Dangers Just out of View
Do not pursue the missing sock,
The partner to your single shoe;
Though losing either one may rock
Your sense of balance, don’t pursue,
Unduly, missing treasures: wide
Their unwed wanderings may flee,
And you might quite unsettled be
To see on capture what’s inside.
Remember as you, hunting, run,
That warmth and dark like boot or sock
Is favored as a sun-baked rock
By spider, snake or scorpion.
Be Not Ill at Ease
Around my sprockets and my spleen lurk what no doctor’s ever seen,
a plethora of arcane ills impossible to treat with pills
or pessaries, with tinctures, teas, or magic potions for disease–
not curable by overhaul of engine, tune-up, electrol-
ysis, electric shock–it’s thought by some I will infect them; not
true, though, for what seems to be feared is not contagious–
I’m just weird.
A Menopausal Mini-Mystery
‘OutRRRRRageous!’ she purred, ‘I’m only a lady who has fallen prey to the sentimental desires of A Certain Age to visit my old acquaintance!’ Still, her counter-suit of police Profiling would have been more plausible if she hadn’t been spotted in that location and in such a compromising position. The acquaintance in question, quivering in the doorway behind Madame De Léopard, was still squeaking with shrill accusation as the neighbors began to gather and fling catty remarks back and forth like batted feather lures. When the arresting officer demanded a sobriety test and detected that an illegal quantity of West Country Farmhouse Cheddar had been dabbed behind the lady’s ears, pandemonium erupted and many of the surrounding crowd were convinced that there was a far more nefarious explanation for her appearance on the scene than middle-aged maundering.
Yeah, you–what’re *you* staring at?
Got my little camera out, for I’m in a Gathering groove these days. Overlord of visual overload. Seems I’m just hungry for pictorial input and inspirations, imagery and ideas. So I’m heading on an expedition to capture goodies that will reload my mental files and give me that friendly little poke in the snoot that’ll get me moving again. Pictures that will lead to more pictures. Get ready.
No, really, it’s just that you intrigue me deeply.
It doesn’t always require a huge investment of time, materials or effort to effect a notable improvement around the house. No matter how gifted I am at procrastinating when it comes to DIY and fix-it projects around the place, I’m always kind of amazed to rediscover how small a thing can have such large-scale impact. It doesn’t mean that I learn from my experiences enough to behave sensibly and just get the tasks done without resistance, but I seldom fail to be impressed after the fact all the same.
Take front door painting, for example. There wasn’t anything especially unpleasant, let alone wrong, with the existing paint on our front door. It was, in fact, in good condition, and even a pretty nice color. I do like this trim color on the house in general. What was a bit unsatisfactory to me was that with such a dark color on it, the front door seemed to me to actively recede from view into the shadows of the porch rather than appearing to welcome visitors approaching on the front path.
So I decided to paint the door a sprightly and fresh color that might liven up the entry and seem a little more encouraging to anyone who might be coming to knock there. I chose an apple green that I knew would mimic the brightest greens in the plantings around our yard and complement both the existing deep green trim paint and the earthy mix of colors in our brickwork. I chose a semi-gloss paint to reflect light without glaring and make the door even more visible from the street and path.
Then I waited. I put it off for weeks. It was only a couple days’ work to mask, prep and triple-coat the door, but I could find any number of excuses to do Other Things, even put up the also-evaded porch Christmas lights, as long as I could avoid repainting the front door. That’s how I [don’t] roll. Lazy People Unite!
Well, I did finally get the task done. And it’s kind of impressive to me, yet again, how much this one little thing manages to change the look of the house. For the better, I think; in the name of fair play I must, of course, tell you that the manly member of the household is not yet convinced the change is for the better, but he doesn’t object so strenuously that I’m going to repaint it anytime soon. Besides, even if I do decide to repaint it, there’s no doubt it’ll take a good long while for the project to actually get done.
Sunset over the Serengeti & a Slight Belch from the King of the Beasts
It happens sometimes on the plains, where Splendid Starlings and the strains
Tok-tokkie knocks create a song that’s just as rhythmic as it’s long,
Where Shongololo rolls and runs ‘tween rise and setting of the suns,
Where the hyenas sing their tunes betwixt midnight and morning’s moons:
It’s there the leopard’s race was lost–surprise–at noon, and at great cost,
To one old lion whose good luck dovetailed with leopards run amok,
To the degree that one loud crunch announced the end of it at lunch.
