tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14988986872505155332024-03-08T09:16:48.777-08:00Notes From a Wavering PlanetDavid Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-49674513810364505622013-11-15T05:33:00.002-08:002013-11-15T05:33:42.312-08:00Toad Heaven<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt;">I
took a walk early this afternoon and as I walked by some head high bushes, I
saw a torn beer can stuffed inside and decided to remove it and put it in
recycling. Well when I looked inside I saw a small brown toad, so I
worked to remove it and then I saw another little toad and I released them,
then I thought it seemed that they had found a little home and I decided it
might be better to put them back in the can so I put them back in the can and
stuffed them back in the bushes. I think they are happy.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-81987944723753906002013-11-14T12:26:00.002-08:002013-11-14T12:26:19.059-08:00Congress Preaches Fiscal Tightening<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>THIS IS GOOD</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>This means Congress will only be paid for the 119 days they work and because these are part time jobs, they will not receive health care insurance</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Bravo!</b></span>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-21274025361200112992013-07-12T18:00:00.002-07:002013-07-12T18:00:59.928-07:00Mr. ME<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Me sold out years ago. to his bank, to his bottle, to
his short –term gain, . He would like to be the cause of bread, but alas he <i>is</i> white bread, self consumptive, flat
and bland as yesterday’s dream. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He is checkbook, a credit card, a test for even the most
fastidious banker. He clamors for substance at anyone’s expense. He feeds the unsteady spine that holds him in
a world of stiff-jawed wives and rebellious children. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Master of the salesman’s pitch, the cell phone, the picture
clicking supermarket, he insists he must live from one freeway to the next, a
plethora of rapaciousness, awash in the
sounds of its own particular gurgle. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He is an American
determined to be owned by someone else and he will win. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-6581325732441280582013-03-03T15:29:00.003-08:002013-03-03T15:29:52.330-08:00The Professor Said<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'; font-size: 11pt;">I teach soldiers <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'; font-size: 11pt;">back from war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'; font-size: 11pt;">I hear so much silence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
see such glow<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">pale
suchness <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">pride,
a slim yes <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">a
nod, an offset <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">remark
or two.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">They
sit in when<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Muscle-sharp<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">A
pin drop, a cut<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">A
dark brow, a tuft<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">A
quick smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Somewhere
in the room<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
have soldiers who<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">ask
without asking<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 11.0pt;">What
now?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-31503003076925491912013-02-24T08:35:00.001-08:002013-02-24T08:35:31.580-08:00February 24, 2013<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">The issue is that rubric distinction managed internally and hermetically solid, should by all means become an amendment verified and signed into law prior to admonishment.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">If you disagree, you MUST VOTE</span>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-51180669949611527222012-11-11T09:28:00.001-08:002012-11-11T09:28:28.115-08:00The Lost Pilot<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">You sit in the
cockpit still </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">upright in the
May Day position.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Hand on the
stick, pistol rusted, shoes too big.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">The watch on
your wrist bones stopped.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Trees and
brush cling to the tangled fuselage.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Birds and
snakes inhabit the tail.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Where a shout
might have been</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">a gaping hole
in the calendar says</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">you are
seventy one years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Fifty years
you sat in the cockpit</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">your nosedive
buried, your war over and no one told you. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">No one knew
where you went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You just sat there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Skin rotted
off your once handsome face. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Insects ate
your flesh, everybody went home.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Your
sweetheart stopped crying</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">and became a
grandmother.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">In this
monument to absurdity, insanity</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">and silence,
may you be in some sweet place</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">where if there
is such a thing</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">it was a good
war that you helped win.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">God knows it
should have been.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">May you be
with your new lover on a beach at sunrise </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">your arms stretched,
your chest to the East </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">free of this
endless killing, a rich smile </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">of famous
teeth, wisdom, money to go around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">May you know,
if only for an instant</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">a truth of
your dream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Now, I step
across this world to your Indonesian grave </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">reach into the
cockpit and take your yellow bony hand in mine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Your fragile
history crumbles. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Flecks of you
melt on my skin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-19517964739291742172012-10-22T08:02:00.002-07:002012-10-22T08:02:53.484-07:00Protest-Written 1992<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We war in
Bosia, the Cubans beat themselves to death worrying about Castro while they get
their balls cut off at home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bobbitt
pays his bills with a sewn-on penis, the Haitians get nothing for nothing, the
Jamaicans wait table, the Huizengas of the world invest in solid waste to say
the least.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>O. J. Simpson slices up
history and wants to talk about it, paid per view, and Pizza Hut puts pepperoni
and cheese in the crust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>America sits
numb as a Klondike Bar while the world heats up the ovens for another go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kids all over everywhere whack off momma's
head, shoot Papa for a trip to Disneyworld and
if you don't like that, cancel your NO Fault, NAFTA contract and lease a
car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I read
stories of wandering crooks and I watch jobless kids hooking in Holiday Park.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I try to imagine some reason for driving up and down I-95, in small wars
of little people gone crazy in a swirl of defeat, and broken brains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What happened to us?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>1969.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see the swirling day under big sky Washington Monument, how the hill fills with sweeps
of beards and hoots and soft sweet songs of somewhere new.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All day sweat sticks to us like new dawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All day we wait and listen to the
speeches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coretta King slices the air
with cool oration of where she's been, suffered and how we're here because of
wars over there and wars to be fought at home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We eat what
we can in the slippery grass running up the hill in the heated day of a war
that can't seem to end, and I'm afraid<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>because I'm still in the Navy, that a camera will catch my military
haircut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The FBI and CIA takes pictures.
The screaming little guy in the tee shirt next to me could be a narc, a
pig.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All day we
wait.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Linda's tired but willing, her
long face and longer red hair pushed back over her shoulders, her ten year old daughter,
Michelle excited, barely knowing why, wants to be with me and wants to know
something besides endless treks from one husband or boyfriend to the next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her little picket fence smile is full of hope
and grit as we swim along with the swirly crowds up and around and the endless
swaying hot dog vegetarian day runs clear to the Lincoln Monument.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All day the
excitement grows; all day we hope for what we're not sure of, a stop to the
evil war, the war that "over there," the war that has one ship
wondering what the other did, the Westpac, COM 4, Westmoreland's water buffalo
counts, South Vietnamese abandoning battle stations to stage their own coups
five miles away so the American troops get cut to pieces by their own mines
trying to recapture Catholicism in the mud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All day long the guns pump, recoil big orange smoke rings into the
flashy newsy nights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>TVs in all the
wardrooms and officers clubs from Hon Matt to Saigon, blink a story
choreographed in teenage boy sweat and blood fed buy NBC and little Dan Rathers
poking their noses down gun barrels and trenches for the sometimes made up
battles with medals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We wait by
the big bump Washington
Monument reaching to a
sky that no longer holds real air/<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
wait for the dark, the hand-held candle threaded through an ever bobbing hungry
desolate night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We march down off the
hill to Pennsylvania Avenue toward the dome, to the curve in the road, the S
that sweeps to the White House, the candles forming a stream, a poetry, the hum
the silence overcoming us, the lights in the White House steady, the windows
empty, the thundering silence lost in that breathtaking night the President
isn't home and won't come out of his so-big White House ever, as long as we all
shall live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now it all
seems so long ago and these days, hope knocks on the door with its hand
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can we cope?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do we detach?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the soldiers have gone home to fight
another war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We dream of the hushed
night of candles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We hear the anthems
echo down the hall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We wait for the
phone to ring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I wonder where Linda
and Michelle went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I stand under Orion
on a one in a million cold Florida
night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder what have we learned?</div>
David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-70536536004766164802012-08-23T05:12:00.000-07:002012-08-23T08:19:55.114-07:00Time to Vote Folks<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The financial poker game shuffles on. If solid business was ever the goal, running
with the cash and then standing in line at the public till for a handout is the
American game. If this is to be the global
orgy, with a nod from the treasure chest and a daily goose under the skirts of
the American public, what’s next?
