Prose Poem: Thailand nurtures writers. (Dedicated to Hanna Ingber.)

 

Thailand nurtures misfits and writers.  Especially writers.  In a cheap un-airconditioned room with cross ventilation you can create sprawling novels, short stories, poetry, or even work at journalism as a stringer.  Work as a news stringer to earn your room and board so you have time to parse words together for, say, an epic poem about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.  That was my current project; it happened in Boston when a huge vat of molasses meant for fermenting and distilling burst apart -- actually killing people.  I labored over my epic poem at night while running down light travelogue stories during the day.  The Songkran Water Festival in April, when everyone throws water at each other from small silver buckets.  Loy Krathong in November, with millions of tiny candles floating in the water and drifting through the air.  Like Victorian fairies.  How to make green papaya salad with a mortar and pestle.  The riot of orchids growing on everything from telephone poles to bamboo birdcages.  Since I speak fluent Thai the stories were easy to get.  The Thais love anyone who speaks their language.  They are very open and gregarious.  They'll talk about anything, tell you anything, after a few bottles of Chang beer.  For a long while I had the field all to myself.  I only worked a few hours in the morning, filed my stories, and then worked on the crew manifest of the USS Nantucket the rest of the day and into the night.  The Nantucket was in Boston Harbor when the molasses tsunami occurred.  Then Hanna Ingber showed up.  Ambitious. Beautiful. Literate. Witty. And she spoke the Thai language with a melodious tonal quality that enchanted everyone from the Prime Minister to the ladies of the night in Soi Cowboy.  Suddenly my normal Thai contacts had no time for me.  They preferred to talk to 'Khun Hanna.'   I scrabbled hard to pick up the few news crumbs that Ingber deigned to leave me.  My poem suffered for it.  In fact, I have put it away and work as a full-time English teacher just to make ends meet.  I catch fish out of the klong behind my apartment building for dinner.  And even when Ms. Ingber finally left Bangkok to go write stories in New York City I couldn't get my writing rhythm back again.  After all, there's not much that rhymes with molasses.   But I don't mourn my demise as an epic poet.   When you fail in Thailand you just light some incense, then get an hour long foot massage.  After that, the Buddha comes to you in your sleep with wise and comforting sayings.

Prose Poem: Four Years in Iowa. (Dedicated to Catherine Lucey.)

 

I went to Iowa by mistake.   The bus was supposed to travel to Sarasota.  So either I got on the wrong bus or there was a massive conspiracy to detour transients such as myself to Iowa.   When the bus stopped in Sheldon there was black crystalized snow piled up on the sides of the streets and none of the stop lights worked.  A man with a long beard told me where to find shelter for the night.   There was no work for hired hands at that time of year.   So I sold used newspapers at the corner of Fifth and Henderson.  You'd be surprised at the market for used newspapers.   They're used to wrap fish and chips, which Iowans dote on.  Abandoned store fronts (of which there are lots in Iowa) by law have to paper over their windows with newspapers.   They build houses out of paper mache in Northwest Iowa.  Patch automobile tires with vulcanized newspapers.   Even stew up old newspapers with hamburger to make Iowa Goulash -- it tastes pretty good with ketchup.   And of course professional journalists, those few working writers who roam the countryside looking under Cadillacs to see who's in cahoots with who, often grow nostalgic for old newspapers.   They collect them, like coins or stamps.   So I wasn't surprised when a lady came up to my stand in early April and bought my entire supply of old newspapers.  I pegged her as a journalist, and when I helped her pile the papers in her station wagon there was a sign on the dashboard that read:  "Property of the Wall Street Journal."   "You a reporter?" I asked her.  "Sure am!" she replied proudly.  She gave me her business card.  CATHERINE LUCEY. INTREPID JOURNALIST. WJS.  Is what it said.   I tucked it into my sweater vest for future reference.  You never know when a journalist might come in handy.   I heard they can fix parking tickets and cure warts.  But a few weeks later I was summarily herded onto another bus and sent to Hugo, Oklahoma.  Where I got a job as a candy butcher with the Carson & Barnes Circus.  We were told never to contact the media or we'd be redlighted.  So I'm writing all this down on the back of a popcorn box.  To hand off to Ms. Lucey when the show plays the White House on the Fourth of July.

