Your anonymous blog

To my face you are kindness itself:
cheerful, always upbeat,

but in your anonymous blog
you rip me apart.

You press your thumb and forefinger on each side,
hold, pull and rend,
and rupture my very innards.

You focus on me,
my life, my words, my actions and my body
like you are a Celestron Telescope
searching for every single crater and irregularity.

With an Ultima Barlow lens
and your Leica M9 18MP
You grab each natural image
and then rearrange reality with
your precious, perversely pesuasive, periscopic Photoshop technique.

poetic liberty has leased you a license to assassinate,
humiliate,
decimate,
invalidate,
severely lambaste,
and mockingly castrate
everything that I identify as me.

literary freedom allows you to liberally fabricate,
mutilate,
denigrate,
incriminate,
scathingly castigate,
and maliciously urinate
on what others think of me.

To my face you are kind beyond selflessness,
but on your online beat,
your anonymous malevolence
sets you apart
from all the others
that have ever wanted
to write me up,
put me down,
and publish me out.

– Zumwalt (2011) (copied from www.zumpoems.com)

Something Bad

Something bad is coming
Worse than any Grand Funk Railroad Reunion Concert
Worse than watching a full episode of Meet the Kardashians
With all commercials included.

I not only have read about it
I can feel it
So much more bothersome than
Hay fever in May.

It's the Universal Fender ******
Havoc beyond compare
It's Universal Affliction and Ruination
Heavy weight and high-profile kind of stuff.

This universe is dumb
So much stupider than the armadillos that get hit by my little Fiat
This universe is worse than any teen age driver
Not watching where it goes
Or what is coming down the road.

Ten to the ten to the ten to the ten and more universes out there
Outnumbering all the cable channels both regular and High Def
More numerous than all the cockroaches in all the cities on the East Coast
Going any which way they please
Not planning ahead
Or working with the AAA or the highway safety department

More universes than every single observation ever made by every single person
More than every single argument between all the married couples
In all countries
On all existing planets
In all existing galaxies.

Each time you think of a possible universe, it exists!
Unless we all stop thinking there will be more and more and more.

Each universe moving
Some fast
Some even faster
Some inches apart from each other
Concealed behind some hidden dimension
About to turn the corner at full speed.

There's a collision
A crash
Not too far up the road
Every universe distracted
As if they are texting away
Following their own set of laws
Without regard for any right of way.

There's a smash-up coming up very soon
One universe piles into another
with one of those universes being ours in particular
The one that I live in.

I am scared
I know that adding a shoulder harness to my office chair
is not going to be enough.

I am terrified
I cannot figure out
as I make my last will and testament
who I can leave the house and dog to.

Today, tomorrow or maybe later
It is sure to happen
All my plans for no purpose
All my purposes to no point
I panic
Abandoning all my activities
Crawling into the attic
Taking a pen
A flashlight
And a notebook
And wondering
If there is any new thought
I can have that might make this all better
Without creating
One more
**** reckless
Out-of-control
universe.

--Zumwalt (2011)  (copied from www.zumpoems.com)

She radiates brilliance based on fine features, good form and skillfully applied cosmetics.
He balances confidence and accessibility with an unerring certainty of success.
The universe is expanding, Inflation rampant,
Stretching everything more than any yoga instructor would allow.

Our planet is stuck in motion at hundreds of thousands kilometers per second.
I stock up on Dramamine and Ginger Ale.

She worries that she will never see him again.
He is lost in the business of the day.
These galaxies race away from us faster than the speed of light
And are accelerating more each trillionth of a second.

Some Alien out there has calculated that this is the last week to DVR an episode of the Game of Thrones before losing all contact.
Some Star Watcher is now stuck with a static picture of this faraway galaxy
from here on out.

She is not simply a set of particles:
                                she is moving very fast.
In relation to her changing position in space,
                                he is moving even faster.

This universe is not stable;
It strays too far from itself
Running away from a past that was too small.

This universe is accelerating
As if it has immunity from moving violations
Or has appropriately mounted a very good radar detector.

One day her particles and his
Will dance tumultuously in the debris encircling some infant sun
Or get pulled into a black hole.

She radiates,
He balances,
The universe inflates,
Stretching everything way beyond belief
And ultimately, slightly out of reach.

-- Zumwalt (copied from www.zumpoems.com)