I never saw a door slammed with such vehemence or cold malice.
It was the end of the Age of Velcro.
For me, anyway.
And my library disappeared with it.
My books were many and dog eared.
Paperbacks signed by the author.
A child’s version of the Necronomicon.
Circus programmes.
The History of Lollipops, by M. Zapruder.
Back issues of the Feldspar Times and Seasons.
The Emmett Till Cookbook.
I became addicted to mumbo sauce.
My teeth fell out and my tongue turned
Glossy red.
Group therapy was a bust;
I just switched to Patum Peperium.
But I went on to win the Chirruper Cup in Hosiery;
The Charles Baumann Award for Superior Grit;
A set of ceramic thimbles from the S.S. Kresge Company;
The 1997 Pinewood Derby Medallion;
A lifetime supply of 3-in-1 oil from the
George W. Cole Foundation;
And was runner up at the 2011 Squab Games
In Basra.
Still, I never got over my childhood trauma.
She was eleven and I was eight.
We never met formally or corresponded.
In fact I didn’t know her at all back then;
But I saw her walking down Hennepin Avenue
The other day -- a perfectly complete stranger.
So beautiful and distant that I knew right away.
We should have been frustrated lovers as children.
I get that way sometimes when I have
Too much peppermint.
In the matter of punctuation I
Always taught my students in Thailand
To leave it alone and let the context
Take care of the meaning//
Unless they wanted to be published
In the Huffington Post//
Then they should hire a plumber?
(in the entire history of etiquette in Thailand no one has ever slammed a door)
For many years I was in great health and poor pain.
Those were the years I grew bushy eyebrows.
Those were the times when I mastered the
Art of Velcro
To such an extent
That I could afford to take a trip
To Milwaukee.
I peddled so much absurdity
That I finally got silliness poisoning.
Forced to retire, I bought a pineapple
In Hawaii.
It’s still there, in a museum.
I’ve found that the only cure
For sleepiness is loneliness.
Or a mop handle between the teeth.
When you write as much as I do
And with so little effort
You start writing in your sleep.
Since you can’t buy a mop handle
For love nor money anymore
I stay lonely instead
By brushing my teeth with tuna fish.
I haven’t been visited by another
Human being in a dozen years.
Excepting the Census Enumerator.
I find this interview is becoming tedious.
Pray, what newspaper did you say you’re
With?
And why am I being singled out for an interview?
My literary work -- my postcards -- or my heretical
Recipe for mumbo sauce?
I don’t believe there’s any such newspaper
As the Marmalade Times.
Please to show me some credentials . . .
Well, as I was saying,
The reason I cover my walls with
Maps is because they keep the flies out.
Have you ever seen a fly land on a map?
No you haven’t.
That’s one of the great secrets I share
Only with my writing students --
And only at the graduate level.
Flies are emissaries of Beelzebub,
And as such want to destroy every
Generous creative impulse in mankind.
All great poets were continuously bothered by flies.
They landed in Byron’s soup, flew into William Blake’s
Inkpot, and crawled into Shakespeare’s second best
Bed.
As you may have heard,
The life of a blurb artiste is a hard one.
I settled into that vocation almost by accident.
Walking past a Walgreen’s Drugstore one day
I swerved to avoid a shih tzu, only to bump
Into its owner -- a comely maiden who immediately
Invited me into Walgreen’s so we could compare
Our blood pressures.
So smitten was I with her loveliness that
I composed a romantic blurb for her on the spot:
“Eyes to bedazzle the sun; a face to steal the heart; and
A suppleness of spirit that suggests much but reveals little
At first acquaintance.”
The druggist on duty overheard my blurb,
Phoned it into the head office,
And the next thing I knew I was ensconced
In a cushy office writing blurbs about Epsom Salts
And nail clippers.
As for the comely maiden,
We parted amicably enough
as vice presidential
Candidates.
You keep harping on my political views.
Why?
I never form an opinion on things
Until after I write something about them.
As I was saying,
Once my library was gone
And I had come to terms with
My addictions and inner Elmos,
I settled down to the writing of blurbs
Until the embargo on chindles began.
It was then impossible to continue,
So I got a grant from the Ronald McDonald House
To stay at home quietly minding my own business.
A little known fact is that these grants, amounting to
Millions of dollars each year,
Are available to just about anyone who is
Literate and a native born American citizen.
Life has been good since then.
I’ve switched from blurbs to platitudes,
Which are easier on my throat and impressive
To teach.
And now you want my mother’s maiden name?
You’re absurd, you are!
This interview is over. Get out.
Oh, I see . . .
Not a newspaper at all.
You’re National Security.
And I’m a threat. A small threat.
Who can be dealt with kindly.
But firmly.
Yessir. My mother’s maiden name
Was Bedell.
Can I just say I really don’t have any addictions.
Not as such.
Mostly I have obsessions.
With Velcro. Anchovies. Yiddish. Peonies.
And houses with orange tile roofs.
There’s something compelling yet suspicious
About a house with bright orange colored
Roof tiles -- don’t you think?
They ought to be investigated as some kind of threat.
I mean, really, won’t airplanes get distracted by
Their unusual color and go off course,
Crashing into mountain sides?
Has anyone done a study of that?
I’d be glad to do it for you,
Free of charge of course.
And who needs a lot of books lying around,
Cluttering up the place?
They smell of stale wood pulp.
They’re an invitation for silverfish
To take up residence.
Some of them contain strong ideas
That children cannot digest.
I’m actually glad I lost all my books.
Now will you take those baggies off my
Hands and feet?