Perhaps a body condom is in order.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One can ponder, cliché, hoot, shake heads, banter, from
pundits blather 6-10 PM and beyond about the rise ands fall, the daily erectile
dysfunction screened to climax daily, complete with apologies for bad dreams
and a stack of towels to wipe the sweat just off stage until the financial
hussy spreads her legs again. Perhaps a body condom is in
order. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place>
is asleep at the wheel and the orchestra plays Rooms to Go. These Boomers, and buffers, and clustered
octogenarians to come (if possible) went to the circus years ago, watched the
trapeze artists, the clowns, the elephants with butterfly wings on their ears,
the man shot from the cannon and they had sooooo much fun and it stuck sooooo
“fondly’ in their craws that by golly, by gee, they never, why they never
really came home.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oh how we dance on the nights when we’re “led” to the
altars, the fox holes, the echoes in the mall, the silence between national
drumbeat, so thin the music doesn’t even play.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Roll the dice.
Deal. The loan sharks are in the
bedroom and they want all the action.
Its din din for Jesus and the cash, with a few million babies crying for
the chance to run up a tab, giggle in the rocking arms they will eventually
have to bear, or if chosen, sit on the Congressional flagpole waiting for the
next job, the next hurricane, the foreclosure, the next shoe to drop from Uncle
Sam’s never ending slog to corporate victory.</div>
David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-15015275556769326292012-08-23T05:11:00.000-07:002012-08-23T05:11:36.499-07:00Shall We Dance?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Republican
Convention tap dances to the oncoming hurricane. If Obama set off a week of slings and misses among the hooting News
rivals, the Republican hyperbole and psychological innuendo makes one think they
were all mad. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>On the one hand the
cross of Republican whack and bomb pervads the networks with driller, killer
VP, who eats up space. But the theme
from Picnic renders August froth. One can hear James Cagney singing “That
Grand Old Flag. Now the pundits have their heads up every skirt,
their eyes in every key hole. Shout them
down. Eat them. Now, they offer spaces between shouts. Now they lean on the Republican high chairs
wiping the chins, nudging them on. Just
a little more Jell-O is fine. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>One imagines pundits
straining at the neck, tongues stretched, editors, proof readers, snitches,
wannabes, surrounding Rodin’s, The
Thinker, pushing, shoving, between laps and licks, in attempts at ideas,
semblances of sanity, some itchy rhetoric they can call their own but alas,
the wild-eyed swarm laps air, snarling and shouting down any fact
that pops true. This redundant and misleading anthem for the sake of Ambian,
Viagra, GM and Exxon, with a few Chinese plastic ducks tossed in will not
stifle easily. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>After the Republican
Convention, with few exceptions, the TV pundits, meal tickets intact, will resemble a Post 50s burp with a little heavy
breathing along the network cable, etcetera perhaps just enough to keep wand waving, snickering and the possibility of political coitus on screen. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-15259220949540891392012-07-01T09:31:00.003-07:002012-07-01T09:31:52.698-07:00Excerpt from The Keeper of Watts<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She appears, an elegant dark
haired woman, a sheik, sleek, whisper, a tundra of delicious, a yowl of lick
and bite, a push, a soft wet dance; she glances at the teapots for sale, she
likes the ones that whistle; she comes from an island where magic wands are
antique and blush catches the best man alive, who at this moment, is me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“You were saying?” A siren whines
closer. “Not here,” she shouts to the
world around us. “Not here.” Her teeth are dearly bright white.<br />
“Had I known,” I say.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“I see you have tried the American
Egg Foo Young.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
‘Would you like a mint?” I say,
reaching in my vest pocket.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“Ah yes, a mint.” She slips it onto
her tongue. “This is a market to end
all.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“It depends which end of it you’re
on.“ I suggest with a nod that we sit at
that the outside cafe at the far corner of the street where it turns off into
dust and glass. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
We sit. We order Chapatti bread with fresh palmetto
and French goat cheese. We order kosher
Merlot from <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Green Bay</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Wisconsin</st1:state></st1:place>.
We order gazpacho with oysters on the half shell. I know she is a spy and I know we will be
friends forever.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Have you considered marriage?” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0in;">
She
takes a sip of Merlot and tears off a piece of bread. Her hands are smooth, her
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
fingers long and
thin. Her left pinky sports a gold ring <i>Made by David from Marin </i>with little
kangaroos embedded all around. She picks
up the cheese knife and spreads the goat cheese slowly on the bread. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“I have considered almost
everything,” I reply.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“Interesting,” she says with a bite
and a sip of wine. “Which came first?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
‘So you are having lunch with a
stranger to discuss the meaning of life?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“Don’t be naïve. I am the dancer for the Keeper of Watts.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“Or the minuet of war.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“It is a very nice dance floor.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“I prefer the old dance floor at the
Fontainebleau,” I sip the merlot and gaze off down the street where a small man
in a tunic offers scatter rugs to a fat woman with three small children.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“You really must meet the Keeper of
Watts." </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“I intend to.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“So you quit your position,” she
says flatly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“Which one?”<br />
“Don’t be cute,” she
says. “I love you and I know about your
beach.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“I doubt most of it.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“Oh yes, you are being designed for
the mission.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“I am not designed by anyone,” I
feel irritated with this woman who uncrosses her legs, leans toward her plate and
nibbles her bread and cheese. “Are you
destined to stun?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“I am the way to the Keeper of
Watts.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“Right. And if I call back, you’ll rehire me.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“Something like that. You can sit at our table. You’re always invited. I mean why make things difficult? You get what you came for and we all share
the prize.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“And what is it this week? The palmetto is outrageously fresh and
lightly biting, the Chapatti has obviously been shipped from El Gran Forno, the
wine has the a slight trace of aged bleacher, but otherwise, this is a treat
with a sideshow, complete with a back room and an extra quarter to get in. What is it?
