Royals Authority Story Contest

Today I won a writing contest over at Royals Authority.

A Royal Holiday

There is a holiday that is much more sacred to me than the one America uses to buy ties for the people they disappoint. On this day each spring there is a solstice inside my soul that summons forth the summer. That highest of holy days is none other than Royals Opening Day.

As a nerdy non-athlete who made excel spreadsheets containing the batting averages of others, I had very little time to devote to actually playing baseball. Even watching baseball was rare because cable was for rich people and we were off brand cereal folk. I was a preteen anachronism, a kid growing up in the early nineties thinking that Baseball was only to be listened to. My secret lullaby each night was Denny Mathews and Fred White (along with producer/engineer Don Free), but beyond my imagination I hardly ever saw the game.

Read the whole Essay here

The Ballad of Brandon Loving: An Adventurer

Prologue

On a starless night our story begins
A tale of conquering evil to win
Back the honor of a virtuous maiden
Enter Adventurer Loving, Brandon

Part I

Carrying paint, paintbrush, and sword
He slashed through the forest looking toward
The square bear lair, beyond the horizon
There he’ll avenge her. Tonight he will fight him.

The Square Bear had stolen a personal portrait
That Brandon painted of his love in a corset
The maiden, embarrassed, sat a home in her castle
While Brandon set out to de-square that asshole

He entered the quadrilateral’s lair
And called out deep into the cave of the bear
“Come forth and fight me you hideous beast
I am planning on having a bear rump roast feast”

But no sound occurred so the brave one named Brandon
Donned his head flashlight and went deeper within
Sword drawn, he walked and then stopped to admire
The wall art of cavemen dancing around a fire

He took out his paintbrush and started to paint
His own cave illustration, realistic yet quaint.
Then from behind him he heard a great roar
That shook the square lair right down to the floor

The hideous brown one clawed at his back
Knocking his sword from its sheath down a crack.
Unarmed the Adventurer turned back to face
The bear that possessed the painting he chased

Courageously Brandon leapt toward the art thief
He tackled and smothered the square one beneath
His own grizzly beard. The brown bear surrendered
And told the artist that the painting he’d rendered

Was “Sold to the Boat Goat a fortnight ago
And I’ll give you directions if you just let me go”
Reluctantly Brandon relinquished his beard
And learned that the Boat Goat lived rather near

Part II

In a flash he was off to seek his new foe
Bear blood in his teeth and in his beard-fro
Mr. Loving soon found the water he sought,
But the Goat Moat flowed swiftly so quickly he thought

That in order to find this Boat Goat and his ship
He’d have to be willing to go for a dip.
Disrobing and holding his paintbrush in hand
Brandon dove into the Goat Moat from the land

Using his art supplies as a crude surf board
The Adventurer soon was moving toward
The Boat Goat in the Moat nimbly afloat
On a paintbrush shirtless with paint in tote

He came upon the vessel at the rear
And mounted it stealthily showing no fear
He stared into the eyes of the four-legged sailor
Who stood in the sun despite his fur’s pallor

“Looking for Adventure or Art?” the goat asked
“I’m Looking to kick some Moat Boat Goat Ass”
Screamed Brandon as he took the back of his paintbrush
And Impaled the pale one with righteous disgust

“Where is the painting I made of my maiden?”
The Goat softly whispered as Brandon laid him
Down on the deck, wrenching his weapon free
“I hid it away amongst the Sneeze Trees”

Part III

With those last words his foe was no more
But he was in the same place as before
He began again an adventurous journey
To find the painting of her who was worthy

The Sneeze Trees were located deep in the woods
And were known for strange storage of artistic goods
He knew he had found the place when on high
Mucus and spittle rained down in his eyes

He dug through the piles of discarded wares
Looking for a glimpse of his maiden fair
He found no other art like his photo realism
The Trees seemed to sneeze on Brandon’s idealism

Then under a bush between reprints of Dali
And a Thomas Kinkade light painting called “Polly”
The magical face of his beautiful bride
Untouched by the Sneeze Trees Mucus-y tide

Epilogue

Brandon protected the portrait and ran
Out of the Sneeze Trees and their horrible land.
He returned to the castle and to fair Emily
And they lived happy forever adventurously.

