This old body has lost its equilibrium.
I stumble around here,
Heel rolling over the toe,
Like an old drunk
When I’m sober as a pastor…
MORE sober than that one pastor.
There are only a couple of things it could be.
My body doesn’t function like a well-trained athlete any longer, or
I’m hopelessly in love with you
and my brain is blindly following my heart to be near/toward/around you.
I’m going with number 2.
I’m not waiting for Door Number 3.
Come stagger with me, my love.
(From a glossy mag quiz re: food and sex)
At my age do I have a comment about food and sex?
Does a fat old man have the right?
Am I still relevant in the final, um…quarter of my life?
What of audience for my say about food and sex?
After all, I remember the summer of love first hand, so to speak.
(Speaking of love)
I have had sex without love.
I have had love without sex.
And I have had no love without sex.
No love without sex is boring.
Love without sex is boring,
What could be worse in America?
But sex without love is like
(Speaking of food)
Steak without the sizzle–
Steak devoid of fat–
Tofu-based ground meat product–
Not even good enough to make a decent chili.
It doesn’t matter how hot you make it.
Add garlic and chilis and cayenne,
Add salsa and white pepper, black pepper, red pepper,
Add mustards, white, black, yellow,
Even oysters and a tiny bit of chocolate,
It’s still just soy
Dressed up in crotchless panties and a garter belt.
Sex without love is nice,
Nice like low-cal sherbet made from skimmed milk and xylitol,
Nice like soda with aspartame,
Nice like left-handed sugar,
Nice like microwave popcorn with shake-on artificial butter flavored salt substitute.
Fucking your way to love
Is like eating your way to thin,
Or praying your way to heaven
Because in an hour,
Or after a shower,
You just need more.
The itch remains unscratched.
The void remains unfilled.
And eventually you get some disease
Or you figure out that some things aren’t good for you:
That some sex is goofy;
That some sex is a little crazy;
It’s all fun and games
Until you break your dick.
So you lay off and try to heal,
Sitting on the couch
(Speaking of food)
Eating pop tarts,
Tater tots, fish sticks, fruit by the yard,
Wonder bread, Lucky Charms, Fritos,
Ubiquitous bean dip, candy bars,
Cup cakes, Twinkies, smokey links,
Propyl gallate, butylated hydroxyanisole
Or butylated hydorxytoluene,
Potassium bromate, monosodium glutamate,
Ascesulfame K, Olestra, sodium nitrate,
And always, always,
hydrogenated vegetable oil with
Blue 1, Blue 3,
Red 3, Yellow 6.
It’s all in there,
Like good pornography.
And eventually there you are again,
Staring at your reflection in the pool
And wondering why that erection won’t go away,
Understanding the meaning of priapism.
And clitorism,
Or why your panties won’t dry
In the middle of the swirling snow squall.
Trying to come in from the storm,
Trying to come in to the table
Trying to come in
Trying.
Dedicated to you. If you think it’s you, it is.
I tried to kill my love for you.
I shot it full of holes—
Stabbing, choking, poison—
In a battle for my soul.
I tampered with its brake lines.
I stretched it on the rack.
I surgically removed my heart,
But it kept coming back.
FEMALE CHORUS
Love SAYS, “I didn’t vote for
This fate for you, my friend.
But I’ll be here, year after year,
Until the very end.
Until the stars wink out at night
And the sun turns cold and stark.
‘Til Entropy rules splendidly
In a last act cold and dark.
I tried to drown it in the bath.
I held it down for hours.
I tried to bury love for you
Beneath the yellow flowers.
But up it leaps from way down deep
And struts upon its stage.
It reads the saddest tale of all,
But never turns the page.
MALE CHORUS
I tried to drown it in a bottle
They made in old Bombay.
I persevered for 10 long years
And 27 days.
But love kept coming back
Like a cat with 7 lives,
With big sharp teeth, a screeching voice
And claws like switchblade knives.
I tried to hang it on my chest
Like a medal for the brave.
I tried to spank it publicly
In hopes it would behave.
But it acts just like a spoiled brat
With snot upon its nose
And so I beat it ceaselessly
With a stick and rubber hose.
FULL CHORUS
Brother-Man, Joe Troyer comes through again! This is an early run-through of the song in his best country/folk rendition. Thank you, Joe.
My Christmas card list is growing! And I printed some special edition cards for friends who asked. And I framed one for each kid and for the wife and me. Total? 93 made and sent! (I still have 3 for anyone I forgot.) It was a big project. Kept me busy and out of trouble for a couple of weeks.
Brings my total for the year to 385! I promised myself about one year ago today or so that I would make 365 individual pieces of art this year and I did it! I’m very happy about that. Wishing all who read this a safe, healthy, productive holiday season and New Year!
[385]
A fly mistook
My ear
For shelter
And it wasn’t even raining.
“Fly in there and die,”
I thought.
Lately I think too much about dying.
And as he tried to back out,
I heard him thunder
While I shouted,
Shook my head
And pounded my ear.
He rested a silent moment,
Then flew out the window
Into the June-blue sky.
[138]
When I was 14 (or near that) our family took a trip East. A little piece of Pennsylvania made a pretty big impact on me. I think it was the first time I was exposed up-close to a culture other than what was offered in Charlotte, Michigan and greater Eaton County. They have been referred to by others as the “Pennsylvania Dutch.” In a broader sense they are Amish. So much of this culture is interesting to me and the memories from the trip are strong so to pass a little of it along, I’ve been doing a series of “Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Symbols.” (Surprise: They don’t have any thing with the Dutch or Hexes.)
