con-none-drum-roll please

why do “people” wear
really short ,
really tight, skirts,
then spend the rest of the day
tugging,

tugging repeatedly,

on an invisible schedule,

to con us into lowering
the temperature
in them
overheated classrooms?

ogdiddy

“Your honey plenty crispy”

nothing in the fridge to eat,
I, Grumpy Mcgrupy, intone
to those responsible for its
fulfillment and my well being

the greek yogurts all have passed
their expiration date, silent assassins,
the cheese bin international emptied
of American and Swiss citizens,
the remainder wrapped in white in
languages not spoken

the produce drawer, naked in its drawers,
except for a sweet Vidalia onion from Georgia,
which is just no good for fresh direct eating,
besides, my tears, copious already
at my state of famination ruination

final recommendation textual arrives,
a solitary fresh honey crisp appe in the fruit bin,
which in desperation I inhaled while
writing poetry in the bathtub

text my pleasure at this last resort,
with a shopping list to which the response comes
in a tone of high moral ground, teasingly defensive,


Your honey plenty crispy!

rendered speechless but her words
added too,
to the shopping list...

a dear, dear swatch watch

this generous timepiece gives me 31 days in every month
ignoring the papal protestations of one gregory gregorian,
who I remember well from Catch 22

these extra days are part of my own personal poetic
calendar and are like overripe fruit, use them or lose them

WHEN I visit you, expect me a day or two
later than scheduled- but then again, I will
overstay my welcome

Ogdidy

i am a slow dawner,
sometimes it takes a moment
or a day or even a daze,
till I realize that an insult
flung my way though it
didn’t latch on immediately

as her ears are in perpetuity
plugged with apple earbuds,
it is always a surprise when
she acknowledges me in
real-time and when it is a subtle
insect sized insult, it oft goes
steathily around me like a lion in jungle,
stalking its less than observant prey,
wing aweem away, right past me!

so when in a momentary open ear status,
I inform how nice it is to hear our actual
conversation, she adroitly respondez-moi
(en anglais)
with the title of this poem…

there are so many
types of pockets,
especially for jeans.
my favorite is the “ticket pocket,”
that little pocket stitched
inside a bigger front pocket,
maybe also called a
“watch” pocket,
supposedly
a cowboy designation
for safeguarding
their chained pocket watch receptacle.

who ya kidding?

anyway, a second naming
more to my liking:

seems cowboys put their train ticket where they could easily
retrieve them as the conductor conducted himself properly,
asking each passenger after every stop to show his ticket.

so it came to be,
Levi gave us pockets of variety,
durable, baggy ones to
carry our jewels comfortably,
one for tightly ticket embracing,
and further inspired that
sewn on the hat of
every railroad conductor,
a russian motto,
Trust but Verify.

I myself use the ticket pocket for
my keys,
which in any other jeans pocket, movement
causes cruel and unusual pain,
but not if that huge bunch of jangling
instruments of torture are tightly tucked
in their own prison interior,
incapable of doing hot yoga or
any other stupid exercise requiring
Bo jingling jangling movement

Just don’t you dare ask me
what the purpose of each key be,
it is just a tortured secret for men
in the private parts of their soul,
to confess that keys carried
for three houses ago,
are a metallic proofs that men
are indeed as dumb
as women think they are...

show me a rusted lock somewhere,
I got an hour to try ‘em all

my father was a
pretty perfect guy,
beloved by most
and especially children.

He was a ‘gallant’ (gaaa~laant)
of european extraction,
who tipped his homburg
and greeted everyone by name,
forgetting none and
who was related to whom,
or their distant cousins
in Kansas City,
with whom he stayed
when he was a
traveling salesman,
in 1933.

My only complaint,
was and remains,
he never went with me
to Yankee Stadium,
saw the emerald green
diamond miracle
in the Bronx hidden,
as he, small businessman,
worked six days a week,
and had no time
for juvenile sports pastimes,
otherwise, he was my
All-American…

Otherwise, he was perfect

Ask Americans why they prefer kosher Hebrew National Frankfurters for July 4th cookouts



they will reply:

they are extra clean,
possibly even a little blessed
by the rabbin-ate,
and everybody knows
the jews got all the luck,
so don’t forget the mustard and
the pickled relish,
which rhymes with
you know what:
(embellish, shellfish (?), psychedelic).

kosher hot dogs,
love that jewish treat,
a digestive hellish,
proof positive that hot dogs
make America great
again and again,
in brown, yellow, and green.

loved many women
in my daytime life,
still, not enough,
to satisfy my needs.

that is why god created
the inhabitants of a
priest-cohen holy dark,
so we can be alone
when we
fill out the list
that
I deny exists.

keeping it safe,
so only they
can see me,
& vice versa,
so apropos,
nobody else can.