My Politics are Local

My politics are local
I am the president of my couch
My dog is speaker of the house of it
My wife is my Karl Rove
(My Architect not my fat bald guy)

I am the former Senator of my toilet
I served two terms
I lost a re-election bid to the guest towel
He was all attack ads and malicious rumors
Regarding the alleged use of decorative soaps
He went on to pass some major legislation

I cut my political teeth in the kitchen
Where I was elected to the cutting board
There I learned the art of self compromise
An old refrigerator taught me
That all elected officials are corrupt
He took money from a mold problem

I went on to be mayor of the backyard
It was there I had my first taste of controversy
There was lawn-mower-gate
Then Gate-gate
The 24 hour news cycle loved that one
It eventually blew over
It is always that way in local politics

My wife helped me leverage that office
Into a Governorship of the recliner
We were really making a name for myself.

The rumors of a couch candidacy ran rampant
Soon after, I appointed myself
The toilet Senator, which was Her idea
A timely Elvis-style death left a vacancy
Rec Room conspiracy theorists think
She killed my predecessor
Because she did

All is fair in love and local politics they say
Rather she says they say this
I don't know them well

I am mostly a figure head
A lame duck
The Commander and Chief of the couch
Is much less important than it seems
My main concern is legacy building
I think I will put my library in the basement
It would really help the community

I know being a public servant
Is supposed to be its own reward
But as my dog told my wife
Local politics can be ruff

The Politics of Pudding

Pure Fascism in its simplicity
A plain Reactionary dessert
Pirates, Mussolini and Cosby: all fans.
The topography of pudding when piled
Is preferred by insurgents
Perfect for nestling deep into,
Al-qaeda has a private lair in some.
A pilgrim more than a pluralist
Quakers enjoy the idea of pudding
But don’t make a practice of partaking.
Pudding prioritizes prison as punishment
Rather than as rehabilitation
Rehab is for pussies Pudding has been known to say.
Along with Minorities and Mormons
Pudding was pleased with Prop 8.
Marriage not being for pathetic pansies.
On immigration the snack believes
Arizona’s prerogative well within its purview
As a proponent of constitutional Originalism
It has been put in Scalia's sack lunches.
While Presbyterian on paper
Pudding is probably an atheist
Plato over Aristotle
Pimp over Prostitute
Punching over Peace
Power over People
Pudding - A poisonous Nazi Pleasure food.

Psalms 64:7

“The human mind and heart are a mystery; but God will loose an arrow at them, and suddenly they will be wounded”


Psalms 64:7



The forest morning stood still from His stand

And it was good, He remembered.

Fervently he studied the mystery through the falling leaves

Was it good still?

In the distance the brush rustled slightly.

The quiver lightened as he armed the graceful weapon.

Thick callused wrists drew string past cheek.

His tired eyes took careful aim.

Silver tipped shadows broke into the stillness.

Her flesh tore perfectly about the chest; suddenly

Still. Good. Still.

I keep a revolution in my satchel

I keep a revolution in my satchel
It’s small and bearded
Very Che Guvaray
I found it online
But they sell them at Urban Outfitters
It’s black and bespectacled
Very Malcom Xy
Yippied and Big-Nosed
Very Abbie Hoffmany
My revolution is gorgeous
Bite-sized and balding
Very Mao Tse Tsungy
It’s great for parties.
Blood red and Mustachioed
Very Joseph Staliny
Mysterious and Militant
Very Vladamir Leniny
All dreadlocked and doobied
Very Marcus Garveyy
While not televised
It has a killer iPhone app
Out of all the places to keep a revolution
I keep the power of the people in my purse

Insomuch Sandwich

“I love you,” said a man to his sandwich. The fingerlessly gloved man, seated in the corner nook of a public library, spoke toward his bulging pants pocket.  The secret felt warm and cheesy on his leg.  Its smell wafted up from under the table.  He had, moments before, completed a wall of reference books along the outside edge of the peanut shaped table. Some were casually opened, so as not to rouse too much suspicion from the librarians most of whom could be said to be less than sandwich friendly.  To a passerby, he supposed he might appear as a tortured graduate student, one that happened to have cold hands, diligently and precociously seeking knowledge yet unknown to internet search engines.  His plans being much more visceral than knowledge he thought this the perfect cover. He looked however much more like a balding drifter with a pocket full of something sandwich-shaped.  

