delusional and ought to be sent to the laughing academy. But you never know --- people can surprise you. I once knew a guy who claimed he shot an elephant in his pajamas. You know the rest of that story. And if you don't you should be ashamed of your ignorance when it comes to the History of American Film Comedy. 

Do you have much trouble blowing your nose? I'm asking for a friend.

Wouldn't it be great if gummy bears ruled the planet? No more war or teeth.

I'm just throwing this out there for general consideration, but if all you kids pooled your resources together I'm sure you could get your mother and I a decent beach condo in Hawaii. Just think of all the benefits this would have for you, such as . . . um, well, some kind of tax write off?

I often dream of tropical beaches when I'm exercising with your mother at the Rec Center. It is pleasant to sit on a stationary bicycle, peddling like mad, and thinking of those gorgeous humid sunrises on the beach in Thailand. The smell of hyacinth and marine garbage mingled together. Sea glass strewn about the beach like gemstones. The susurration of endless tepid waves. And elephants scurrying about, serving mangoes with sticky rice, covered in coconut syrup on a banana leaf. You don't get that at IHOP. 

Well, the media seem to think we are soon going to war with Russia over the Ukraine. I'm just grateful that none of you children were ever involved in an active shooting war. I hope our grand kids are spared that as well. But if it comes, I'm thinking it might just be a hacking war where we hack the Russian infrastructure and they hack ours until one or the other is destroyed. Then we will descend back into the Analog Age and all turn into morlocks. The only real winners will be the Chinese, who are just waiting to overrun the Pacific Rim.

This astute political analysis is brought to you by the Gummibarchen Company, makers of fruit flavored prions since 1920.

My friend Rob Reed, who lives in Wailuku, Hawaii, by the way, emails me often that he enjoys my writing but never bothers to look up the hard words. I suppose you kids never look them up, either. Yet it's so easy to do while you're online! If you want to improve your vocabulary all you have to do is look up all the strange and foreign words I use in my emails to you and you'll be talking erudite before you can say 'Bob's your uncle.'

On the other hand, constantly learning new words can make a person awfully talkative. They never shut up. But rattle on and on, like a baby with a new maraca. So you just keep on ignoring the lexiconic bonanza I offer up in each new email. You don't want to suffer from a debilitating case of logorrhea. 

I always carried a pocket dictionary with me when I was reading, as a kid. This was especially vital when I read authors like S.J. Perelman or even the Sherlock Holmes stories. 

Egad!  I just realized that this very email is a prime example of logorrhea -- I am rambling on and on with no real purpose besides watching the letters form into words, then form into paragraphs -- hoping that the whole thing will jell into something cohesive and comprehensible. Alas, it does not appear that is happening. So I will end this electronic missive by bidding you adieu and beste hilsener until tomorrow.

Love,

Heinie Manush. 

  

Narrative Poem: A Trip to Turkey.

 My Dear Children;

Did I ever tell you about my stay in Turkey?

They have many strange customs and laws there.

On Fridays everyone has to walk backwards between the hours of noon and six in the evening. Their great founding leader, Kemel Attaboy, thought this would increase productivity and lessen the stranglehold of the muftis. 

Then there's the custom of 'namby-pamby,' a turkoman tradition dating back to ancient times. Before the Pharaohs built the freeways, the Turks were hunting down the fleet-footed namby and breeding them with the woolly pamby -- for a breed of dogs that can herd sheep as well as provide a kind of hair fiber perfect for making throw rugs. And everyone knows how deadly the Turks are with throwing their rugs. That's how they conquered half the world. No army can stand up to a barrage of such terrible tapestry.

It's kinda funny, the way I got to go to Turkey. My older brother Billy's friend Crazy Henry won a free trip to Turkey at a benefit raffle to raise funds for a new cement mixer at the orphanage. Well, Crazy Henry couldn't go to Turkey -- he had a previous commitment to lecture at the George Pal Museum in Waterloo Iowa -- so he gave me his ticket. And a bag of licorice to sell in Turkey; the Turks dearly love to smoke it in their hubble-bubbles and will pay through the nose for Grade A licorice. I made a lot of snotty lira.