Prose Poem: The Express Desk. (Dedicated to Johnny Diaz.)

 

The express desk loomed before me like a sudden plateau.  I jumped into the chair behind it. Spun around several times.  Put my feet up on top of the desk and wiggled my feet vigorously back and forth.  "Nobody's gonna be asleep on their feet around here!" I roared at everyone in the room.  Then I grabbed a sheaf of papers, furiously holding them up to my face to discard one by one with enraged expletives:  "This one is crap!"   "Hogwash!"  "Stuff and nonsense!"

The phone rang; it was the President of the United States.  He wanted reassurances.  "Damn the reassurances -- full speed ahead!" I growled at him, then hung up.  

A cringing editor, his knees knocking, came up to me with a mock up of the albino edition, due on the streets in half an hour.  "There's no lead story, sir" he quavered.  "Take this down" I barked at him: "'Putin to send Ukrainian P.O.W's to secret camp on the Moon.'"  The editor backed away, kowtowing.  "And get Johnny Diaz to fill in the rest -- he knows what I like!" I yelled at the retreating editor.

A delegation of baggage smashers barged in to demand I let up on their mascara cartel.  I sent them scampering with a flea in their ear.  When half the staff collapsed from ptomaine poisoning my willpower alone cured them instantly -- they rose from the floor to dance a jig and then go out to raise Cain.  By the end of the day the express desk looked like a pockmarked war zone.  I handed out the next day's conniption fits and jogged home for fig spring rolls and a quart of emerald water.  I threw my bed out the window and slept on the floor.  Tomorrow I would conquer Mars.

Prose Poem: Follow that Balloon! (Dedicated to Ben Cohen of the Wall Street Journal.)

 

We were all simply mad about balloons that particular February.  There was little else of interest in the news.  Or rather, there was too much that was tense and stressful.  Our nerves went to seed.  So we decided, as a group of young successful gravel pit investors, to form a band to monitor the rise and fall (pardon the pun!) of balloons in the news.  We got started on this mad pursuit by the stories of reporter Ben Cohen in the Wall Street Journal.  All about balloon technology.  We became balloon trackers.  Whenever there was a report of a large round object floating in the skies over Montana or Iowa, we jumped in our customized Humvee and barreled off to study and film it.  Sometimes it turned out to be a flop -- just some old UFO spying on Earth. But other times we discovered a meandering weather balloon.  These we carefully documented in scrapbooks, which we later donated to the Wichita Public Library.  That is where Mr. Cohen gave his landmark lecture on "The difference between blimps and dirigibles."  Our crowd attended en masse.   Afterwards we held a celebratory dinner for him at the Doo-Dah Diner.  Which he was unable to attend.  He did send us a note, though.  It read, in part:  "Do not pursue balloons as a mob.  They are sensitive anthropomorphic creatures.  They lead very solitary lives jostling with clouds and go in terror of the random bird beak.  Give them a roll of duct tape and they will follow you to the ends of the earth."   That was some February, that was.  The bottom fell out of our gravel pits and our parents made us get real jobs at the Post Office.  We disbanded and never saw each other again.  But we'll always have Wichita.  And Ben Cohen.

Prose Poem: Hiroko Tabuchi is passionate about composting.

 

As I walked down the street, keeping myself to myself, I nonchalantly spit out a sunflower hull into the gutter.  Snacking on salted sunflower seeds was my passion.  I figure the discarded shells do no harm where they land, since they are completely biodegradable.  Then imagine my astoundment when a woman rose up from behind a Japanese andromeda, shaking her forefinger at me like a baton.  I decided she must be 'tetched,' as we say back in Iowa, and continued my stroll unheedingly.  But she jumped over the shrub to follow me.  I turned to give her a stern look, hoping to discourage whatever shenanigan she had in mind. Then I saw her t-shirt.  It read: "Captain Hiroko Tabuchi. Composting Constable."  Uh-oh, I said to myself.  This day is now officially off the Mercator projection.  I gave her a weak smile.  Gave her a limp wave.  And began to sweat like a kinkajou.  She strode up to me but before she could speak I took the initiative.  "Why are you wearing a mustache?" I asked her.  She looked startled as she felt her upper lip.  "I have no mustache" she replied, bewildered. "Ah" I riposted, "but you were thinking of getting one -- right?"  "Well, no, not really" she said.  "Could it be the New York Times does not allow its female writers to have mustaches?" I sneered at her, feeling rather cocky.  Now things were going my way.  Her look of bewilderment turned to sadness.  This alarmed me.  "My father had a fine mustache" she told me quietly.  "And so did my cousin."  "Uh, tell me about composting" I begged her.  Her feelings were shattered because of my aggressive behavior.  I had bullied a member of the Fourth Estate.  And I felt like a cad.  But she just slowly shook her head while walking off into the gloaming.  As she shuffled away, head bowed in sorrow, I vowed then and there to never abuse a writer again -- no matter how many shrubs they jumped up from.  And I would give up sunflower seeds.  My breath already smelled like ammonium nitrate anyways.