His eyes dilated.  The moment was immanent.  He reached the ungloved tips of his fingers into his hip pocket and carefully removed a smooshed but radiant beef on rye.  Its onions were red and its tomatoes even more so.  He set it softly on the fake oak covered table.  The sandwich was as thick as the thighs of an Old West burlesque dancer.  The mayonnaise could be seen exploding from a hole in the brown bread like an oily whipped egg volcano.

One of the open books caught his eye.  It felt awkward that he should become distracted by these pages now.  He had spent the morning casually going through the motions of constructing his cover, mentally fixated on his beefy future.  With it inches from his lips he had lost concentration.  “. . . Insomuch . . .” leaped from the page into his cerebral cortex, hurdled thoughts of the sandwich like an ex-Olympian shoplifting; that one word satiated his senses.

He turned away from the splayed knowledge container and toward the lust of his flesh.  He felt exposed seeing it there on the tabletop.  His pocket was empty and cold.  The sandwich seemed different, less lusty somehow.  Immediately his vision was overtaken by another book, “. . . insofar . . .” it read.

These words were as smooshed as any pocket roast beef on rye.  It appeared to be a typo, a ménage a trios in print.  He dug through his strewn reference books for a Collegiate Dictionary.  He had used it for the foundation of his fortress.  The man was careful to lay its closed spine faced out, feeling that the word collegiate fit nicely into his cover.  As he slipped it out, the imitation leather binding brushed the moist skin of a tomato.  He franticly flipped to the I’s disregarding his tabled totem.

  There they were, authenticated.  The shattered skeptic turned back to the tilting tower of cheesy, mayonnaisey meat, in existential crisis.  Suddenly, in a mystical vision, he saw that the sandwich needed something more.  Why not remove the spaces?  WHYNOTREMOVEALLTHESPACES!?!  Wasn’t that the mysterious joy of pocket sandwiches?  The pleasure he received by pocketing was not just its convenience or its secrecy; what drove him to love was its smooshedness.

He lifted the huge dictionary high above his combed-over head and climbed up onto the corduroy cushioned seat. He wore the light fixture now like an upside down funnel hat.  A primal scream shook dust from his hat.  With the force of a rioter slinging rocks at the system, his naked fingers brought the entire English language down onto his beef on rye.

When the librarian tackled him, a tear tinged with mayonnaise ran down his check.  A tear of joy.  Spaceless joy.

Isaiah 11

I've been playing outside ever since forever

I'm pretty good at it

And my mommy always says

"Don't go near that snake hole"

And I didn't.  I never did.

But then 

My Daddy said that ever since the stump of Jesse 

Got a new branch on it,

It means little boys can play over there,

By the snake hole.

So I did it.  I did it yesterday.

I'm pretty good at it.

Mr. Cobra and I are pretty much best buddies now.

He's a really good hugger.

We played tickle fight

And mustache

And he shared some of my ice cream cone.

I'm pretty glad about that stump branch.

Isaiah 11

Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously

I am taking a Linguistics class this semester and we were talking about syntactic clues in Language.  We were given a sentence and asked what we could determine about it.  I loved the sentence.  Supposedly it is meaningless but I found it profound; poetic even.  It inspired the following.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

In empty beds beneath the calmly florescent gazebo

Dreaming themselves blue faceless smiles

Mindless thinkers swimmingly still

Dawn quickly awaits.

I am no musician

I am no musician

shouts a man into the night

angry as a trash can

filled by firelight

Stalin is his comrade

rhetoric his kite

lofty in the heavens

pandering and bright

I am no musician

crones a beatnik from the stage

empty like a row boat

leaky with old age

wisdom is his mentor

Solomon his sage

poisoning the future

from his current cage

I am no musician

pines a hero of the past

pretty as a widow

from a lowly caste

Gandhi is her savior

loneliness her fast

tying up her mourning

to a slave ship's mast