Bedouin camel on toast? <st1:place w:st="on">Sudan</st1:place>
headcheese? Iranian donkey butt with
last month’s oil? Maybe Rwandan pizza
with steering fluid. How about baked
KUwaittee on a stick?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“Obviously you watch the wrong
movies,” she says. Her eyelids lower to
the plate in front of her. “You and I
will go to your beach that will become our beach and we will be in love
forever, once that is, once we or you, I should say, have met the Keeper of
Watts.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“I can’t wait.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
She stands to wipe her chin. “You may wish you
had.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
I think she will press fresh
lipstick to her lips, but she cuts me a glance suggesting disbelief that she
would make up in public. She takes her
small leather purse from the white tablecloth to her right. She pauses.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
“Soon,” she whispers and then she
disappears.</div>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-53399882333672025272012-06-20T06:33:00.002-07:002012-06-20T06:33:30.207-07:00'Hoola Hoppin' Hallejulah<br />A great white heron passed under the moon just before dawn. Another morning in Paradise and the
courage to drive on, or at least to the pump. But wait. <br /><br />Pressing issues overslept between all night movies and Paid for
Programs, secretly wrapped in drive-through Mc Muffins and see through
napkins. If only we could get it, whatever the hell it is to own, steal,
lend, bend the market, slip a fid, cash in, move to Dubai, Maine or
whatever. One man’s floozy is another’s gift certificate.<br /><br />America watches the screen for the prize night after night; boinked,
mesmerized,, the hooting pundits shine themselves, berating, amending,
frivolous laughter, a chewing unending sound byte staring down their
own cameras. The screw that might turn the tide, the real meaning of ID
and the subservience of intellect, the jokester, the fool, tucked
carefully between a Mercedes, cologne, the drama of drugs to keep it up,
cool it down, pad the calamity, thin the mind and belly for the price
of a gallon. Intramuscular please, a song to remember, the, the
election up for grabs depending upon whose hand slips up America’s skirt
at the moment.<br /><br />“Good Fences mean good neighbors.” Who
said that? That integrity basked in towers and long reflecting pools
between Lincoln and Washington. If we just stood on that faithful hill,
that braved spaciousness we own, or at least claim, but alas the Island
in Maine has loosed the bad meat in Texas, the crippled, the
superlative, the world grabbing hustlers who sell guns, say no, who play
the Star Spangled Banner on their heart pumps and wave judiciously. .<br /><br />TVs blink somewhere between aghast, awe and chest thumping; the
children awash in flash, ready or not, all in line for the next rocket,
the bombed out skulls that cooked them. Tampons rule, a little Viagra
in the medicine chest, the polar bear leaps for a chunk of ice, college
students stare down dim unemployment halls, geezers roll despairing eyes
and the gunning down of Kennedys, MLK, is but an echo in our hearts.<br />> <br />Real life drama flashes the screen. Who’s real? Who’s
not? Step up to the mike. Let’s hear the cracked tenor kid, the
soprano squirrel. Beat each other senseless with bamboo sticks on a
strange rehearsed island. Click it. Text it, phone it, bleed on the
floor, gamble the rest, fall in love with your own particular
discontent. A cure?<br /><br />Ask them. They talk about
change. Watch the candidates march the stage from Oshkosh to Hawaii,
the University of Ding Bunny to the Pre-School of Lulu—They are
freedom. You know. Like that. Wasn’t it the famous astronaut Edgar
Mitchell who said, that one of the first things you discover when you
enter outer space, “God is not up.” <br />>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-64697092429363467772012-06-02T05:54:00.000-07:002012-06-02T05:56:13.401-07:00The Body of an American, from Nineteen-Nineteen,<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">by
John Dos Passos</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Whereasthe
Congressoftheunitedstates byaconcurrentresolutionadoptedon
the4thdayofmarch last-authorizedthe Secretaryofwar to cause to be
brought to theunitedstatesthe body of an American whowasa-
memberoftheAmericanexpeditionaryforceineuropewholosthis
lifeduringtheworldwarandwhoseidentityhas- not beenestablish for burial
inthememorialamphitheatreofthe nationalcemeteryatarlingtonvirginia <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
In the tarpaper morgue at <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chalons-sur-Marne</st1:place></st1:city>
in the reek of cloride of lime and the dead, they picked out the pine box that
held all that was left of<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
enie menie minie moe plenty of other pine boxes stacked up there containing
what they’d scraped up of Richard Roe<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and other person or persons unknown. Only one can go. How did they
pick John Doe?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
Make sure he aint a dinge, boys, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">make sure he ain't a guinea or a kike,[1]</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
how can you tell a guy’s a hundredpercent when all you’ve got’s a gunnysack
full of bones, bronze buttons stamped with the screaming eagle and a pair of
roll puttees?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
. . . and the gagging chloride and the puky dirtstench of the yearold dead . .
.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
The day withal was too meaningful and tragic for applause. Silence,
tears, songs and prayer, muffled drums and soft music were the
instrumentalities today of national approbation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
John Doe was born (thudding din of blood of love into the shuddering soar of a
man and a woman alone indeed together lurching into<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and ninemonths sick drowse waking into scared agony and the pain and blood and
mess of birth). John Doe was born<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and raised in Brooklyn, in Memphis, near the lakefront in Cleveland, Ohio, in
the stench of the stockyards in Chi, on Beacon Hill, in an old brick house in
Alexandria Virginia, on Telegraph Hill, in a halftimbered Tudor cottage in
Portland the city of roses,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Lying-In</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Hospital</st1:placetype></st1:place> old Morgan[2] endowed on <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Stuyvesant Square</st1:address></st1:street>,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
across the railroad tracks, out near the country club, in a shack cabin
tenement apartmenthouse exclusive residential suburb;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
scion of one of the best families in the social register, won first prize in
the baby parade at Coronado Beach, was marbles champion of the Little Rock
grammarschools, crack basketballplayer at the Booneville High, quarterback at
the State Reformatory, having saved the sheriff’s kid from drowning in the
Little Missouri River was invited to Washington to be photographed shaking
hands with the President on the White House steps;—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
though this
was a time of morning, such an assemblage necessarily has about it a touch of
color. In the boxes are seen the court uniforms of foreign diplomats, the
gold braid of our own and foreign fleets and armies, the black of the
conventional morning dress of American statesmen, the varicolored furs and
outdoor wrapping garments of mothers and sisters come to mourn, the drab and
blue of soldiers and sailors, the glitter of musical instruments and the white
and black of a vested choir<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
—busboy harveststiff hogcaller boyscout champeen cornshucker of Western Kansas
bellhop at the United States Hotel at <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Saratoga
Springs</st1:place></st1:city> office boy callboy fruiter telephone lineman
longshoreman lumberjack plumber’s helper,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
worked for an exterminating company in <st1:city w:st="on">Union City</st1:city>,
filled pipes in an opium joint in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Trenton</st1:city>,
<st1:state w:st="on">N.J.</st1:state></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
Y.M.C.A. secretary, express agent, truckdriver, fordmechanic, sold books in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Denver</st1:city> <st1:state w:st="on">Colorado</st1:state></st1:place>:
Madam would you be willing to help a young man work his way through college?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
President Harding, with a reverence seemingly more significant because of his
high temporal station, concluded his speech:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
We are met today to pay the impersonal tribute; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">the
name of him whose body lies before us took flight with his imperishable soul… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">as
a typical soldier of this representative democracy he fought and died believing
in the indisputable justice of his country’s cause . . . <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">by
raising his right hand and asking the thousands with the sound of his voice to
join in the prayer: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Our
Father which art in heaven hallowed by thy name . . . <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Naked
he went into the army; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">they
weighed you, measured you, looked for flat feet, squeezed your penis to see if
you had clap, looked up your anus to see if you had piles, counted your teeth,
made you cough, listened to your heart and lungs, made you read the letters on
the card, charted your urine and your intelligence, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">gave
you a service record for a future (imperishable soul) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">and
an identification tag stamped with your serial number to hang around your neck,
issued O D[3] regulation equipment, a condiment can and a copy of the articles
of war: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Attn’SHUN
suck in your gut you c——r[4] wipe that smile off your face eyes right wattja
tink dis is a choirch-social? For-war-D’ARCH. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">John
Doe<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">and
Richard Roe and other person or persons unknown<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">drilled
hiked, manual of arms, ate slum,[5] learned to salute, to soldier, to loaf in
the latrines, forbidden to smoke on deck, overseas guard duty, forty men and
eight horses,[6] shortarm inspection[7] and the ping of shrapnel and the shrill
bullets combing the air and the sorehead woodpeckers the machineguns mud
cooties gasmasks and the itch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Say
feller tell me how I can get back to my outfit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
John Doe had a head<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">for
twentyodd years intensely the nerves of the eyes the ears the palate the tongue
the fingers the toes the armpits, the nerves warmfeeling under the skin charged
the coiled brain with hurt sweet warm cold mine must don’t sayings print
headlines:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Thou
shalt not the multiplication table long division, Now is the time for all good
men knocks but once at a young man’s door, It’s a great life if Ish
gebibbel,[8] The first five years’ll be the Safety First, Suppose a hun tried
to rape you’re my country right or wrong, Catch ‘em young, What he don’t know
wont treat ‘em rough, Tell ‘m nothing, He got what was coming to him he got
his, This is a white man’s country, Kick the bucket, Gone west, If you don’t
like it you can croak him<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Say
buddy cant you tell me how I can get back to my outfit?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Cant
help jumpin when them things go off, give me the trots[9] them things do.