Romance is great,
when it is
wordless and silent,
no interrupt-us
when writing many
imaginary imagery,
only love poems
with both
ambidextrous hands

if my true name you uncovered,
and called me out by same,
without spasm-ing,
first middle and the lost at-last

you, like me would wonder
what the heck my parentals
were imbibing
at such a joyous occasion, my
cursed naming ceremony

but thanks to them,
I’ll be buried with a full head
of fair thicker hair;
that’s why parents say:

“**** good thing you kids don’t get to pick your parents names!”

asked what I desire for breakfast,
replied, scones and crumpets from the
good ole U. of K. with a cups of celebratory
Jamaican coffee  (tee-hee)

she did not even bother
to snort in an elegant
derisory manner,
just walked away,
just turned on her
high heeled sneakers,
(a very worthy sight),
“prithee, grilled cheese sandwiches,
it is then,”
quoting the Bard

alright.

No need to ask me which cheese,
she experientially knowledgeable
in my hard milk acculturation,
one will be home grown ameddican,
real cheese, not Kraft “cheese food”
the other swiss, unless
smoked mozzarella is in the larder,
(who has a larder anymore?)

as I am in matters of cheese,
I’m a transgender, formerly bisexual,
but still a questionable, open minded,
but globalist willing to
entreat any country that values
cheese above war

you write of dismembered leaves,
pains too sweet,
using incontrovertible idiocies like
quiet rain, droplets shining like sunlight,
edible goodbye cheerios,
tastes that burn eyelids colored in
blood stained mustard yellow,
the gladness of sadness,
reversible rivers flowing heavenwards,

really?

dechambered hearts, ventricular mysteries,
brains wearing wooly sport jacket helmets
and others, more weirder too,
wonderfully inexplicable,
other jimmy olsonian beauties,
non-lexical non-commonsensical
ecumenical hysterical
chemical verbal reactionaries,
and then you wonder why,

PEOPLE ******* HATE POETRY?

ahem!

phasers on full,
having violated
someone’s human rights,
prepared to be eliminated.

on trial for a continuance
to keep on breathing,
gave a summation speech:

an untitled poem
is a diamond with
a single imperfection,
casting shadow doubt
on the flawlessness of
a huge finger rock

it’s an angel without a halo,
it’s a cat without any claws,
it’s a ice cream sundae sans cherry,
it’s a rudderless ship, no captain,
it’s rock ‘n roll without **** Jagger,
country with no Bonnie or Jolene,
female songwriters with no Adele

it’s a woman you’ve met on a train,
falling in love, instantly, whimsically,
she says I love you too! but there’s
no profit in it, no chance of success,
leaves without leaving her name

it’s a poem without a directive, a legendary,
imperfect perfection without a signpost pointer,
it’s the only loving worth having, that when lost,
unforgiving, the thousandth cut, so when she asks,
“forgive me?” your silence chokes, you cannot reply

incapable of completion,
you’re un-entitled,
you’re untitled,
a blank,
whited-out,
nameless as well

forevermore

ah pasta!

the quality of good writing
is always strained,
unlike mercy,
always salted and drained,
the experience
combinatory of all
your five senses,
together in concert,
lusting for
each rivulet of
spaghetti strands
stands,
indivisible, under god.

calorically sinning individually,
defying forking unification,
each recalling the where,
the what, or the when,
but not
ah,
the how!

matters this know-now,
the how,
this how came calling,
fork+ spoon,
the resurrection
of inspiration,
the genetic sequence of
past mis-steppes

the how of life oft
grows spoiled, fuzzy first,
because a human assembled
it a long ago, the how,
but time took it upon itself,
to deconstruct
so
the tomato sauce bolognese
inspirational stains
exist to remind us
how
to remain perfect forever

poetica est enim propter cibum

poetry is what you eat

she inquires why I write so many poems,
easy comes reply:
It gives me a fantastic living,
it makes and gives, each poem,
a calculation, a reconciliation
of who I am...a miner of the
mineral wealth in my veins

every painting in the house is
modestly crooked due to the
twinning effects of
vibrations and moon-full
spoonfuls of gravity.

causing the tensile strength of the wires to
pensile (1) slowly surrender to point downwards.
It occurs, perhaps
it’s me that’s crooked,
but that’s just plainly
in depth insanity,
like writing a thousand poems
in one 14 day
long sitting.,
now that’s
croissant curvey crazy

nah, not me,
not totally nuts yet,
after all these years,
though not for crooked trying.

