Exercise in Mischief
Weaving webs of intrigue
And knotting people tight
Is such a nasty pastime
But it keeps me warm at night!
The Villain of the Piece
10
Tag Archives: silliness
The Stench of Doom
Breathe on Me, Breathalyzer
What is that sulfurous smell?
Is it the mouth of Hell?
Or is it only Morning Breath?
With you, I cannot tell.
Through mystic haze and mystery,
Through funky dark and gloom,
Throughout the house and yard and park
And to the edge of doom,
It penetrates both brain and soul
And harries unto death—
Begone! foul demon, Hell-bound hound,
And take your stinking breath.
Take Thou Thy Hindmost Hence-ward
If thou must wind down, go downwind, please;
I’ll remain up here while thou tak’st thy ease,
for I’ve found if a lady’s downwind of thee, she’s
immediately an endangered species.
A Whisper in Your Ear, My Dear
Friendly Advice to a Feckless Youth
The true Reckless Endangerment
is seldom what you’d guess:
not often quite so obvious
as acting under stress,
thus putting others in harm’s way
for physical duress;
more likely, it’s just saying things
much better left unsaid
about your girlfriend’s hairstyle, or
about great-uncle Fred,
who is your mother’s richest
relative and, shortly, dead.
It’s bad enough your note on Fred
will cut Mom from his will,
and likely keep you from her own
good graces longer still,
but there’s your girlfriend left to calm.
Let’s hope the bitter pill
of your ill-thought hairstyle remark
won’t make her wish you ill.
When Ladies are Dancing
Patterns of elegance, synchronized moves,
Footsteps as fluid as flowing in grooves
Down sides of a fountain afloat with champagne,
They leap and they glide and they dance the refrain
As though they were ageless and weightless as light,
Each gesture, each pattern, each detail so right,
So proper and grace-filled, expressive of joy—
Intimidate wholly the poor sidelined boy!
When a Boy Grows Up and Becomes a . . . a Much Older Boy
Happy Father’s Day, Dad! I know there was a time when you might’ve wished you’d had actual children and got us instead, but since you never left childhood entirely behind yourself, I think we can call it even. And just think, your offspring are following blithely in your footsteps to keep our own youthful high spirits intact via non-emergence into full adult behavior, so between us we’re all waving the old family flag pretty handily indeed. We’re only so good at it, of course, because we’ve had such an outstanding and irrepressible example in front of us all along.
I’m grateful for the training in reckless enthusiasm, Teflon ego-building, rampant silliness, and all of the other life skills you have generously shared with us by guidance and example all along the way. I like to think I’m getting fairly good at all of that myself, but will never tire of knowing that it’s shared and that I perform my junior jollities in the shadow of a true master. A good father gives his offspring a happy childhood; a great father carries it on with his children so they never have to give up its joys completely. Thanks to your showing me the way, I can’t imagine ever losing my delight in the mystery and adventure and simple goofiness that life can bring, and that is a fantastic gift anyone less happy would have to envy. I hope you know how deeply–and yes, seriously–it’s appreciated, not just on Father’s Day but every day I can celebrate an untainted sense of the grandest laughing love of life. Thanks for that.
And as with mothers, I am doubly blessed, as I realized pretty much the instant I met the man who would become my other Dad, my husband’s father. It took no time to see that there was a kindheartedness and a very merry twinkle in the eye with which I felt utterly at home, familiar and safe, and these last sixteen-plus years have continued to prove my first assessment correct. To have two fathers who keep the days filled with generosity and warmth and love and my face always turned toward the smiling sun is truly a treasure that will never, ever grow old.
You’re not the Boss of Me! Well, Yeah, You Probably are.
Lest I, as a mere human sort of creature, forget my place in the universal power structure, a few days communing with my sister’s four-legged family members swiftly reminds me that I can have all of the ingenious ideas and deeply meaningful thoughts I want in my pretty little head and they won’t change the reality of how the day will go for, and with, Ruffian, Mercer and Tristan.
Ruffian is well aware that all of creation was designed for the sole purpose of serving her and meeting her Needs (often mistaken by others as wants or Whining Points) and keeping out of her way in general so as not to disturb her beauty sleep. Being a large and well-rounded woman-cat, she prefers not to exhaust herself with any sort of excessive or unseemly activity if it does not culminate in being fed something. If there’s really no thrilling edible stuff involved, her time is far better spent in her semi-comatose repose, and most pleasantly of all, that in a place which is capable of creating maximum inconvenience for anyone who might wish to go through the door she is blocking, sit on the chair or window seat she is luxuriating upon, or sidle down the hallway she has carpeted with her soft and well-cushioned form. Yes, I suppose you are all by now sensing a bit of similarity between her and yours truly, perhaps?