When I got back from Turkey I could speak the language like a Frenchman. So I set up a language school in an abandoned railroad car. But I found it to be a rather brutal existence. Struggling with vowel harmony and agglutination. So I took off for Switzerland with one of my pupils -- a young girl named Weena. Ah . . . Switzerland! Where the air smells like cough drops.

Oh, it was quite a scandal. I can tell you that. My father cut me off without one red cent. Or two green nickels. Or even a ha'penny. The newspapers had a field day. Sack races; ring toss; ping pong shake; and cup stacking. They even stooped to face painting! 

Weena and I were personas non grata at every European embassy from Vaduz to Valletta. But we didn't care. We were young and carboniferous -- and I had saved up enough Green Stamps to keep us going indefinitely.

But eventually our relationship soured. She was a Pisces and I was, and still am, a dyed in the wool Mugwump. So we parted ways. She went off to Conakry to join their Olympic Marimba team. And I, well ~ you know what happened to me --

I joined Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows as a First-of-May. And that's where I met your mother, who was running a floss joint.    

And the rest, as they say, is hysterical.

Love,

Heinie Manush.

Narrative Poem: The Bomb Cyclone.

 

My Dear Children;

Well, the infamous 'Bomb Cyclone' has come and gone.

It left cows stranded on top of stoplights and flushed out the sewers until they now smell like bougainvillea. 

The electricity has been out for nearly a week. So it's lucky we have our food storage and a large supply of candles. After trying to eat our food storage items, we have switched to eating our candles. They taste much better.

During the storm an old woman in a rocking chair floated by our patio, where we were sheltering several dozen kangaroo rats and a parcel of peahens. She spoke to us as she passed by, these shining words of wisdom:

"Always clean your shoes. Never talk to someone without teeth. Eat your spinach with nutmeg and white vinegar. Wear a hat after dark. Always support the bottom. Feed your children before they wake up. And never use a monkey wrench when a screwdriver will do!"

I was sorry to see her sucked down a storm drain.

The rain was bad. But the wind was worse. It grew so boisterous that several nearby trees packed up their bags and went home to mother. A leaf was propelled with such force that it went through a cement wall and a bowling ball. The big green dumpster down the alleyway from our apartment was blown inside the Post Office. Where it was accidentally mailed to the White House by overzealous postal employees.

I must say that even though the bomb cyclone was brutal and unrelenting, the USPS came through with flying colors. We got our junk mail every day, come rain or shine or a plague of locusts. And the milkman never stopped coming by with our butter, cream, and stock market quotations. I can't say the same for the Fuller Brush Man or the Mary Kay Lady -- they totally abandoned us to our fates, and we haven't seen hide nor hair of them since just before the storm struck. When they tried to sell us life insurance guaranteed through the 7-11 convenience store Corporation. Your mother and I only bought a few million dollars worth of coverage. Now if something happens to either one of us, the other one can collect a tidy sum. And I'm sure there's no connection, but your mother wants to order a pound of ground glass from Amazon Prime today . . . 

I had to stop writing this email for a moment so I could nod off and dream about shoe laces. That's very symbolic, you know. Shoe laces represent repressed feelings for woolen fabrics. But now I'm wide awake again; your mother tiptoed in and kissed me on the top of my head.

Of course potable water is always a problem after a big storm. Luckily, I discovered an artisan spring next to our patio. We not only got water from it, but were able to buy some original pottery pieces.

I have much more to tell you, but I think I'll wait until this evening to write again. By then, if we're all lucky, I'll have forgotten what it was.

Love,

Heinie Manush.

Narrative Poem: The many uses of Styrofoam.

 

My Dear Children;

How well I remember going with my family to the Scrumbles as a small boy!

A group of islands off the coast of Idaho, those delightful dots of rock and pine were the perfect place for a young boy to gambol and caper. Of course, there were “NO CAPERING!” and “NO GAMBOLING!” signs everywhere – but that didn’t stop me from cutting didoes galore!

The reason my parents liked the Scrumbles so much was because it featured styrofoam cabins at reasonable rates; when you were done with your cabin, you simply placed it in the water so it could drift off into the sunset.

Back in those halcyon days everything was made of styrofoam.

Buildings were mostly styrofoam, with a smattering of brick and wood. The streets were paved with styrofoam. Cars and trucks were styrofoam. Our astronauts rode to the Moon in a styrofoam rocket. It was a simpler time. Easier on the pocketbook. And on the environment. Because styrofoam eventually decays into Silly Putty. Which is useful for all manner of things; caulking boats, curing neuralgia, keeping cockchafers at bay, and bouncing off the heads of Republicans.

