Here Lies a Loon
Once upon a tombstone
I read an epitaph
whose sentiments ridiculous
were prone to make me laugh;
the information set thereon
gave me to ridicule
the marker and the makings of
some great exquisite fool;
now lest you think me callous and
a soulless Frankenstein,
you ought to know the coup de grâce:
the epitaph was mine.
It’s hard to know what to make of such goings-on . . .
Sharp Objects Falling out of the Sky
On certain Wednesday mornings
Sharp objects from the sky
Come shearing down the sides of clouds
Like spaceships zipping by
And boulders, ashtrays, cutlery
And great meteorites
Come slashing from the heavens
—But clear up by Wednesday nights
. . . but I’ve come to expect the unexpected . . .
Little Beasties’ Escapade
Raccoon, Armadillo and Possum set sail
In a galvanized bucket, the teeth of a gale,
On the reservoir lake in the midst of the night,
Under cloud-obscured stars and without the moon’s light,
For they were on a mission requiring the dark,
At imperative speed, wildly searching the spark
Of a glimmer ashore on the lake’s farther side,
Where they’d scramble the banks and find somewhere to hide–
And what was their mission, to act like scared squirrels?
Escaping, of course, from the amorous girls
Of the possum, raccoon and ‘dillo persuasions.
Run and hide’s all one can do on just such occasions.
Of course I’m vain. I would love to be thought of as a great beauty. Not that many people on earth could probably say with full honesty that they wouldn’t like to be thought attractive and compelling and engaging in the slick social way, no matter how sincerely they live the principles of much deeper character. But, that confession aside, I can also say that I am not so exclusively vain that I mind having others be indifferent to, or even dislike, me. Let’s just be realistic enough to say that that would be beyond impossible.
Take a good look at MEEEE!
So I really can’t have too many qualms about making fun of myself and exaggerating my own failings and shortcomings and even pasting on ones I don’t think I actually own, if it buys me any artistic pleasure. After all, there’s a bunch of fun to be had in clowning and playing characters and being someone or something new and weird and ridiculous. There are reasons we still have art and theatre and fiction all around us. It’s amusing to make the stuff and amusing to see what others have made.
I’m pretty fabulous no matter what you see!
I guess that makes me a cheap sort of witch or magician, maybe, when I’m making up my fictions in visual and verbal imagery. Kind of a fun vocation, when I get to play at it. Abracadabra, here I am for your amusement. Poof! Now it’s your turn.
Frenemies
When cat and dog and sheep and goat, yea, fox and hen and hog and stoat
Befriend each other, work and play like boon companions, night and day,
It’s time to question if the world as we have known it is unfurled,
Unraveled, undefined, undone–if we should pack our bags and run–
For such behavior’s a disgrace and flies in Mother Nature’s face.
So, be alert! The fox and hen, sheep and the goats, like gods and men,
Belong apart; the stoat and hog must not be friends, nor cat and dog.
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.
Aye, Aieeeee!
When he was young he was swayed by the sea,
and he strayed by the sea and stayed by the sea–
his spirit was formed and was made by the sea–
he was in it up to his neck!
He knew he would have to succumb to the sea,
to come to the sea and bring some to the sea–
(of his very best valor–and rum–to the sea)–
he looked forward to it like heck!
And when he was older he reigned on the sea;
he was trained on the sea and remained on the sea–
until his affections grew strained on the sea–
that’s when the real Poop hit the Deck!
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.
Art-Colored Glasses 