Although he smelled old
Barry did not feel old
Not tonight anyway
For tonight was a night for Halloween pants
As he brushed his teeth
Barry imagined each pasty white leg
Slipping into their black holes
Emerging triumphantly from his Halloween pants
He took his teeth from their brush cup
And put them into his young feeling mouth
Barry tucked his undershirt into his underwear
And wondered which was truly to be under what
As He stood in front of his wardrobe
Barry began crying
He smiled a porcelain smile
Tears of joy at the thought of his Halloween pants
Inside the door were his regulars
Brown woolen nondescript slacks
He wanted to punch them.
They were trash compared to his Halloween pants
Barry reached behind his thin cotton shirts
To a box marked “Special Occasions”
Before removing the lid he took a deep breath
Pants anticipation was almost as great as pants itself
Tonight
Tonight would be different.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Friday, October 26, 2012
Terrance the Quadriplegic Leopard: A Superhero Story
You would not expect when see him
Laying all legless and armless
That Terrance is Super Heroic
Even though he appears harmless.
His power and strength my be hidden
Behind a humble façade
But Terrance is more than a leopard
Disabled by an act of God.
If there is a child in trouble
If there is a baby at risk
He will be there to the rescue
Complete will a quick Terrance kiss
If a bad guy is causing a problem
A robber, say, robbing a bank
Terrance will swoop in and stop him
Sneak in and give him a spank
If a lion is chasing a tiger
Or a Rhino is being a bully
The Leopard will fly in between them
Solving their problems quite fully
If a bus driver drives off a bridge
With a busload of children inside
Terrance will bring enough pillows
To cushion the falling bus ride
First graders will climb out the windows
And Terrance will cuddle them all
The driver will give him a high five
And laugh off the 50 foot fall
If aliens invade our planet
And try to take everyone’s mommy
Terrance will talk to their leader
A fat guy with braces named Tommy
Through reason and wit and some hugs
Terrance will stop the mom taking
No need for alien punching
Just old-fashioned handless handshaking
Also if puppies are crying
If kittens are somewhat depressed
Terrance will stop by all cheery
And put all their sadness to rest
These are not all of his powers
Though they are all so specific
He can do so many things
‘Cause Terrance is Super Terr-ific!
Monday, September 03, 2012
Historical Napkin
A light snow was falling as Charlie Reardon left the diner and made his way down Madison Street. Sky vomit, he thought. An archangel’s dandruff. A slow motion God sneeze. Not quite.
He took out his phone and acted more important than he was.
A tiny alien invasion. An Aryan alien invasion. Alliteration is always an improvement, he noted to himself with the confidence of the fully bearded, much better.
Charlie did not write it on a napkin. He thought about going back for a napkin from the diner, but he was confident in his memory. He knew he could remember such a good sentence. Such a well made sentence. He did not remember which was right grammatically. A perfect phrase. With this change of thought he corrected and congratulated simultaneously.
Professor Reardon liked Madison. The street had a gentrified air. Thoughtfully dirty white people and hearty smelling ethnics. Stores that sold things he never bought soothed Charlie. The diner did not have too many old people. He thought that that was probably ironic. Maybe paradoxical. Both.
His satchel was open just enough that the top his novel was visible but closed just enough to protect it from the elements. He knew it would impress the lip ringed girl who held the sign on the corner. She read, he thought.
An alien Aryan Invasion was wetting his mustache.
It occurred to him that if he were to write it on a napkin it might be worth something someday. Someday soon. He could put the napkin haphazardly on his desk. Or should he file it. He would file it so that a museum would have an easier time locating it.
He turned around like a Beefeater, toward the diner and bumped into an ethnic. She dropped her phone onto the supremacist spaceships on the sidewalk. He thought about apologizing in her native tongue as a gesture of cultural respect. She was gone before he had a chance to. It was kind of him to think of that though, he thought.
It had to be a napkin from the diner so that the biographer would know that the idea had happened at breakfast. Ironic him eating there and not being old, they would think. He rushed now intent on documenting history. The revisionism inherent in the act appalled him not at all. The winners craft it, he quipped. He did not think to himself what he had won at, only that he belonged in their circle.
The waitress was surprised to see his beard again. He pushed his hand deep into the dispenser and thought about being watched euphemistically. The waitress was not watching. It was empty and he thought about that symbolism.
Charlie asked after a napkin and the hostess handed him one from an open brown bag on her pulpit. The second wave of racist attackers from space slammed into the front window melting immediately.
The napkin was blank and brown. Ethnic. It did not smell.
How would the documentarian arrive at the place where the idea for that well made wordplay famously came to him while he ate waffles, if there was not a logo on the napkin? It could be from any number of places without paradox.
Charlie did not like this. He left the napkin and the sentence and went back into the light snow, late for class.
He took out his phone and acted more important than he was.
