Prose Poem: Dead Sailors.

 

There was one too many in the pool.

I did a surreptitious head count, just like everyone else.

"Alright!" yelled our instructor, 

a short woman with bright red hair,

"When I call your name hold up your

hand -- and keep it up!"

That's hard to do when you're in a fourteen

foot deep chlorine scented pool at the Rec Center.

But we managed. All of us.

She ticked our names off the list,

her voice muffled through the mask.

Then she did it again. The morning sun

glared through the plate glass windows.

Our class time was leaking away --

we only had one hour. 

Most of us had jobs to get to.

"I still count thirteen, and there's only supposed

to be twelve in the deep water pool at one time"

she said helplessly, throwing up her hands in despair.

So we had a dirty stowaway among us --

too cowardly to give himself or herself up.

The lifeguard did a head count.

"Yup" he said stoically. "Thirteen."

"Do we have a volunteer who'll get out

so we can get started with class?"

asked our instructor hopefully.

No one volunteered.

We refused to make eye contact with

each other.

We just floated there, silent and flabby --

like dead sailors.

Today's timericks

 

Tuna salad for my lunch

really packs a grody punch;

people who then catch my breath

will go into 'sudden death.'

Luckily, with masks abundant,

screams of anguish ain't redundant.

Malicious code from Russian hackers

(brutal as the Green Bay Packers)

has breached so many firewalls

our infrastructure's in mothballs.

The only cure (and please don't laugh)

is to go back to the telegraph.

Magicians sans a spot lit stage

are also sans a living wage.

But if they make Trump disappear

I'd buy 'em all a glass of beer!

Put me in a cardboard box,

with some bagels and some lox.

Check on me 'bout once a week;

say hello and take a peek.

Better that than nursing home,

where I'd soon be 'neath the loam.

Become as a little child

 

The invitation has not changed;

in order not to be estranged

from our Father up above --

rid yourself of all but love.

Call it inner child or not,

miracles by it are wrought.

Prose Poem: The Empty Box.

 

The delivery guy took the refrigerator

out of the box and set it up in the kitchen

for us. Then he carted the old one away.

It looked great and ran so quiet --

not like our old clunker,

which rattled and dripped condensation

continuously onto the floor.

I put the big refrigerator box

in the spare bedroom --

because I thought it might come in handy

someday.

Those things are huge --

big enough to house a person, really.

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

It came on very slowly,

and we hardly noticed it for months,

my wife and I,

but finally we admitted to each other

that a chilling sadness had settled 

into our home.

We both walked into the spare bedroom

and immediately knew it was the empty box.

The empty refrigerator box, 

where no one was ever home,

which no children ever played in --

a thing with no purpose.

"Throw it away!" my wife pleaded.

But that didn't help much.

There remained a dead silence underneath

the carpeting that muffled our aspirations. 

Until she bought a ficus plant for

the spare bedroom.

Then the sunlight that streamed

through the window motes

began to remind us of warmth.

Next I put up a bird feeder

in the backyard --

nothing but sparrows and squirrels

ever show up at it,

but their frantic chatter 

stays a comfortable echo

during the blank nights.

Then in quick succession

we set up a fish tank,

learned to bake artisan bread together,

which we donated to the local Ronald McDonald House,

and acquired an aunt for the spare bedroom.

She is dotty and collects glass doorknobs,

like that character actor on Bewitched.

And our house began to blush and breathe again,

like a living thing.

We haven't taken the final step yet,

of having a child,

because children bring so many boxes

into your life.

And I'm not sure if Amy and I

can stand another empty box in the house again.

Maybe if we started small, with an empty

candy bar wrapper,

and worked our way up . . . 

Photo Essay: Postcards Mailed to President Elect Joe Biden this Week.

 

Prose Poem: The Buddha's Top Hat.

 

I fell through my own mind,

to land on my feet like a cat.

Dusting myself off, I proceeded

to take action without thought.

Was it instinct or habit

that caused me to knock

the top hat off the elderly

man I met on the road?

