[1]
Oh, great. The Extroverts are coming. “The Extroverts are
coming.” They brought their friends, too: some Extra-verts. Now you’ll have to
perform the entire suite of difficult handshakes: the clap, the hug, and the
snap. With everyone! Here come the two Joes: Slappy Joe and Sloppy Joe. “Where’s
Joe?” someone says. “I dunno,” says Slappy Joe. “You seen him?” says Slappy
Joe. “Nah,” says Sloppy Joe. “I ain’t seen him.” It starts to rain, a sloppy
rain. It starts to wind, a slappy wind. We go to the basement, to the Coffers,
but discover, much to our chagrin, all the Coughers have been locked in the Coffers.
It’s a Coffers fulla Coughers. Boy, are they relieved to see us. A clock
that can’t tell time … has a tick disorder.
[2]
A bear chases a Russian man up a tree. “Nyet!” shouts the
man, but the bear knows the difference between “Nyet!” and a Kalashnikov. “Nyet!”
shouts the Russian as the bear climbs the tree. Perchance the bear shall turn
on you someday, which is a good reason to avoid Russia, altogether. If you had
to choose between the clippiz (sic) and the tweeziz (sic) which would you
choose? One will buzz while the other will pluck. When your choices are getting
(a) buzzed or (b) plucked—I suppose your choices ain’t half bad. This isn’t
what isn’t coming toward you, and by that I mean the bus, the bus isn’t coming
toward you, ever, despite the GPS readout, despite the GPS “arriving” readout,
but that’s not what this is all about, no, this isn’t what isn’t coming atcha. The
mockingbird swoops, of course, but the raptor is comin’ atcha, too. The gung-ho
osprey swoops. It is so gung-ho, this osprey, it has maximum osprey de corps.
[3]
Your order arrives. An optimistic helping of waffle with blueberry
“compote” on a big round plate: it arrives. “Compote,” you think. “Isn’t that a
pile of junk in the corner of the garden?” Huh. Now it’s on your waffle. You
sit down and decide to self-radicalize. The time has come. Every other attempt
at self-radicalization (blueberry compote, etc.) hasn’t yielded much in the way
of radical behavior. You notice a box of inflammatory literature on the front
stoop, with a sign that reads, “Free Radical.” So long as you’re moving
forward, the back of your head is—comin’ atcha! Scams and plausible deceptions may
appear, but a few good words persevere. If you’re still reading this—and I hope
you are—it means that I love you. So? … Make me an offer.
A special mention for Dana Martin and Jeff Eaton for their help in inspiring a couple of the puns this week.
ReplyDeleteDana for "coughers" and Jeff for "Esprit de Korps" -- which got me thinking of "coffers" and "Osprey", respectively.
Many thanks,
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Another excellent poem, amigo. But what does it have to do with the Olympics?
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sir. I am much obliged.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Olympics, well, this post had to be tested for illegal doping methods before it went up. It failed, of course, which is why the posting was successful. We're still hoping to get on the podium. Even if the Russian blogger gets gold, and even if the Dutch blogger gets silver, maybe we can still medal.
If I can't medal, then I'll just plain mettle. That's my 5 Year Plan, yep.
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Dang seamless prose poem triptych. The surprise is in how wordplay resolves to emotional intelligence. As modern readers, we are programmed to depersonalize. Impossible to do here.
ReplyDeleteYou're being very kind, Hthr, thanks for the good word. I've always felt that there are but a few poets / writers who have the technical acuity and the "heart" all at once. I'm not making any judgments about myself but I do feel as if some of these few writers do populate the DC / Baltimore MSA -- yrself very prominent among these few people. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------BA
ReplyDelete