A tiny alien invasion. An Aryan alien invasion. Alliteration is always an improvement, he noted to himself with the confidence of the fully bearded, much better.
Charlie did not write it on a napkin. He thought about going back for a napkin from the diner, but he was confident in his memory. He knew he could remember such a good sentence. Such a well made sentence. He did not remember which was right grammatically. A perfect phrase. With this change of thought he corrected and congratulated simultaneously.
Professor Reardon liked Madison. The street had a gentrified air. Thoughtfully dirty white people and hearty smelling ethnics. Stores that sold things he never bought soothed Charlie. The diner did not have too many old people. He thought that that was probably ironic. Maybe paradoxical. Both.
His satchel was open just enough that the top his novel was visible but closed just enough to protect it from the elements. He knew it would impress the lip ringed girl who held the sign on the corner. She read, he thought.
An alien Aryan Invasion was wetting his mustache.
It occurred to him that if he were to write it on a napkin it might be worth something someday. Someday soon. He could put the napkin haphazardly on his desk. Or should he file it. He would file it so that a museum would have an easier time locating it.
He turned around like a Beefeater, toward the diner and bumped into an ethnic. She dropped her phone onto the supremacist spaceships on the sidewalk. He thought about apologizing in her native tongue as a gesture of cultural respect. She was gone before he had a chance to. It was kind of him to think of that though, he thought.
It had to be a napkin from the diner so that the biographer would know that the idea had happened at breakfast. Ironic him eating there and not being old, they would think. He rushed now intent on documenting history. The revisionism inherent in the act appalled him not at all. The winners craft it, he quipped. He did not think to himself what he had won at, only that he belonged in their circle.
The waitress was surprised to see his beard again. He pushed his hand deep into the dispenser and thought about being watched euphemistically. The waitress was not watching. It was empty and he thought about that symbolism.
Charlie asked after a napkin and the hostess handed him one from an open brown bag on her pulpit. The second wave of racist attackers from space slammed into the front window melting immediately.
The napkin was blank and brown. Ethnic. It did not smell.
How would the documentarian arrive at the place where the idea for that well made wordplay famously came to him while he ate waffles, if there was not a logo on the napkin? It could be from any number of places without paradox.
Charlie did not like this. He left the napkin and the sentence and went back into the light snow, late for class.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
The System We Fought: In commemoration of Greg turning 30
Too small for our pants pockets
Too big in our brains
Wrecking the standard American Baptist conventions
We rolled down hills.
Resisting normalcy together
As if it were a novel endeavor
Because who has time to know where one is coming from
While jumping on trampolines.
We counted ourselves better
Than those who did not roll
And rock out to The Fundamental Elements of Southtown;
An innocent pride of youth.
The art of insult perfected at lunch
Hooty hoo’s is the hallways yet
Always seeing each other at the pole.
Redeeming our irreverence by holding hands
An outside observer reflecting on our systemic war
Might notice its shortcomings.
But wide-eyed, while there was a battle going on
We fought, and for this I am still proud.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Sweet Potato Sheep Sack
In my sack of sweet potatoes I often keep a sheep.
The magma from volcanoes consumes me during sleep
A cappella madness droning out the sadness
The fourth of every February death will take a leap.
Frog inside my crevice keeps away the flies
A skeleton Rebellion will overthrow the rise
Of Lithuania - when feral packs of paupers,
Went militantly boning like a seamstress hiding thigh.
Will be done almighty here on earth as is elsewhere?
The jungles of Montana; no good can come from there!
Ticker tape for naked apes appeasing one another
Until the Heart of Darkness will be stinted with a chair.
Men will battle, camouflaged, for things that rarely matter
Diligently wiping off the raining pitter patter
Window pane and entertain and explain it all against
The backdrop of the doorstep moussed with bloody batter.
Up into the atmosphere the errant satellite
Pokes Orion open in his orifice of the night
Sending shadows stiltedly into the cave of Earth
Covering the evil like a fresh potato blight
Which brings me back to sheep in sacks;
Understandably.
The magma from volcanoes consumes me during sleep
A cappella madness droning out the sadness
The fourth of every February death will take a leap.
Frog inside my crevice keeps away the flies
A skeleton Rebellion will overthrow the rise
Of Lithuania - when feral packs of paupers,
Went militantly boning like a seamstress hiding thigh.
Will be done almighty here on earth as is elsewhere?
The jungles of Montana; no good can come from there!
Ticker tape for naked apes appeasing one another
Until the Heart of Darkness will be stinted with a chair.
Men will battle, camouflaged, for things that rarely matter
Diligently wiping off the raining pitter patter
Window pane and entertain and explain it all against
The backdrop of the doorstep moussed with bloody batter.
Up into the atmosphere the errant satellite
Pokes Orion open in his orifice of the night
Sending shadows stiltedly into the cave of Earth
Covering the evil like a fresh potato blight
Which brings me back to sheep in sacks;
Understandably.
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