~
Gumby, Wood Woodpecker and Me
~


somewhere in the mother lode
of a thousand poems scripted,
lies a pen-pained tribulation, an old ode,
to the taming of the shrew,
the shock and awe of my new born,
slept-on hair mode

Ogdiddy,
she says,
rise up quick!
thy self to the mirror dispatch,
see what god hath wrought
upon thy head this brand new morn

blessed am I,
at this late stage,
in posses of a
goodly and shocking amount
of hair au naturel

each of my body's parts has a mind of its own,
my hairs, each one a different opinion and resultantly
an amazing new creation born come dawn

sometimes straight up like Gumby
she quips,
sometimes a shocking tail to one side
in the style of one Woody Woodpecker,
she mockingly cries!

and on and on each daily
a new cartoon characterization proposition,
until one day in feigned wrath I do reply

*just you wait Mrs. Higgins, just you wait,
you will rue the day my do
will be best described and descried by you
as akin to that of one known as
SpongeBob SquarePants

Mr. Condiment Man

he arrives around 10:30am,
after the morning rushers and multiple malingerers
have surrendered to the clocker's red glare stare,
the little dictator of time that rules lands far and wide,
and the lunch crush is but a restauranteur's faraway dream

most days, to the last counter stool, he beelines,
the most least desirable seat in all of diner-land,
adjacent to the noise of kitchen,
and its associated higher risks perilous,
a two way swinging door "entera-ance,"
a residency to be avoided most studiously

though hardly a corner for one to go unnoticed,
by virtue of its iffy existence,
unless one likes the increased chance of
being a  victim of a crashing accident,
Mr. Condiment Man goes in and out, silently unremarked
but very noticed

in our land of spacious skies and amber waves of plastic,
customarily any "regular" is happily accorded a
rousing Sousa welcome, but that mistake now twice made,
is a historical hurry up-to-be-please-be-forgotten incident,
and the Condiment Man's cloaking invisibility second only to the
NYC's Famous Actors seeking breakfast amidst the common people

no words are passed, no pleasantries are planted,
the rule of incommunicado silence, for both sides now,
most happily observed, like a UN peacekeeping boundary

quick appears Cream of Tomato soup accompanied by
ever multiplying handfuls of packages of Nabisco
crackered packets, freshly fracked, with a ketchup Heinz handy,
a soupçon of five iodized salt shakes in the soup then interred,
salt released from the prototypical glass shaker whose universality usage seems to be a Federal law o' the land

the meal in silence arrives,
silently but oh-so-slowly-consumed,
it's extenuating circumstances lengthily enhanced by intermittent deliveries of additional cracking crackers,
and an occasional lip smacking,
and an unrequited unrequested unremarked
  "topping off" soup refillament,
this one act play presented daily
with a free tall glass of water in red plastic also refillable,
as needed

a play with no official ending,
no white topped, green lined, ripped from the ubiquitous diner pad, scribbled, billing ever presented,
but the loose change precisely, scrupulously counted then
upon the counter left, materializes by the hands
of the unacclaimed Mr.  Condiment Man,
which he sources from pockets various
in places where no pocket rightfully  belongs

you can set you watch by his timed departure
at five minutes of Twelve, he is no longer,
the play thus ended, the audience to feet leaps,
relieved and appreciative of the quiet man's drama
and his most excellent silent soliloquy

some strange human need satisfied and pleased
for all parties concerned, when the New York Times
revealed that this C.C. man left a 50 million dollar estate donated
to Meals-on-Wheels,
a fortune amassed by speculation in
condo's (ha!),

there was no shocked groaning,
only some perfunctory observing that frugality has its place,
and that this fantastick show, now closed, would be
sorely missed, for it had become a
condiment itself
a spice in the lives of so many


~
O.G.D.N.

for my friend, Betterdays, who has never written
a poem that did not seek, reach, or teach, even
when she thinks she knows not, the lesson plan below


wisdom arrives daily,
Even after you need all ten
fingers to count your
decades and generations

was it but last year
that a single gull cawing,
a solitary iris saluting the sundial,
a moment of watching her,
arms flung hither, encased in drowsy drops,
a mother and her child strolling,
she patrolling, and they, child world exploring,
only continents discovering,
a grandchild's freely given first kiss

would prompt a write as if a shotgun shell
had arrived not overnight, but instant implosion,
in a chest that could not contain emotion,
only seep, none to keep, skin to shed,
and of course,
tears of, what should I call them,
tears of more than life, tears of essence,
real tears come from invisibly indivisibly real places,
wiping me clean

and so I oathed, I swore,
the Supreme Court and the Village Clerk
jointly administered this vow,
my hand upon my heart,
where the words come from,

what ere you pro-prose,
what ere delights,
or havocs thy temperaments,
if to be,
duly noted, dispatched and possibly
shared,
let it be only thine best,
to the higher standard,
hold thyself close and closer still,
be happy to admit failure,
for that is excellence attained,
and when you are satisfied,
then we will be
but not mere satisfied too,
enthralled to you
for in they words,
you raise the sea level of this world's humanity,
higher and higher*

so, thank you
and thank yourself
this line drawn,
only at or above it,
the goods ones breathe...
the oxygen of poetry

he, hardly fit,
sleeps fitfully

he, like a baby,
up and down at 2am

the cerebrum racked,
like a street *** so needy,
for a low caloric,
non-alcoholic snack

pickles - the almost zero solution,
dill in particular,
or even the slightly bad boy cousins,
the buttered variety

so in his customized original
100% sleeping skin gear,
standing in front of the shiniest fridge
gleaming,
his unfortunate reflection somewhat
steamy,
indecisive, which, his pickle, to to choose,
which to eat, completely complete,
to celebrate his dietetic restraint

so she, the yoga ballerina lioness,
finds him upright but not uptight,
leaving him in an awkward
so to speak, poem, pickling,
naked and speechless,
as the mouth is fully engorged

and on point
she summarizes
most eloquently,
the ****** and the crudités and the et. al.,
with a succinctly pithy observation:

"ah, I see (me wincing),
still crazy after all these years

...and other stories