I lost my identification tag swimmin in the Marne, roughhousin with a guy while
we was waitin to be deloused, in bed with a girl name Jeanne (Love moving
picture wet French postcard dream began with saltpeter[10] in the coffee and
ended at the propho[11] station);—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Say
soldier for chrissake cant you tell me how I can get back to my outfit? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
John Doe’s<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
heart pumped blood:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
alive thudding silence of blood in your ears<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
down in the clearing in the Oregon forest[12] where the punkins were
punkincolor pouring into the blood through the eyes and the fallcolored trees
and the bronze hoopers were hopping through the dry grass, where tiny striped
snails hung on the underside of the blades and the flies hummed, wasps droned,
bumble-bees buzzed, and the woods smelt of wine and mushrooms and apples, homey
smell of fall pouring into the blood,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and I dropped the tin hat and the sweaty pack and lay flat with the dogday sun
licking my throat and adamsapple and the tight skin over the breastbone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
The shell had his number on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
The blood ran into the ground.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
The service record dropped out of the filing cabinet when the quartermaster
sergeant got blotto that time they had to pack up and leave the billets in a hurry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
The identification tag was in the bottom of the <st1:place w:st="on">Marne</st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
The blood
ran into the ground, the brains oozed out of the cracked skull and were licked
up by the trenchrats, the belly swelled and raised a generation of blue-bottle
flies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and the incorruptible skeleton,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and the scraps of dried viscera and skin bundled in khaki<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
they took to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Chalons-sur-Marne</st1:city></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and laid it out neat in a pine coffin<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and took it home to God’s Country on a battleship<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and buried in a sarcophagus in the Memorial Amphitheatre in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Arlington</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">National</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Cemetery</st1:placetype></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and draped the Old Glory over it<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and the bugler played taps<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and Mr. Harding prayed to God and the diplomats and the generals and the
admirals and the brasshats and the politicians and the handsomely dressed
ladies out of the society column of the Washington Post stood up solemn<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
and thought how beautiful sad Old Glory God’s Country it was go have the bugler
play taps and the three volleys made their ears ring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
Where his chest ought to have been they pinned<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
the Congressional Medal, the D.S.C.,[13] the Medaille Militaire, the Belgian
Croix de Guerre, the Italian gold medal, the Vitutea Militara sent by Queen
Marie of Rumania, the Czechoslovak war cross, the Virtuti Militari of the
Poles, a wreath sent by Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New York,[14] and a little
wampum presented by a deputation of Arizona redskins in warpaint and
feathers. All the Washingtonians brought flowers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">
<br />
Woodrow
Wilson brought a bouquet of poppies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-25807720314339588512012-05-28T05:37:00.002-07:002012-05-28T05:40:26.135-07:00Morning Rage<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This is not a poem about romancing war</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">or a lament for dead soldiers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I can’t speak for men and woman who die<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">for absolutely nothing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">or fake sheiks and oil-slicked dreams<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">and secret mercenary hutches<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">and goofy governors swearing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">allegiance to gods that kill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This is not for smirking presidents<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This is not about children in empty rooms<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">wives with no one to hold, credit card debt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Egyptian women who want to drive cars<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Christ blow up dolls, the Indian trinket on your rearview mirror<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">or crying in your beer because you can’t afford<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">diapers for your parakeet or your mate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This is not for poets who swoon possums in the night<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">and collect MacArthur Grants hooting, “Me myself said.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This poem is not about legislators wearing Exxon tampons<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">tacked to retirement packages. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This poem is not trying to clean the windshield that is you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This is not a poem about driving cars you can’t afford<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This is not about the cell phone <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">you can’t put down for fear of death or loneliness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This is not about last year’s grief, or me or<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">lack of confusion, or kings, or queens<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">or cross–eyed donkeys that hold hands <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">with your life these days, or is it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>This is about Sgt. John Mele, 25, from <st1:city w:st="on">Bunnell</st1:city>,
<st1:state w:st="on">Florida</st1:state>, killed in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region></st1:place> </strong><strong><o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>14 September 2007, who left a wife and six year old daughter</strong>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-18181883658047524112012-05-21T05:27:00.003-07:002012-05-21T05:27:54.576-07:00Moon Man<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I love breakfast in bed</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Watching the sky</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With a smile</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Goading those</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Astronauts</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To come back</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And clean up</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Watching Jupiter</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Float by</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With all of his</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Serious satellites</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe dream</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A bump with</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Venus and beyond</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I like to</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kick back</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
New to full</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To last</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Quarter-</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Know I am</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bound to</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Return</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that one</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cool thought</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Slips my hands</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Behind my head</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I lean back in</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My moon chair</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Being part</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of a Galaxy?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why not?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m a rabbit fan</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I like ducks</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owls and bright-</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
children looking up </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Got to keep</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That wonder </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I like my</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Penumbra</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That makes me hazy</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On lazy</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Summer nights</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And fat me</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Appearing</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the East</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And western skies</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I like sticking</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My thumb out</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When a satellite</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Flies by</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thinking it</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Really has</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Somewhere</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To go</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I adore silence</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the silences</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
between silences</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I grow up</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I want to be rounder</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And smoother</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A never–ending yellow
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With a tinge</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of laughter at</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The tall end of this</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
universal folly</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And seriously</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most of all</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I just want</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To be here</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Floating around</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The love, the hoot</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The whacked out</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Insanity</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rolling by at</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All hours</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-11500118632859886422012-04-25T07:22:00.003-07:002012-04-25T10:12:42.892-07:00Step Out of the Click<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">See
a star, a simple bird</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Feel
your feet<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Hold
the moon in your palms<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Put
down their toys<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">and
make your own<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">No
guns for war<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">No
bombs for Christ<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Mohammed
or the rest<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">You
are the children<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">the
violins, the strings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Let
go the horns, the drums<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">the
simple dawn<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Walk
the halls<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">the
alleys, the steps <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">the
avenues <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Hold
hands with friends<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Walk
the forest<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Say
owl<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">hummingbird
and dog<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Talk
to rabbits and ants<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">grandmothers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">and
monkeys in the sky<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Listen
to their stories<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">and
simple days<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">of
cross word puzzles<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">scratch
pads<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">leaves
blowing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">waiting
for<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">waiting
to<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">love
the moment<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">that
is you<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Tomorrow
beholds<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">sunflowers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">rhubarb,
eggs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">maple
syrup <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Spring<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Look
at that tree <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Watch
it sway<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Know
the apple<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">tastes
best if <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">tree
veins freeze<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">You
are the cloud<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">the
magic wand<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">the
simple walk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">on
this amazing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Planet<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">You
are the children<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Hold
this world <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style";">Breathe,
listen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-20397465748014304202012-04-16T06:44:00.001-07:002012-04-16T06:44:13.109-07:00Of Course?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Louie the orange</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
maker found </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a rind of his own</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And why would</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Napoleon be jealous</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of George Bush?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When did the leaves</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
become salmon</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Who is the breath</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of the moon</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Where did the bear</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
find the leftover grapes</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How did the Iraqi mouse</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
find the French fries</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Look at the signal</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
in your left ear</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sniggle Fritz did</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
not invent underwear</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What kind of ape</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
would suck an oil well?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the other hand</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
if you were born</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
with a carburetor</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
in your mouth</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
you could if you wish</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
spit it out and walk.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A child’s smile is</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
worth more than </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
an oil well</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the red ant</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
falls out of the</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Money market</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and eats some KFC</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He stood in the window</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
waiting to be found</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and he was</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He kept shadows </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
in his right eye </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rabish Fleemsha bought</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
the cigar store Indian</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
with balloon payments</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Schmooze the aviator likes</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
marshmallows with his</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
chicken feet</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Effervescent Charley</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sold gas pumps</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To Chinese chipmunk vendors</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All along the way</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sounds of tortillas clapping</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a matter of fact</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The burritos cheered</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ever since Momma</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
found the rat poison</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Daddy’s shut his trap</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The incarceration</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of Aesop’s Lizard</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
is eminent</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wrap you bread</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In anti vibrant bags</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The long gray owl</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wore no beak</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When do we expect the</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
sojourn of expensive</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
parakeets to emerge?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why should we pay</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For laminated</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Crustaceans?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He made a living selling</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
chloral hydrate</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
to misplaced honeybees</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And You?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-52845246272553619252012-03-15T06:44:00.002-07:002012-03-15T06:45:26.756-07:00OAKLAND PARK - An iguana trapping company has offered a free-of-charge capture of the iguana that bit a 7-year-old Oakland Park girl.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b>
"We saw it in the paper this morning and I thought we could go and get it
and do it free for her," said Andy Pinker, a trapper with Iguana Catchers
in </span><st1:place style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Hallandale</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Beach</st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="font-size: x-small;">. Normally the company charges
about $250 for trapping. They will contact the family of 7-year-old Madison
Wells sometime today, he said. When </span><st1:city style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Madison</st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: x-small;">'s
mother, Michelle Yurko, heard about the offer, she was thrilled.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
"Oh, great. I think that's awesome, that's what this whole things was
about," Yurko said. "I'm so glad these people are doing something to
help someone else. These guys are doing me a great favor."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
Wells, 7, was bitten by an iguana last week. She dropped four strawberries for
a 6-foot-long specimen, and the lizard took a bite out of her foot that needed
23 stitches.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
"I'm not going to touch any iguanas anymore," </span><st1:city style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Madison</st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: x-small;"> said. "I'm afraid of them.
