A delicious little bakery
is only down our street
the smell of baking bread
well.. it really is a treat

It is run by Mrs ******
she is just so very charming
but she is a little clumsy
it's really quite alarming

You see,
she does her best to make the cakes
and bake such tasty bread
but the currants just go everywhere
and in the pies instead

And in the Cornish pasties
there is very often nuts
and in the fruit pie filling
bacon and beef cuts

But she seems to be quite fancy
well there has been many rumours
of her and the deliveryman
well... she flashes him her bloomers

But she really is so charming
poor soul.. she has the worst mishaps
like when she inadvertently
displayed her finest baps

And no one will forget
when in came a group of nuns
all asking some tea cakes
but out popped her Chelsea buns

But she really is a riot
you can't help but love her so
she give you all you ask for
in a bargain box 'to go'

And she takes care of her customers
and gives out treats to sample
you'll never go home hungry
you'll end up with quite a armful

So if you get a moment
take a stroll just down our street
to Mrs ******'s bakery
she really is a treat.

12:45
The sun has gone black,
the world is asleep.
In the family room,
the television clicks on by itself.
It illuminates my father,
half-naked,
covered in processed cheese dust.
The channel changes to Cinemax,
******* *******.
My mother walks in
without her glasses,
and for a moment
her screams of disgust
are indistinguishable
from the throes of passion
broadcast on the cheap
Acer dad bought at Costco.
Elsewhere,
in South America,
a volcano has erupted.
It sprays debris
and detritus
over a small village
with a long name.
Postmodern Vesuvians **** ash,
frozen not with fear
but rigor mortis.
The CNN report plays for three hours.
The world moves on.
Later,
a man explodes in a convenience store.
Guts rocket outward,
onto wine coolers
and travel packages of Chex,
and the clerk just shrugs.
If you go there today,
all that’s left is the smell of ammonia
and a dark stain on the ceiling.
At the same moment,
a toddler steps off a cliff,
spiraling into the abyss,
but never stops falling.
He’s been going for days,
months,
years.
He has kept his audience updated
through a Bluetooth that we tossed down after him.
He’s had windburn since he fell,
but the ointment we sent
hasn’t reached him yet.
His parents are now expecting.
He just yawns.
In my family room,
the woman on Cinemax is climaxing,
screaming,
pulling her hair out
while a greased-up middle aged
pizza deliveryman autoerotically asphyxiates
himself with a hair tie.
As she wails for the last time,
the TV screen shatters,
glass ejected,
blazing through the air
like Flight 93
seconds before impact.
Sparks salivate from the exposed wires,
then cackle down
into a signed black.
And as this happens,
the children on Exeter St
stop crying.
The alcohol in a small town liquor store in Wyoming
un-ferments,
and the world, for a moment,
ceases to turn.
But only for a blink.

it’s cold now.
it was warmer back in january,
the sky was made of bleach,
falling on our heads and christening us
angels.

i put a *** of water on for tea,
take out a pick, and carve out
iceblocks to hold the moon
in. a bird is painted into the
snowbanks, its eyes popping
from the force of july’s fever.

giving up on the idea of
mac and cheese or chicken noodle
soup, something substantial,
i order chinese takeout. the deliveryman’s
lips are purple. i eat it cold, like
it’s meant to be.

I should, by all practical matters, quit looking through old photos of when my life was much "simpler." Childhood photos, to be exact. They serve only as a reminder of how old I am, and how much older I soon will be. (Yea, I know, ending a sentence with a prepostion is against  the rules of proper penning.)

Looking at these pics, I catch myself playing the game of "whatever became of who?" Those other kids on that cul-de-sac in Corpus Christi, Texas, "waaay, waaay" back in the mid to late forties. One, in particular, comes to mind.

His name was "Duke" Jones. Perhaps, the most popular "kid" on the block.He was our next-door neighbor. An excellent "fielder" when we played baseball, heck of a fast runner, not much of a hitter. But, he was a lot more than that. For, you see, Duke, was a dog. A Doberman Pinscher, a former guarddog at military installations during the war, and rehabilitated before re-entering civilian life. And, he loved children.

Duke knew everyone on the block, knew the postman, the milk deliveryman (yes,there was a time when dairies had milk delivered to your home, but that can be another story), knew which house we lived at, the vehicles our parents drove, he was our protector. If a stranger, such as a door to door salesman, entered his territory, he froze, staring, watching, positioning himself between us and the stranger. If that stranger stepped on to the walk leading to a front door, Duke would start moving, stealthily, instincts, training, taking control. If a strange vehicle entered,  he took notice, watched, intently. My mother and father often said, "We have the safest block in the city."
Our family had moved to another city in 1951, when we got a letter from Duke's "parents", telling us that Duke had passed away at age 16. Looking at that photo in my hand, Duke hasn't gone anywhere.

copyright: richard riddle: 11/02/15

She is prone to bouts of hysteria.
She smokes on her front porch, eyes fixed on the drawling, dipping sun,
kicking at clumps of her wisterias.
She is getting hysterical. She is waiting for a miracle.
It finally arrives. She signs for it, waves off the deliveryman who offers to help bring it inside.
“Never mind,” she mutters to herself, to her future self, lugs it in, box and all, across the threshold,
old cigarette tossed forgotten by the road.
She unpacks it, checks for cracks, dusts it off, brushes down the Styrofoam packs.
“Hmm,” she hums, thumbs brushing across her forearms. Her fingers drum against the table.
Finally, she sets it on her mantle. She tilts her head left and right –
Maybe it’s the light. Maybe it’s the angle.
It’s the furniture, she decides. It doesn’t match, it clashes terribly. There’s really nothing she can do about it, there isn’t anything to be done.
She picks it up once again, looks it over, sighing deeply. She never keeps her receipts, never really returns anything, but with this – she’ll admit that she’s sincerely disappointed.
And she’s disjointed, she wants a Camel. She is certain the enamel of her two front teeth has started chipping, and then suddenly her miracle is slipping, tipping down out of her hands,
and there’s no way she can stop it
dropping down onto her tile, cracking out in violent pinwheels
smashing cleanly into a pile of useless shards on hard ceramic
and she can feel the teardrops starting; she doesn’t think that she can stand it –
because her miracle was precious;
because she thinks she would have kept it.

When I was a child, I watched TV
I believed self control was
not a part of my personality

Patience, a virtue I lacked
I'll download another app
to while away the time

Time spins away from me
Distractions are easier to reach for
The phone, the credit card, a touch away

The door is for necessary errands,
the door is for the deliveryman to arrive to,
the door is to be shut.

Life goes at a snail's pace
with no map, going to a place I dont really want to.
I put my seatbelts on and shrug.