I’ve already admitted to what I’m certain can have come as no surprise to you: that I was frequently in trouble during my school days for spending my attentions on observing things outside the window, counting the holes in the acoustic ceiling tiles, or mentally redesigning the architecture of the building rather than focusing on the requisite elements of discussion (I was too shy to speak up anyway, so what was I going to contribute there?) or question-answering (when I didn’t already have the entire assignment complete to my satisfaction I was the last one willing to offer a participatory guess anyhow), or perhaps at least getting some more study and writing done. That last was, of course, what I thought I was doing quite efficiently while I was apparently staring off into the ether, but the parallel actions I performed of contemplating Other Things were clearly not obvious ways of meeting class requirements, at least to my teachers and fellow students.
All I can say in response to this is that (a) I have managed to live a remarkably happy life and get a few useful things done along the way despite these obvious shortcomings of mine and (b) conformity is highly overrated. Oh, and (c): thanks to my wilfulness, I did get to grow up (relatively speaking, anyway) and follow a ‘career’ path that takes full advantage of–even encourages–such Frivolity as woolgathering, lollygagging and other highly refined forms of daydreaming. I’m an artist, y’all. So you will just have to sit by and suck it up when I choose to so use and/or abuse my time on a continuing basis. I take the liberty of assuming that if you’ve shown up here, and especially, if you’ve come by and still bother to return after seeing what I’m doing (or not doing), then you evidently either condone or at least tolerate such shenanigans on my part.
In that spirit, I’ll hand over, if not my actual homework for the day, a doodle of some other fanciful daydreamer, and we’ll call it good. Or good enough! And I wish you all, in turn, the freedom and ample opportunities to live in your own little fantasy worlds too, and if it suits you, to produce nothing more pertinent than whatever odd little items appear as evidence of these flighty fun activities of yours. Because I’m here to tell you, it’s a mighty fine way to have a life, even if it doesn’t make you a living.
Cheers!
Though bleary, psychedelic and portentous dreams had haunted him into a knot by daylight it was neither dark nor stormy that morning. Tarryble Slye was in such a grim and grimy mood when he finally wrestled awake that he decided not to get out of bed until it was darker, for his business with Methden Gartinen was ugly enough to require at the very least a whiff of midnight, better yet a night gripped by a walloping storm. Whether the requisite pelting of rain and blasts of lightning came or not, Slye was determined to drag himself out of bed as late as he possibly could, and put off tonight’s assigned meeting as late as he could get away with it too. That rat Gartinen had made the whole thing sound as innocuous as he could and even offered to pick up the dinner tab beforehand, but there was no mistaking that once he was out of bed Slye was going to be sorely sorry he’d ever crawled out at all. He was already sorry he’d committed to showing up, and backing out of it wasn’t an option; maybe he ought to accept the proffered payoff: a paper-wrapped catch of fish and chips was probably the best thing he could hope to get out of this lousy, evil-tinged day.
Man, how he hated doing taxes.
After Oktoberfest, Paying the Piper
There was a player of the horn who made it so euphonious
That every creature ever born was drawn to hear him play,
Until one sad, hung-over morn, its noise was deemed felonious
And all his beer-braised friends, forlorn, plugged ears and ran away.
The sweet euphonium was heard no more in that green-wooded land–
The deer and nightingale ne’er stirred, and Prost! rang out no more–
His fellow players, quite deterred, closed up their merry oompah band
Like some cage-covered myna bird, and silent, hid full sore.
What have we learned from this sad tale, so stricken, deleterious
And dark as Death’s bleak lowest vale, wherein musick’s so frowned
Upon the hornist sought a gale of storm and rain delirious
And in the deluge, shaking, pale, turn up his horn and drowned?
The moral, though you might just miss it, e’er so hard ye strive to think:
‘Tis sadder to have died like this than surfeited of hoppy drink.
So, prithee, play all on your trumpets, flutes, euphoniums–be not shy–
But keep them quiet, knaves and strumpets, post-drink mornings, lest ye die.
And don’t ‘Do too much science‘! When it takes hold of you, there may be no escape . . .
New Species, Same Old Story
Professor Bob Sponk and his lovely wife Myrtle
discovered a rare omnivorous turtle
and off to the swamp in the jungle’s dim inner-
most sanctum they tracked her, observing her dinner-
time habits, behaviors and preferences; then,
Bob sneezed.
It turns out she eats women and men.
Art-Colored Glasses 