Especially the orange ones."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
When </span><st1:city style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Madison</st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: x-small;">
saw her first iguana in person last Thursday, she thought the creature would
just be interested in the food, because she had learned in school that they are
typically vegetarians.</span><br />
<st1:place style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Madison</st1:city></st1:place><span style="font-size: x-small;"> said
that when she went over to her neighbor's house, her friend's mother told her
that she could feed the stray iguana that had taken up residence in the
neighborhood . They said they had even given it a name.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
Instead, it clamped its jaws around </span><st1:city style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Madison</st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: x-small;">'s
right foot, tearing at tendons that keep her from wiggling four of her toes. </span><st1:city style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on">Madison</st1:city><span style="font-size: x-small;">, a
second-grader at </span><st1:place style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Oakland Park</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Elementary School</st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="font-size: x-small;">, was
hospitalized from about 6 p.m. to just after midnight.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
"It hurt my feelings because it licked everyone else's feet and I thought
that it was just going to do that," </span><st1:city style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Madison</st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: x-small;">
said. "Maybe it wanted to see what I tasted like."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
More likely, the iguana was thinking </span><st1:city style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on">Madison</st1:city><span style="font-size: x-small;"> was
a strawberry, said Wildlife Veterinarian Stephan Harsh, who works with the </span><st1:placename style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on">SPCA</st1:placename> <st1:placename style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on">Wildlife</st1:placename>
<st1:placename style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on">Care</st1:placename> <st1:placetype style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on">Center</st1:placetype><span style="font-size: x-small;">
in </span><st1:city style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Fort Lauderdale</st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
"I'm sure he liked [the strawberries] a lot and was so eager that he got
the foot," Harsh said. "In this case, he was expected to be
fed."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
Harsh said iguanas are typically not aggressive, though attacks aren't unheard
of. In 2002, a 4-foot-long iguana bit a </span><st1:place style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on">Hollywood</st1:place><span style="font-size: x-small;">
boy's fingertip. The boy, then 14, had been keeping it as a pet, but when it
attacked him, officers were called and shot the creature.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
The non-native reptiles grow to be nearly 7-feet long with sharp teeth, large
claws, and jagged tails. About 3 percent of households keep iguanas as pets,
which are often later abandoned in canals by owners who no longer desire or are
able to take care of them.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
Madison's mother, Yurko, 40, contacted police, wildlife, and animal control
officials to see if the neighborhood iguana would be removed, but she said that
no one was able to come out and trap the animal. She is hoping someone will.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
"It's a freak accident" Yurko said. "But that creature doesn't
belong in this community."</span><br />
<br />
<strong style="font-size: 10pt;">Indeed, some would rather not see iguanas as pets at all, going as far
to say as the state would be better off without them, said veteran iguana
hunter George Cera. He wrote "The Iguana Cookbook: Save <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Florida</st1:place></st1:state>, Eat an Iguana," which offers
tongue-in-cheek recipes for humans featuring iguana meat.</strong><b style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
<br />
</b><span style="font-size: x-small;">"They are a species of animal are flat out killing our native
wildlife," said Cera, who is based out of </span><st1:city style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sarasota</st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: x-small;">. "People get them and don't
realize that they can live 20 years."</span><br />
<br />
<st1:city style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Madison</st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: x-small;"> is to
have surgery soon to repair her tendons, and hopes to return to school next
week. However, she said she is worried because her school is just across the
street from the house where the iguana bit her.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
"I'm afraid to go to school because it could attack me again," </span><st1:city style="font-size: 10pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Madison</st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: x-small;"> said.
"Hopefully I won't get hurt anymore."<o:p></o:p></span></div>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-67092662505121872072012-03-08T14:32:00.002-08:002012-03-08T14:32:33.560-08:00Workshops<br />
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b><b style="font-size: 15px;"> </b></div>
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Workshops abound with pathetic
denizens, long burned out by early splendor, professing life, milked nudged,
Iowan slain ducks that may or may not yet the prize, believing their own wash
is still on the line. The light industry of yesteryear for mediocrity to
foolishness, because the little factories and stores, the restaurants along the
highway that took in poets for short-term salad making and some flips on the
grill, where the grits and teeth to voice have faded to industrial mendacity.
The poet, the book itself a produce not iconography, now a poem tossed in the
stream in life, or simply a voice of one’s own.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The poets of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Blue Collar</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>review, most of whom have gotten their
hands dirty and their feet wet say “life” or “work”, offer a rhythmic reminder,
a jolt poked by street smarts, zipped and unbuttoned, gleaned with a language,
a strike.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Thus<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>no one</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>speaks the truth. “Write better
poems.” Especially the academic snoot factory riding the chariot around the
Emperor’s feet. Clear voices sublime & entertaining; certainly the
hint of no spilling of existential dressing they pass as poetry.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> This is a hard game for the
dreamer, the thoughtful poet who cracks at the night in rap, jack, hottypoo
idol worship jazz or neo-realistic blathering, whack doo bonk sigh linguistic
soliloquy.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Even the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Beats</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>have a museum at Broadway in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:place></st1:city>. No
need to hit the road to envision the “<i>Beat”</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>life complete with chairs and busts of
old hums and street bop. Soon one might expect the poets, stuffed on
wheels and rolled to the street complete with built-in IPods. Why you can
tune right in like the rest of the passive necrophilics hovering in the poetic
shadows.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Sometimes back when,
players ario Chalmers and Michael Beasley received $20,000 and $50,000 fines
respectively for harboring “improper guests,” during<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Rookie Transition Program</i>.
