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!

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.

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.

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.

Bad Omen Snowmen

Bad Omen Snowmen

I know Snowmen are Satanic
Crooked carrot noses
Stick hands
Beady black eyes
They hide their Devil horns
Under their Abe Lincoln hats
Across the street one stares at me
Plotting

I know he will bring a legion of his demon buddies
And make a Pentagram of snowballs
On my driveway.
Last year I preemptively protected myself
With a flamethrower
Now the neighbor kid has a restraining order
So I sit in my screened in porch
Watching

I know that the priest who was in line at the bank
Disagrees with my theology
So I disagreed with his face
Hard. With my fist.
Later I fell asleep in my adirondack chair
When I woke up the number of the beast
Was frosted on my window
There is only one suspect.

I know that everyone thinks I am crazy
But they are wrong
Beelzebub is crazy
Rolling up snow shaped people
That is the crazy
Not letting a Veteran of America's Foreign Wars
Use his own mother f---ing flamethrower
From his own mother f---ing screened in porch
That is crazy

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.