Prose Poem: Touring Nova Scotia with Rachel Feintzeig.

 

Chiseling an identity takes hard work.  Determination. And plenty of moxie.  I should know.  I've been carving out new identities since the early 1980's.  With varying success.  Okay.  With no success.  Today I still have no identity whatsoever.  Which is why a Wall Street Journal reporter interviewed me.  She was fascinated to discover someone who couldn't craft a personality.  I don't know how she found out about me.  Since I make no impression at work or outside of work. I'm a cipher.  A non-entity.  Bupkis on a stick.  But this Rachel Feintzeig person found me sitting on a park bench, reading Tristram Shandy.  Okay. I wasn't reading some old English novel.  I was looking at a Vermont Country Store catalog.  She sits down next to me.  Gives me her business card.  And starts to grill me.  At first I resented her questions.  But then she began giving me Jolly Rancher hard candies.  I especially like the watermelon flavored ones.  And we got on like a house afire.  When she was done interviewing me she shook my hand.  I gave her back her business card.  I'm really into recycling.  She walked away.  And Nova Scotia became a little bit more real.

 

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

 

Haiku:

the black ice glistens

on the ribbons that lead to

lengthy coffee breaks.

 

Prose Poem: Andy Newman Wants a Bagel.

 

Eating ice cream, gazing out his apartment window at two orphaned pigeons, Andy Newman began to disappear.  "This is not normal" he thought to himself as first his right hand and then his left arm disincorporated.  As it sunk in that he might be permanently leaving his current plane of existence for another one, he began to wonder about things.  Things like his work as a writer. The many sandwiches he had never finished eating.  The bamboo plates he and his wife got as wedding presents that were left too long in the basement, so they eventually grew black mold. He marveled at the colors of water. The feel of AstroTurf.  The day his tongue itched for an hour.  It never crossed his mind to be sad about leaving this world.  This world never seemed all that real to him. When you write about stuff, he now realized, that stuff becomes smaller and more fragile; it breaks apart and floats away. Sort of like he was doing right now.  He glanced down at his legs -- they were sifting away like sand blowing off into the distance.  But there were people he would really miss.  He was sure of that.  Still, as he continued to disappear, it just didn't seem that front page to him.  In the kitchen someone turned on a faucet at the sink.  And this broke the spell or epiphany or whatever it was.  His legs reappeared, looking very stylish in their worsted tweed leggings.  His right hand popped in again, bejeweled with emerald rings.  And his left arm was once again in plain sight, with those bulging biceps he was so proud of.  "So I won't be gone, after all" he mused happily as he finished his ice cream and continued to gaze out his apartment window at the two little baby pigeons.  Who were suddenly pulled up by the talons of a pair of red-tailed hawks.  Andy Newman decided then and there he would write about red-tailed hawks immediately so the pain would never have a chance to gain squatter's rights in his heart. He shouted at the person in the kitchen:  "Have we got any bagels?"

Prose Poem: A Visit from Kathryn Dill.

 

I prefer not to work.

At anything.

My philosophy has always been:

let it come to me, 

whether it be wealth, love, power,

or Bismarck herring.

 

This mindset produces

consequences,

including poverty, boredom, jail,

and hunger. Especially hunger.

But no regret. Never regret.

And some interesting people have

come to me out of the blue.

 

Like Kathryn Dill, who writes about

careers and workforce issues for the

Wall Street Journal. I often read her

stuff. At the library.

I was at home, minding my own business,

when she came in through the patio doors

to address me sternly.