One can see the long faces, the eyelids drop in sorrow, the humble 19 year old
millionaire awash in grief. What’s the problem? Learned behavior,
immaturity? Will they ever learn?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Folks, it runs right up the
block to the Washington School of Bait and Snatch, except those folks don’t
pay. No fines. No jail time. Whoever was in the room got
theirs. They own the bank.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Today, passing the buck is
a euphemism for stick ‘em up, we want more. If you don’t like the whore
in the bedroom help us buy a new bed, and we’ll introduce you to the pimp now
in the office.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> This is serious. This
is, a, a, this is Code Orange. Could it be Code Red? You
remember Red who used to work in the White House before the bombs, before
the….no no that Red. Was it Red? No it’s the terrorist and we have
to same Democracy. It’s the terrorists in the bedroom. No it’s
Goldman’s what’s his name, and the AGO, not the ARO. AIG that’s it.
They made soap, don’t they (or soap opera)? Or basketballs, or CASH.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></st1:country-region><br />
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">America</span></st1:country-region><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> needs cash right now, which you idiots
out there have been paying for while the real soap (cash) flies the way to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Uncle Sam. Bend
over. We love you. We really do. We all agree. You
agree, I’m sure that something must be done and NOW. Nothing to debate
we’re in this together. We’re sorry. You can see that. We
don’t blame you at all. Things will get better. Hurry up <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Here is the
ball. Fake, dribble, pass it off and cut to the hoop. Ah, yes
catch us if you can. We need to train all you Middle American rookies
returning to the new game come November, or the old game.<o:p></o:p></span><br />David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-8229950912135034302012-03-01T13:07:00.000-08:002012-03-01T13:07:02.670-08:00Rain<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thunder. They shuddered. For a second the power failed, the
room blinked dark, flashed on and Betsy laughed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Thank you,” he said.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Betsy walked to the
window and stared into the night. “Harry?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Betsy.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“For the dance?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“For the dance.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Harry turned off the
lights and they stood in shadows. A nearby streetlight spread pouring rain
before them. Softness in the air became
song. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They undressed slowly, tossing each garment to distant
dream. Then the door and for a second
they stood looking at the rain. Stepping
out, they turned to each other. Betsy
took his hand and twirled and bowed.
Harry bowed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The night grew around the rain, the silence in-between and
the two stepped in, a swing, a run, a turn and Betsy tossed her head back. Harry spread his arms and drank the sky. They ran, oh how they ran in the rain.</div>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-19127631932464635192012-02-16T08:26:00.001-08:002012-02-16T10:43:13.200-08:00<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">PABLO<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Pablo was one
hot rooster with a big red comb and an array of black and yellow festooned
plumage that would stagger the imagination, never mind the job it did on a
flock of very exquisite hens. He’d walk
around that yard inspecting the business at hand and despite the fact he was
small.., there wasn’t an animal in the neighborhood ready to challenge him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Number ONE
hen was a lovely Aracauna by the name of Miranda that I had bought from a woman
at a garage sale in lieu of a couch. She
was a little too white for show stock, but nonetheless, produced her share of
eggs and ran the hen house. Her Master at
Arms was a huge Rhode Island Red named Hanna, who seemed to mete out punishment
to the rest of the pecking order according to some secret code passed down from
Miranda, usually consisting of a sharp peck in the back of the neck. Hanna came from a feed store when she was three
months old.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Now
Pablo’s story is a little more complicated.
I had been buying feed from a woman up the way for about six months when
I saw three roosters walking down the middle of the highway. I asked her who owned those roosters, and she
said she didn’t know. She was more
inclined toward horses, but she did agree to ask around. About a week later, she flagged me down and
took me around back where two of the aforementioned roosters were caged. It seems that they and a third party had
roosted in a pine tree during a rain storm and proceeded to crow half the
night, driving the woman up the way half nuts, whereupon, she climbed up the
tree in the middle of the night in her nightgown and grabbed two of them and
turned them over to the grain lady, who now offered them to me, but only on the
condition I take two.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> I didn’t
want two roosters, but I took them home and put them in separate cages so as to
not to start a war in the hen house. I
named one Pablo and the other Lopez.
Pablo was pretty magnificent already, while Lopez leaned a little to the
grunty side. My </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">plan was to find out, which one crowed the best. So that night, I set the alarm and got up
just before dawn; not that roosters have any qualms about crowing at
night. A set of headlights a mile away
will set them off. And I stood outside
the cages and waited until light came and it was not contest. Pablo won.
That afternoon, I put Lopez in the van and we drove around the
country-side until I saw a large flock of chickens on the other side of a very
green field. I helped Lopez for a moment;
then popped him through the fence wishing him well, but letting him know, he was in
fact on this own.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> So Pablo
became my pride and joy, a great crowing bird I could hear for miles. He took care of the yard and the hens and
established the pecking order when Miranda was busy. If a new hen showed up, which was my doing,
in that I was forever bringing more home, Pablo would check her out and then
wander off as if he didn’t care, much like some men I’ve known. Once things had calmed down and Miranda put in
her two cents worth, and just about the time you’d think all was well, old
Pablo, who had been lurking on the other
side of the lot would suddenly tear across the field and take care of Rooster
Business before the new hen knew what hit her.
Then he’d shake himself and smooth out his stride as he wandered off
like nothing happened. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> For the
most part, Miranda took it all with a grain of salt, unless it was setting
time, or just time to put the yard in order.
Then somehow, by some signal I never caught, Pablo saw to it that there
was no monkey business; that everyone was accounted for, and that nothing or
nobody would get near Miranda while she sat on her eggs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Hens and
roosters came and went. There were chickens
of all sizes and persuasions and later Muscovey ducks, which bred at
night. And through it all, Pablo held
court. He’d hop up on the porch when we
had company and I would point out the terror of his great spurs while guests
petted with caution. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">He’d sound warning for all enemies of chickens and humans; a long high squawk
that it reminded me of a car braking.
Wary of children, he’d circle them widely, but out of some strange
deference, never attacked, although we worried he might.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> The cats
never bothered the chickens and for the most part, we were able to keep all the
birds out of the birds out of the vegetable garden. In summer, they’d lollygag, dust </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">themselves, and give us the good eggs daily. I could tell by the tint, which egg belonged
to which hen. In winter, the cold rain
kept them inside for the most part, where they’d dawdle and scratch in the
fresh dry. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Come spring, we’d
start over again, and it was always a pleasure to sit on the side porch and
watch them carry on. What a wonder, how they acted very much like humans,
maintaining their little community with whatever seemed necessary at the
moment, but with much less long range planning.
I always thought it funny, how Pablo did the strutting, while Miranda
seemed to make things happen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> A few
years went by and Pablo got old. A new
rooster took his place. Not a great
rooster, but a bigger one, three years younger.
Pablo fell from grace and had to be removed from the flock and in a short
time, he went to Rooster Heaven.