Either way, he thanked me kindly

for my action --

and I realized he was Buddha.

Then I hid my face and wept.

But he was gentle with my 

immaturity,

saying: "The Original Sin

of our First Parents lay in

giving names to things --

for you can only desire what is named."

Later on at the shy lake 

I pondered anew the relation

between pure thought

and pure action.

I used the Buddha's top hat

as my thinking cap on the shores

of the coy pond -- 

to conclude that there was 

no conclusion. That I must be,

not think of being.

In quick order I:

blew my nose using my thumb

ate grass like Nebuchadnezzar

watched the sky remain blue

felt an ant crawling up my arm

observed the ice age

shook hands with myself

and let slip the banana peel of doubt.

Then was I at peace --

or so I thought until my lunch hour was up.

Back at the office I put on my mask,

sat at my desk,

and deleted emails.

Someone had left a half-eaten

 pepperoni pizza in my trash can.

Then I hid my face and laughed.

True at all times

 

Be true at all times and the Lord God will know

that your heart is solid and won't ring hollow.

Two faces are better than one only to

on black stringy crow double what you can chew!

They threw down their weapons of war

 

They threw down their weapons of war,

those ancient and straighforward men.

Commanded to kill their own kin,

their orders ignored there and then.

And so scripture shows us that hate

and organized murder will cease

with covenants kept in resolve

to honor the true Prince of Peace.

The Shaving Cream Factory

 

I was invited to tour the shaving cream factory

because of my uncle.

May he rest in peace.

Those shaving cream factory

explosions are more common

than you might think.

Before our group arrived at the factory

we met up with a crowd of refugees

from El Salvador and Nicaragua. 

They were held in a disorganized dusty camp

on the outskirts of town, where our

tour bus broke down.

The camp guards promised to fix

our bus; they invited us into the

compound for a shower and a hot meal.

But as we mingled with those unassuming refugees

we became more like them and they became

more like us, until there was no way

of telling us apart --

 so the guards refused to

let any of us out. They drove the tour bus

off a cliff.

Using a pencil, a windshield wiper blade, 

and a box of toothpicks, I eventually managed to 

dig a tunnel under the barbed wire --

which led straight down to a vast underground

kingdom of geode worshipers. 

We had no choice but to join them

in their unconventional religious ceremonies

until our paperwork went through.

The red tape took years, 

and by the time it arrived

I had married a local girl, and we 

were raising a family in the

geode faith.

 I myself eventually came to believe

in the power of geodes.

So I decided to stay.

Now I watch my family grow

like chalcedony crystals

from the Mendip Hills. 

 

Is it any wonder I love

the smell of shaving cream?

 

Invasion of the bowling balls

 

The invasion of the bowling balls

began on a quiet winter's evening

when the moon looked like the 

face of Dean Martin.

People were snug in their warm homes,

choking on unpopped kernels of corn

and buttering slices of frozen pizza.

In the tropics, the tanna leaves bloomed.

World leaders were caught unawares.

With their pants down and their dander up.

Parliaments and congresses blithely played

tiddlywinks with slush funds and easy aces.

Even Barney Greengrass closed for repairs.

I myself was involved in a minor contretemps

with a professor of English, via email,

concerning the Oxford comma;

Citing irreconcilable differences,

we had both filed as amicus curiae.

Looking back, it all seems so footling now.

Then it happened.

The invasion.

And overnight everything changed.

The grass was no longer greener on the other side.

Scrabble was banned in Boston.

Anyone talking about the cinema

when they meant the movies was lynched.

And the Yucatan Peninsula declared for 

Wilkes and Liberty.

At Christmas people hit each other

over the head with heavy reinforced 

boxes of Whitman's Sampler.

And clowns went color blind.

But then, at the eleventh hour,

a person on horseback arrived

to save us in our skins.

He rallied the troops.

She never said die.

They kept the home fires burning.

And we all set sail together

to question the universe

about reverse mortgages.