A Wouldn’t Object Limerick

for a few reasons to objectify,
peddle her a pedestal to request
a little eyeliner, some mascara,
actual clothes of non-athletic wear lineage,
cease and desist with daily loon of lulu-ness;
dare not suggest some lipstick or heaven forbid,
a piece of jewelry sparkle, lest I be trussed
and tested, returned to the closet to join
my fella sweatpants of graying demeanor,
of colorless pallor
and
smelly familiarity

no, not a political divide crossed.

no, not switching fandom to the
hated other crosstown team,
with the clownish bobble head
thing.

once a meat eater, a meat eater
for life.

stolidly, boringly straight, waaay
too late
to switch that side.

the switch referred to herein is more
profound, straining boundaries of a
decades long term relationship.

I desire  to switch sides of the bed we
sleep on, after decades of habit, that
transferred with us when we traveled,
moved etc. To each Our Side was the
Natural Order of Things, a higher law,
immutable, constitutional and ranked
higher than the Ten Commandments.

over time, my side sank beneath the
excess weight of growing old with
bad lifestyle habits…a bad back, an
aging frame, core muscles that seem
to have been decored, made a new
firmer bed a necessity,

when we called 1-800-Mattress, we two
social security retirees, were shocked,
shocked! at the hole in our budgets
such an expenditure required.  We would
be forced to survive on bread (brioche)
and water (Pelligrino) for weeks, our only
condimentable affordable would be margarine,
a pseudo butter made in chemical factories.

so, she refused.

I sank into deep despair, for who could deny
her finger pointing “J’accuse” where responsibility
for this truly lay (lie?).

marriage counselors demanded exorbitant premium
prepayments, Medicare said ha ha, and United Health
Care was united in their ***** opposable *******
but eloquent “Mais Non!”

As I write this, Climate Comservationists have confirmed
my sinking side is now receding at a rate of 4 cm/year.
The implicit implication was at the Great Melt Flood of 2050
that was coming to sink us, I would not be quietly floating down
the Hudson River out to a South Pacific isle, but would join Jason Bourne in the green crystal clear waters of the nearby East River, but unlike Jason, I can’t hold my breath for twenty minutes, ergo and ipso facto, I am doom-ed.

So I have started a GoFundMe to obtain a new airy mattress  capable of variable soft/hard differential setting on each side, with an inflatable air pumping gizmo just for the end of days.

Thanking you in advance and be assured lol your contributions will remain not anonymous.

Yours, Extra, Sincerely,

Ogdiddynash (Ogdiddynatsch)

I am the dishwasher man.
a responsible handyman needs good tools,
given pots and pans to scrub with burnt black stains,
not of mine making, even more infuriating,
of twenty ++ years of prior Duration.
(definitely deserving of a capital D)

went to the supermarket seeking vision,
guidance and a variety of choices,
for a product specific,
not Made in China,
lest we purposely allow
ourselves to be poisoned,
so purchased a Scotch-Brite
*** scrubbing brush
of hecho mexicano origin

Now I stare at the Amazon screen,
undecided how many replacement
brush heads I should acquire,
the cheapest unit price is for a box of 1000,
which no smart store of
intelligent repute would ever carry,
(cause you would never come back)
and which if I actually use up,
an even steven 1000,
it means  I’ll be
scrubbing pots
from on high.

but my awe for genius wisdom
is further esteemed,
as they say of it,
Amazon,
makes you buy
mostly what you don’t need,
very cheaply
or
“each according to his own stupidity.”

The P Propensity


this benighted dishwasher,
is familiar with the
P Propensity Theorem,
seeing as he
(think grizzled, unshaven guy in the back of the restaurant cleaning plates)

invented it

the need to solve
for the need to P,
while undertaking prep
for the great dishwashing,
is mathematically soluble:

N, the number of ***** dishes
D%, the variable percentage of how *****,
           (necessitating pre-scrubbing, or not,)
M, the meal, breakfast lunch or supper,
  (a modifier of N)
Ba2, bladder age squared)

formula:
if P = N(D%) {M_}
    b  [where M1 is breakfast, M2 is lunch etc.]


is >1,

then

better get
an adult diaper

<>


many the hours
she has spent
trying to ascertain which,
is she wearing

is it black or
is it navy?

leaves her
amazingly distraught;
she stands in bare yellow bulb light,
in a jaundiced glory undecided,
locked in her
not-a-walk-in closet,
till I’m called once-too-many-times
to catch and release her,
asking me, grrr,
my opinion,

what do I think?

brought her
my old school tie,
Joseph-striped of many colors,
but essentially preppy navy,
but only intended for
closet comparison purposes.

as far as I know,
she’s still
hanging
about there,
hung up, so to speak,
in an ocean of indecision,
right where I left her,
throughly undecided.

ogdiddy