Fortunately, I took a picture of him out in the yard during the good
times. I had it blown-up. What a bird he was, standing out there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">THE
END<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-25133935523894549042012-01-15T19:02:00.001-08:002012-01-16T00:43:26.129-08:00Where’s the Goose?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
To question the free market, look
no further than the Reagan era, when the air controller’s union got busted and
the workers began getting cross-eyed looking at the screens. Junk bonds promised cures, insurance companies
sold or lost their base and the game became suck the cash out of Paradise and toss
the human refuse we “dearly care for” in the trash.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Add Global Economy, NAFTA Folly,
endless warfare and this Alaskan Transparency, mimed perfectly on Saturday
Night Live, with America’s children prepping “Whatever” bips their ears,
crotches, ears and snoots, while John Wayne’s Washington, with lung cancer on
the horizon, buys it off with, “So What” and a smirk.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
To paraphrase John Nichol's
character in, <b><i>The Magic Journey</i></b>, all you do is create a whole bunch of issues
that don’t exist and get everybody running around not knowing their butt from a
hole in the ground and then you do what you want.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
When companies buy each other out like over
the counter elixers, when mortgages sell like popcorn during intermission and
banks smell like loan sharks in Bailout Alley, or one drives a Hummer with a
$28,000 a year salary, could there possibly be a shark in the tank? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'the game was catch what you ca';">The
Dow drops 500 points? My niece says her friends are not concerned about the war
or the economy. As long as they have <b>a </b>credit card, there is no need for
concern. Such gracious fodder for the
rip-off geniuses who plan privatization and genuflection of free market enterprise
while they take off the condoms and cook grandchildren for the next slaughter, fiasco
and Dubai suite they can park in, written
off and charged to the tax-friendly hordes we have turned out to be.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'the game was catch what you ca';">Investor,
Phillip Wilber Ross, who recently “fixed” the problem at ISG. stated he was
once a would-be writer. When asked if he
would ever return to writing he replied,” I have trouble enough with the facts,
let alone trying to deal with fiction.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'the game was catch what you ca';">Obviously
he is not alone. America has spun into such
a far-fetched tale, even the fairy godmother, who knows the carriage turns into
a pumpkin at midnight, won’t tell Cinderella that the shoe won’t fit forever,
unless she gets the facts straight and her house in order. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'the game was catch what you ca';">A
woman told me she bought a goose down pillow at Macy’s. That night she dreamed blood appeared on the
pillow. The goose was alive. It frightened her so that she took the pillow
back to the store for a refund. While
she was bargaining with the sales clerk, the pillow began honking and running
among the bedding, knocking over displays and finally disappearing in the dream,
in which she got her refund, but the next night, just before she fell asleep,
she thought of the goose and she wondered where it went. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'the game was catch what you ca';">What
strange characters we have become in this plot of loss, this miscue, this slow descent,
this hero’s truth, smitten with no sacrifice, no commitment and no allegiance. In the film<i>, <b>Return of the Jedi</b></i>,
the hero asserts that he is not afraid to descend into the unknown. The Jedi replies, “You will be.”<o:p></o:p> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'the game was catch what you ca';"> One might add to this tale, “Welcome to <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> and if you see a live goose amidst the
bedding, please let <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-49504359534555493522012-01-03T10:24:00.001-08:002012-01-03T18:04:18.274-08:00Who Sold the Rabbit in the Hat to Uncle Sam?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Place your hand over you heart. Remember the stern-faced Uncle Sam pointing
right at you? “Uncle Sam Wants You.” He
wanted you to join the armed forces. He
told you that America
needed you. He had a thousand parades to march in and a red white and blue suit
to flap in the ever-search for clients who needed guns, and an army to shoot
them a country to use them in. Needless
to say, he hasn’t t run out of clients</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ole Sam began pointing in more fruitful times, when the
world spun wars that cooked kids for din din, experimented with their organs
and fried 600,000 with a single bomb.
But folks don’t just sign up for every invasion, rocket lobbing contest
or semi-war anymore. As Jimmy Carter
said, 95.5 % of the American population isn’t sacrificing. Yes, Sam certainly is pointing, but the flag
suit loses face these days, especially when we see it draped over coffins. It makes one wonder what Sam really had in
mind. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To be a fair, a few patriotic survivors stand along Main Street in
front of the empty storefronts, the blank theater marquees, the silent mills,
the Mom and Pops stores with the outdated pinball machines tucked out
back. The adults give Sam a little
credence and the children seem fidgety The bands stride by, maybe three bands this
year from the usual high schools, the baton twirlers, fresh and ready, toss clips of innocence and ecstasy at the
sky; let’s say Troy, New York, a clutch
of rototillers spin down Sixth Avenue.
Why’s there’s old Elmer. Still at
it. Shaved the mustache. You’d think he’d retire. Worked there how many years?. Got hooked up with that woman who works for
the government over in Albany. Helluva guy.
Down the block he walks, with the rest of the tough guys and gals of the
time, the time now running out toward the Hudson River
a block away. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why here comes Uncle Sam,
because Troy is Uncle Sam’s home, so this must be the real Uncle Sam lumbering
by, waving to the thin crowd, bringing perhaps a momentary silence between
distant drum beats, which as the poet Bob Kaufman said, is the must because, to
paraphrase, without the silence there is no drum, there is no beat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Uncle Sam marches on amidst this fantastic orgy beyond the
parade, where these days, fingers point to selves. “I am me” cries everywhere. Uncle Sam’s finger seems stiff, an arthritis,
or a thrombosis with odds that the heart of America may stop, or at least beat
irregularly through the body we so dearly love.</div>David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-16205857133606597972011-12-30T11:13:00.000-08:002011-12-30T16:20:55.710-08:00The Grief Man<br />
He had an idea for the New Year and he knew he could make money on it. He rented a sky blue pickup truck and stuck signs on the doors that read:<br />
<br />
THE GRIEF MAN<br />
Pick Up and Hauling, Day or Night<br />
No Grief Refused.<br />
Reasonable Rates<br />
Telephone 1-800 NO-GRIEF<br />
<br />
He drove around the neighborhoods for weeks. At first people peered through their curtains or went in the house when he slowed down, but one day a small woman in her seventies waddled down her front walk and asked him if he could take the memory of her dead husband. After six years, not only did she not miss him, but he was haunting her house to the point where she couldn't find anybody else, and she had to admit he wasn't, if you asked her ninety-six year old mother, a very nice man to begin with. <br />
<br />
The Grief Man smiled and she wrote a check. He put the dead husband memory in the truck and drove off slowly, partly out of a sense of honor and hopefully, so the rest of the neighborhood would see that he really was serious and write down his phone number. <br />
Of course the woman got on the phone and the word spread. Within days his phone was ringing off the hook. He could barely fill his orders. A man wanted to get rid of his son's drug addiction, another man wanted to be relieved of the embarrassment of wearing a hairpiece, not the hair piece mind you, the embarrassment thereof. A child called. It seems the kid down the block got a tan cowboy hat and he got a red hat when all he really wanted was AUTO THEFT. He couldn't throw his red hat away because everyone would know. Parents called in droves to rid themselves of the worry of what to do about leaving their children alone. Alcoholics called at all hours of the day and night. The back of his truck reeked with alcoholic grief going into withdrawal without people. Then there were the sick, the elderly and the fleeced who had lost their entire savings to Illness or inscrutability. The Grief Man left them at the curb with cherubic smiles. A single mother wanted traffic removed. A fish cutter said he never wanted to see another fish; a fast food worker wanted the smell of French fries removed forever. A set of twin women in their forties wanted to rid themselves of their likeness. <br />
<br />