Mercer, her fellow shelter adoptee, dresses formally for all occasions, preferring the classic tradition of the black suit and white button down shirt because he is much too dignified to be associated with frivolity and self-indulgence like his ‘sister’s’. If he should happen to take an interest in a cat toy and even deign to frolic after it a bit, it’s best for all others in the room to pretend not to have noticed, lest he take umbrage over this imagining of his being anything other than the most sober and staid member of the household. Despite his being strictly aware of his handsome panache and savoir-faire, he generally dislikes having his portrait taken, a trait I have assumed has to do with his being in the Witness Protection program and not wishing to be ‘outed’ inadvertently. I do suspect he might have some Scottish heritage because, although he doesn’t speak about this past of his, he still wears a fuzzy white sporran that swings jauntily under his belly when he’s patrolling his fiefdom.
While Ruffian and Mercer rule the house, Tristan lives exclusively outdoors. This arrangement seems to suit all three to the degree that each is able to maintain his or her sense of being the center of the solar system and ruler of all he/she surveys, since the two cats pay attention to each other primarily when needing someone to compete with over food, beat up or otherwise annoy.
Tristan was rescued from a neglectful owner after the people of the household split up and Tristan’s longtime canine companion died. He’s now twelve years old and, age and arthritis notwithstanding, maintains a cheerful demeanor, particularly if there happens to be a massive ham sandwich anywhere in sniffing distance. And he does have prodigious sniff powers, undiminished by the years. So when he goes for his three walks a day, nary a leaf or blade of grass goes unexamined, yet he keeps up a steady pace and chooses which of his favorite routes is preferable for the moment’s expedition, tugging all of his people-pack insistently if gently until we all acquiesce, recognize his prerogative, and follow orders. I’m just glad I smell acceptable to him, never mind whether any of our human companions find me tolerable or not.
After all, we are all just passing through, aren’t we? These three clearly know it’s all about the quality of the journey and that the destination will take care of itself soon enough. Say, toss me a treat, won’t you–I’m feeling a little peaked from not having napped enough yet today and can’t reach over that far.
Companionship or Conspiracy
Rodents on the Run
Unforgettable and Inseparable
Since My Beloved’s Death
Since his death, my cryptic lover has arranged my life right over
Into something odd and eerie, weird, disquieting—I’m leery
Not of ghosts, spirits, phantasms, or of devils’ arcane chasms
But of gaiety and sunlight and those things that once were right
For breathing life into old souls—now my new kinship is with moles,
Uncanny, strange, peculiar, creepy, and with bats, with creatures weepy,
Wailing, enigmatic, curious, with things dark and dire and spurious—
Now, unnatural and bizarre unsettling things surpass by far
Those former comforts and delights that soothed my days and lit my nights.
With my lover’s jarring death came an uncanny loss of breath
That turned my sense of truth elastic, to include the strange, fantastic,
Doubtful, worrying, portentous and the puzzling, the momentous—
I have seen since that dark minute all the sinister things in it
Turn to lovely deviant longings, love of the aberrant, wrong things,
Something like a lust for sorrow and disgust for growth, tomorrow,
Or any such former hopes—now esoteric isotopes
Reflecting what I once desired, but with a twisted, counter-wired,
Left-handed version of the past. At this I might have been aghast
Before, but now it’s all I crave, since both of us lie in the grave.
For that, you see, explains my ache for things outlandish, no mistake:
That when my late beloved died, I did so too; am at his side
Within the crypt, where our decease no more is strange or ominous
But makes it plausible that I should love the darkness where we lie.
Natural Cycles & Unnatural
For my arachnophobic friends out there: hurry past the first illustration–I think spiders are pretty, but I understand that you do not!
Short Term Shelter
Under the porches of the house,
amid the floor joists, posts and beams,
cobwebs and dust, dead mice and dreams,
there is a corner one last mouse
still nests in, where a little light
leaks underneath the latticed edge
that skirts the porches, where the hedge
holds lots of insects that by night
fill up his little rodent sides
and round his belly with their crunch;
this nest of his, I have a hunch,
will soon not be where he resides,
because, although he’s now grown fat,
it’s been discovered by the cat.
Rides Upward & Back
Bicycling up into a tree, I paused to see what I could see
between the branches, richly leaved, and saw, if I was not deceived,
a broad, expansive view indeed, and haply so, while I was treed–
but (Woe!) relaxed my braking foot and clocked my forehead on the root–
so, shorter ’twas than was my wont, this little arbor-biking jaunt.
Art-Colored Glasses 