Well, as I was saying – back then things were simpler and easier to explain away.  If you had a wooden leg, a knapsack full of marshmallows, and a singletree, you could look anyone in the eye and say you were an honest and independent man. My father worked in the salt and pepper mines most of his life, and he died a happy and befuddled man. My mother stayed at home, tending children and making rhubarb mustard plasters for the sick and afflicted. A saintly woman, she often used iron railroad spikes for macrame and gave the finished, knotted, products to distraught men and women who roamed up and down Hennepin Avenue during the cold winter months. 

As I look back, I think the best times were those when the pemmican dancers arrived from North Dakota. They were a jolly yet stoic crew. We often stole their odd-looking shoes to use as bagpipes. 

But I digress.

I always regretted that I couldn’t take you kids on the kind of vacations my parents took me on. But the times were different, and my temperment left me unsuited for work in the mines like my father. So I tried my hand at professional jam tasting. Unfortunately, my hand was not good at it. And neither was the rest of me. Next came a career at casting aspersions. But my pitching arm wasn’t strong enough. 

Eventually I settled on latex wrangler. The hours were long and the work was grueling. But I developed a taste for gruel at last. And from then on we managed to live in modest comfort. Although I never could afford to give any of you kids a second head, like most of your playmates had. What with one thing and another, I was barely able to keep a fire hose on the table most of the time.

Still, we had some good times – didn’t we? Remember the hammock races? And those long nights before the wheat grinder telling ghost stories? I hope you realize how much those moments meant to me and your mother. We always dreamed you kids would grow up to become scholars and acrobats. And now that you have gone out and made your way in the world as Gumby collectors and chinglers, I just want you to know your mother and I are mighty proud of you. Mighty proud.

And by the way – could you lend your old dad twenty bucks until rain falls up?

Thanks!

Heinie Manush.

Narrative Poem: Google.

 

My Dear Children;

Here is what happened to me today.

I was googling my name and found someone with my exact name who was a 17th century Doge in Venice. So I went to Wikipedia to find out about the guy.

He was some villain! He had children murdered if he considered them too homely. He put housewives in stuffy wooden boxes when they fried fish too close to his palace. And he made all the men wear red suspenders.

Timothy Robert Torkildson, the 99th Doge of Venice, dredged the Lagoon for sand. Which he shipped to Siam for a fantastic profit. He started a war with Lombardy, which ended with the enslavement of Lombard soldiers as chimney sweeps. He banned the use of peacock feathers. And the use of verjuice in cookery.

The populace finally arose and deposed him, cutting off his head and mounting it on a barber pole. Where it turned round and around for the next ten years. 

I felt a strange kinship to him -- as if he and I were brothers.

"Devo impazzire! I thought to myself.

Dark thoughts, tyrannical daydreams, invaded my mind. I decided to go work out at the gym to rid myself of them.

But at the gym I stepped onto a treadmill next to a man who kept scowling at me.  We both finished our workouts together. He wiped his face, and then announced fiercely to me:  "I am Benito Mussolini!" 

"In a pig's eye" I told him. Then put a 'Z' on his forehead with a red magic marker. 

A semi hauling a vat of Chef Boyardee ravioli overturned as I was walking back home from the gym. And I was covered with tomato sauce.

Things were getting a bit too Italian for me. Dangerously so. 

So I ducked into the nearest vacuum repair shop to have a long discussion with the owner on Pascal's wager. He convinced me that there is no harm in being good, through the use of fluid dynamics.

When the sun had reached the tip of the Italian stone pines I shook hands with the owner of the shop and went home.

Your mother asked me: "Where have you been all day? The dog needs watering!"

To which I replied:  "Woman, weepest not. I am now convinced that Pascal's wager is true. Let's go out to celebrate at the Silver Dish."

But when we got there the place was closed in celebration of Chinese New Year. So we heated some bricks and roasted potatoes on our patio instead. 

A shooting star overhead inspired me to tell your mother:  "Life is shorter than expected but longer than a traffic jam."

"You are so right" she told me, as we walked into an open question.

Love,

Heinie Manush.