The Grief Man took credit cards. The Grief Man bought two cell phones. He didn't need to advertise. The Grief Man could barely fill his orders. The Grief Man had to rent a warehouse. A woman from Pembroke Pines, Florida said she was too hot. A man from Pulaski, New York said he was too cold. The Grief Man agreed to take heat and cold via overnight express. A Chicago banker wanted the entire New Year removed and the Grief Man devised a way to do it on the installment plan with balloon payments. Best he could do given such short notice. The banker agreed. A Las Cruces, New Mexico woman, wanted slipperiness taken out of satin sheets. Children with dead pets called from all over the world. A little girl from Adams, Massachusetts wanted a sun fish she caught, cleaned and buried in the back yard the summer before, to be put back in the lake. A therapist from Los Altos, California wanted to know if the Grief Man could remove the need, "To talk it all out." A man who said he represented a large government agency he refused to identify, called regarding the elimination of war and poverty, but left no return phone number. <br />
<br />
The Grief Man got rich. He picked up a too-late Eminem record collection, sixteen truckloads of Brittney Spears supermarket Musak and one volume of poetry by Robert Service, four hundred thousand truckloads of used Harry Potter videos, a four by eight mini-storage unit full of 1950s memories and stadium-size tonnage of books about the uselessness of the sixties. The Grief man couldn't fill the number of orders for the removal of grief over the Martin Luther King and Kennedy assassinations, but he managed to put a dent in it. <br />
So it was, on New Years Eve at 11.57 PM. that he drove his truck up to the side of his house, full of last minute pickups. Exhausted, but happy, he gazed wearily at the Christmas tree aglow by the fireplace in the adjoining living room. He sat down at the kitchen table and opened a beer. He watched the smoky gas escape from the top. He picked up the bottle and brought it to his lips. The phone rang. He promised himself he would not answer. He listened to the phone. One, two, three, four, rings; he wanted to drink his beer. He picked up the phone. <br />
<br />
It was the little boy of the red cowboy hat. The Grief Man wanted to know what he was doing up at that hour and the boy said he'd been to church and the minister told him to be grateful for what he had instead of always wanting what somebody else had and could the Grief Man return his red hat? The Grief Man hesitated for a second. He sighed deeply. Yes, it was the New Year and this was a little boy. Little boys don't always understand what, or why they do what they do. <br />
The Grief Man looked at the nice cold beer he hadn't even sipped. Now he had to go out and get the red hat, but before he could get his coat on, the other phone rang again. The kitchen clock read 12.09 AM. It was the New Year. The woman on the phone was crying. She said she was Susan of the Susan and Sylvia twins. She said no one recognized her without Sylvia and would he please, please return her to, at least, a shadow of her former self. <br />
<br />
By 12.20 AM. the phones never stopped. The fast food worker said she needed the smell of French fries on her skin to feel alive, the alcoholics wanted their drinks, parents wanted their children to go somewhere, anywhere, so they could be alone, the cold man from Pulaski couldn't stand sweat, the hot woman from Pembroke Pines couldn't stop shivering, the banker called to say the balloon payments on the removal of New Year had given him no place to begin, nor end, and the widow called to say she discovered the Grief Man's phone number on the refrigerator door and it reminded her that she needed to cry, but she couldn't remember what for, so would it be possible, to return what it was she had forgot to remember, immediately. <br />
<br />
Thereafter the Grief Man's phone never stopped ringing as he drove frantically and forever into the night of nights, the forwarding of calls jamming his truck phone, his ears, his very life; the calls to the Grief Man waxing in the dawn of hope. <br />David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-50986211402005357942011-12-15T06:41:00.001-08:002011-12-16T08:59:11.143-08:00PalomarIn the early days Palomar the Duck roamed the earth in an innocent light walk that couldn’t hurt the land because the land couldn’t be hurt. Palomar was a small duck with red feathers, red legs and feet and yellow eyes. A fine orange beak trimmed his smooth face. He ate what was available and bothered no one. He swam in the great blue lakes.<br />
<br />
When the land began to weaken, it hurt under the light walk and Palomar became conscious of stepping on things. He tried to avoid them and looked in mystery at WHY, and seeing what it was, seeing that its insulation didn’t work, he began trying to walk where he could, but by that time other animals had lost their light walk and they began stepping not only on the hurt land but on each other. <br />
<br />
Palomar grew. His feathers turned bronze. In the distance, he looked like a mountainous slick statue. If Palomar chose, he could square his beak into a vacuum sucking up foliage and animals at will. He didn’t do this often, because there was enough to go around. He just took small bites here and there, but Something was in control. <br />
<br />
Palomar’s brain became a gold nuclear reactor with round doors on the top and bottom of one end. The doors opened in great rushes of light and capsules of steel balls and silver space ships passed into the dark interior where red and yellow lasers beamed streaks and multimillion of a second pulse beat endlessly.<br />
<br />
Palomar sorted what he ate. He had a penchant for banana slugs that sometimes swept in with a couple of ruffled owls, or squirrels or occasionally a howling ape. He filtered out the other animals and left them unharmed in soft grass, a little wet perhaps, but the banana slugs washed down with ceremony and leaves.<br />
<br />
As the land began to hurt more and more, Palomar found less and less space to walk the light walk and began swimming more, but this disturbed his insatiable lust for banana slugs. He ‘d waddle ashore in a strange country scaring the inhabitants because of his size, which measured just the height of a five story building at the base of the neck and careened up another four to the head. When the Lacandons saw the nine story duck for the first time, they ran into Chiapas and never came out. <br />
<br />
Palomar seemed to disappear at the end of the sixteenth century. He swam to a remote part of the land where it didn’t hurt so much, where there were still plenty of banana slugs and where he could build more confidence in his light walk so nothing would be hurt. He was reported at the opening of the Suez Canal by two shepherds who caught him making off with a goat and six camels. Rumors prevailed. He was swimming thirty kilometers down the Canal when Verdi began conducting Aida. Someone commented that was the only reason such a magnificent bird would come so close. <br />
<br />
He was reportedly at Rudyard Kipling’s funeral and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Someone dug-up a document that said he ‘d been seen lurking around Genghis Kahn’s camp, at the tail end of the Holy Wars and there is reason to believe he sat in the mountains outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1939, when the Alligator boy married the Monkey girl. The marriage made Life Magazine, but no one could get Palomar to come out for a picture, nor could anyone prove he was really there. <br />David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1498898687250515533.post-40523942627608264792011-12-12T11:50:00.000-08:002011-12-12T11:52:23.934-08:00Thoughts from the Rooster Breath TheaterWho put the dip stick in the egg plant?<br />
<br />
What rat fed coconut oil to the hamster?<br />
<br />
Better yet, how did the goose snot get in your cheese sandwich?<br />
<br />
Not all iguanas suffer post partum depression.<br />
<br />
There is no underwear for American Eagles that compound interest in the war effort.<br />
<br />
Never mind how the worms found the lettuce.<br />
<br />
Rubin Schnickle eats blue berry pancakes with horseradish.<br />
<br />
Keeping in mind the myth of the cross-eyed seamstress and her mother, Olga Crumbuckle.<br />
<br />
Ever since Mirabel got caught sucking graham crackers in the attic.<br />
<br />
So what if Charlie eats hot dogs in his nightgown?<br />
<br />
No tax addendums for sugar ants.<br />
<br />
You can’t blame the war on disenchanted walnuts.<br />
<br />
Sam won’t buy apples from the bird vendor.<br />
<br />
If and when Hercules gets a breast implant.<br />
<br />
Needless to say, the rabbit population doesn’t suffer from black holes.<br />
<br />
Every so often Genghis Khan stops at the river for some KFC.<br />
<br />
Why is the price of a gas pump less 8 cents tax, worth your child as ransom?<br />
<br />
Just because someone asks for your Social Security Number doesn’t mean you have to buy them a Happy Meal.<br />
<br />
If a man calls a President by his last name you might think he is grown up.<br />
<br />
Who ate the community goat?<br />
<br />
Chicken breath may be sold as hallucinogenic fowl.<br />
<br />
This is the second course based on rattlesnake egg whites designed for two-timing politicians.<br />
<br />
Who put the adhesive in the chocolate cookies?<br />
<br />
Androids are now on sale at Wal Mart.<br />
<br />
The case of the asymmetrical sphinx.<br />
<br />
The case of the mindless canary advertising Tide Liquid.<br />
<br />
Small lapses in the future of ironing boards based on faulty IRAs.<br />
<br />
The dog maker took umbrage in blue handkerchiefs with white trim.<br />
<br />
Mabel believed until he took her red hat.<br />
<br />
Chipmunks can’t vote so folks in Florida might consider independent raccoons.<br />
<br />
Speaking of independence-Did you hear about the man who froze his dead mother for two years?<br />
<br />
To answer your question: a plethora of recent examples personifies the conviction stated in the premise.<br />
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Ramifications on the brink of destruction-Or why pick a dead pigeon out of a pie?<br />
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And remember, in America, there is no discount for quiet desperation.David Plumbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07026421722391892694noreply@blogger.com0