This offering is a popular representation of the “Distlefink.” The distlefink legend, as I understand it, began with the early immigrant farmers who had new fields infested with thistles. The goldfinch’s appetite for thistle seed, helped with this problem. The story goes that the farmer called it the “Thistlefinch” and due to his strong German accent it sounded like “Distlefink” to others. This symbol, often painted on barns represents hopes for good luck and good fortune.
[137]
You know I don’t write these things to rip off famous people. I write them (and “sing” them) as an homage. I mark them as parody for legal purposes.
I adore Tom Waites. He and I are on parallel developmental paths. His involves more fame and money, but the aesthetics are parallel. This is called
Chocolate Sprinkles.
I have to get chocolate sprinkles
on my ice cream when you’re away.
If I don’t get chocolate sprinkles,
I’m bound to have a shitty day.
Chorus
I thank God for chocolate sprinkles.
I thank God for vanilla ice cream.
I thank God you don’t leave me
Except in my worst kind of dreams.
Chocolate sprinkles can’t hug and kiss me.
They can’t even stroke my cheek,
But they liven up my whole demeanor
And make me smile when I am weak.
Chorus
I don’t want no hot fudge sundae.
I don’t want no banana split.
I sure as hell don’t want no sorbet.
And waffle cones taste like shit.
Chorus.
[130]
Before a thing exists, we don’t know it’s a thing.
Before radio, we didn’t know what radio was.
Before TV,
Before atomic bombs,
Before rockets,
Before me.
After a thing exists we know it’s a thing.
We know what made the thing
and we can name it:
a ram jet makes sonic booms,
CO2 makes global warming,
my mom + dad makes me
(it is an uneven task).
It’s when we keep going backwards,
that things get awkward.
What made mom + dad?
What made a ram jet?
What made CO2?
Eventually we must ask:
Is there a time before everything?
Before steel?
Before carbon?
Before atoms?
Before matter and energy?
Abrahamic religions tell us that nomadic desert dwellers
from thousands of years ago
had already asked that question.
Their answer was: God,
YAHWEH.
They found a thing called God
And they named it: YAHWEH.
More precisely, the voice of YAHWEH.
The Word.
God spoke and it all became.
Before that, Babylonians recorded a tale
wherein the great god, Marduk
battled the goddess, Tiamat
and that struggle created the Earth and its people.
Or, specifically, the body of the defeated goddess
is used to make the sky and the earth,
her tears form the great rivers
and her son, (who is also her spouse?)
contributes his blood to make people.
Of course, the story doesn’t tell us
how the warriors and her son,
and all the other gods who were watching
came to be
except they were divided out of other Gods
Before them.
It’s always the same:
Someone or something
has a thought.
He or she, but usually He, speaks
or fights
or commands
the Earth,
or the land and sky,
or the earth and the heavens
to come into existence
and all that follows is called “after.”
Science tells this story too:
In the beginning,
The Universe
(a far larger story, they say)
does not exist.
It is “before.”
It is before time or space or things.
And then something unknown/unknowable happened.
It is named The Big Bang.
We do not know what caused it,
Or what “it” was,
Or where “it” was.
Or when “it” was:
Some scientists say,
“13.787±0.020 billion years as interpreted with the Lamda-CDM concordance mode,”
and a few others say
“A little less according to the background microwave radiation measurements of Plank.”
Howsomever,
All these calculations took place “after.”
And now there are things,
and now there is space,
and now there is time.
All of that happened in a twinkling of an eye.
The story continues today.
This is “now”
and we don’t know what is “after after.”
And we won’t know until…after.
Some say BOOM;
Some say freezing in the dark,
but both leave space and time
And matter lingering.
…unless the clock can tick backward
or runs in circular time.
If that is the case
we are looking for the beginning of a circle.
Modern atheists
(and nihilists),
or even ancient ones, as far as I know,
made their own sounds against that small voice.
“But what of before?”
And
“What of after?”
That voice with that question
does not create anything,
Or at least it hasn’t yet.
Apparently only mythological gods die;
the Earth abides…
until it doesn’t.
[85]
We were young, stupid,
but that thing nagged at us hard.
Your bits were younger,
Mine were virgin, insisting.
I have never forgotten.
[79]
Before you cheated
I was lost in your blue eyes
Liquid pools bouyed me
insulated me from storms
kept the tragedy at bay.
[80]
I see you naked
only in my memory
for these 40 years.
That does not stop me at all.
My fantasy is stubborn.
[81]
That season was hot.
I didn’t have a fan but
We chilled all summer,
rolling in the waterbed
laid out on the concrete floor.
[82]
Do I like tankas?
Well, not particularly.
They feel like haiku
That can not find their endings
like an old Bob Seger song.
[83]
Conditional? Yes!
My love comes with strings:
Puppy, no house poop!
Her love denies boundaries
But she drinks from the toilet.
[84]
This started as an experiment on FaceBook.
From Ezra Pound:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
From me:
The dog’s bright eyes in stillness…
The rabbit in silhouette against the snow.
[76]
The owl’s eyes in moonlight
her wings in darkness
her talons in flesh.
[77]
Her illium in moonlight,
a dunescape of grays,
a long rill,
a graceful curve,
a valley in shadow,
my hand in silver.
[78]