"You need a career" she began

without preamble.

"You need to be part of the workforce"

she continued.

"Quiet quitting is killing American initiative"

she finished, arms akimbo, glaring at me.

I took it all in without batting an eye.

Because I hadn't had anything to eat

in two days and was feeling faint.

"Would you like a glass of water?"

I asked her politely.

At that, she wheeled around abruptly to

leave a large sack of money on my

coffee table. Euros and yen and twenty dollar

bills spilled out of the bag onto the carpet. 

Then she ran back out the patio door

without another word.

 

I haven't touched the money.

It's still on the coffee table.

I'd like someone to come take it

to the Red Cross.

And maybe bring me a ham sandwich.

Prose Poem: Jed Boal and the great restaurants

 

Great restaurants give me indigestion.

Not so Mr. Jed Boal, who reports on things

for KSL TV. 

Take, for instance, the noted Wasatch

Pioneer Chop House in Vernal, Utah.

I happened to be there one evening,

picking at a dispirited cobb salad,

when in strode Jed Boal with his

entourage.

He comandeered a table right

in front of the massive stone fireplace

and began firing orders to the flock

of wait persons that surrounded him

like obsequious totem poles.

"Mushrooms sauteed in Irish butter!"

he barked.

"Dinner rolls so light and fluffy 

they could double for cottonwood

fluff!" he shouted.

"And a round of birch beer for

everyone in the place!" he finished,

flourishing his cape like a stage

magician.

The wait staff automatically brought

him a large platter of smoking

prime rib. He tucked into it

with Falstaffian gusto. 

Meanwhile, I had given up on

my cobb salad. 

It was thin and timid.

Between gargantuan bites of meat

Mr. Boal looked over at me,

saw my weary dyspeptic expression,

and bounded over to me.

"What's wrong, man?" he demanded,

slapping me on the back in that

hail-fellow-well-met manner that 

has won him so many awards from

the Utah Broadcasters Association.

"The salad's not to my liking" I told him.

I swear I heard trumpets blare as Mr. Boal

reached into his red velvet weskit to

produce a small green vial.

"Here, my boy" he told me grandly.

"Put a drop or two of this cuisine revitalizer

onto your food -- any dish at all -- and 

your taste buds will swoon!"

His manner was imperious.

So I took the proffered vial,

shook two drops on my salad,

and forked in a mouthful.

By golly, he was right! Suddenly

I was enjoying the best meal of my life.

I gobbled up the rest of my salad in a trice.

But when I turned to thank Mr. Boal

he was gone. Leaving behind nothing

but a trail of twenty-dollar tips.

That was two years ago. Since then

I've tried to see Mr. Boal to get some

more of his wonderful cuisine revitalizer

or get him to reveal the recipe But

every time I show up at the KSL studios 

with my story they toss me out on my ear.

I've written to him, emailed him, tried to 

phone him. With no luck.

So I've decided that the next time

he's on-air in the studio I will be

directly above him on the roof and

tear off pieces of it until there's a 

hole big enough for me to be lowered

down to him.

It's not as crazy as it sounds;

it worked once before long ago

in Capernaum.

 

 

Prose Poem: James R. Hagerty and Red Skelton.

 

Why is James R. Hagerty called Bob?

I never understood the reason for that,

ever since I started reading him 

forty years ago. 

 

He doesn't write like a Bob.

He doesn't look like a Bob.

Hell, he doesn't even talk like a Bob.

And I should know --

because I have been investigating

him for the past ten years.

And that includes listening to him

on radio and TV.  Taking notes.

 

James R. Hagerty, I have concluded,

is a Fred.

Talks the Fred talk. Walks the Fred walk.

And has the Fred look.

If you look closely at the neckties

he wears, you will notice a small

embroidered "F" on every single one.

 

Oh, I know he'll deny it up and down.

He'll show you affidavits testifying

to his being known as Bob 

everywhere from Brussels to Hong Kong.

His library card from the

Chagrin Falls Public Library 

lists him as James R. (Bob) Hagerty.

 

But in his heart he knows he's Fred.

Because inside every Bob there is a 

Fred yearning to get out.

And because he has often stated

that his favorite Red Skelton character

has always been . . . 

Freddy the Freeloader.