He is a schizophrenic fur yo-yo at the end of my string, erratically releasing and unexpectedly returning.

There is no rhyme or reason, just pure kinetic motion with no chance for potential.

They say the trick is all in the wrist.

Ha!

There is no trick at all, just the pleasure of the treat.

Only an Einstein would understand.

Copyright 2009

No one wants a god with breasts, some omnipotent mother figure smothering high above, yelling out momisms:

     Eat your vegetables and leave the animals alone.

     Don’t run with weapons.  You’ll shoot your eye out.

     Look at you.  You have cholera.  Go right to bed and I’ll brew you some chicken soup.

     If you’re going to use things on this planet, then all I ask is to put them back where you found them.

     Don’t touch that country.  You don’t know where it’s been.

No.  No one wants a god with breasts.

But today, when I picked up the morning paper, I imagined what it would be like when she came home from the store.

I was actually filled  with love.

So I snuck down to the local church and left a mother’s day card by the sink in the women’s restroom.

I know at some point, if she exists, she’ll show up to wash the sins out of my socks.

Copyright 2009

I sit before the carnival fortune teller and watch as she snuffs her latest cigarette, grinding the smoldering carcass into the sandpit cemetery.

There must be at least twelve tobaccoed souls haunting that ashtray.

She coughs.

How can a soothsayer not predict lung cancer on a pack a day habit?

She coughs again, this gypsy caricature, festooned in fabric and jangling with bangles.

It’s not bronchitis.

She’s just anxious and sending me the signal that she wishes to hand out the rote answers to predictable questions about health, wealth, and amor.

She wants me to hurry up with my questions.

Will I get a promotion?  Where IS my soulmate?  How long before the swelling goes down?

I lean forward, my lips twitching, my mind itching, my eyes locked on to her bored vacant stare.

The five dollar bill scoots across the table and disappears down her bodice.  “Your three questions?”

She wants to move on to the next customer.

The timber of her voice has been pushed down a decibel by the strangulation of nicotine.

I am SO getting my money’s worth now.

Little does she know that she has just encountered the kokepelli of customers.

“Well…”  I drag my absurdity to new heights. 

“What IS the purpose of the platypus?”  Zing!

“Can dogs hear the sound of one master’s hand clapping?”  Bam!

“And,” I offer up a pause so pregnant that it is three weeks past due, “what kind of dance WOULD one thousand angels perform on the head of a pin?” Ta-da!

The fortune teller lights up another cigarette and starts mumbling foreign words coated with heavy consonants as the five dollar bill comes home.

My job here is done.

Some information is best left a mystery.

Copyright 2009

Every day on my way into work I pass by a sign that encourages me to “Adopt A Highway.”

I consider it.

My children are grown, my dog is well-behaved; maybe I need a neglected stretch of macadam to make my life complete.

But then I think of the hours of selfless nurturing:  the nights of wondering who’s driving the curving paved stretches, will there be an accident, are the double yellow lines neat and legible, not to mention the constant nagging about litter and roadkill.

In this society, appearance is everything.

It would be fun, though, to speculate on a bit of thoroughfare that belongs totally to me. 

Would it one day become an impressive interstate or maybe a tollway that could then, in turn, take care of me in my old age?

I glance at the void metal backside of the sign in my rearview mirror.

No.  I am now too irresponsible and tired to adopt a highway.

Copyright 2009

What if Romeo hadn’t crashed the Capulet ball, hadn’t crossed stars with ingenue Juliet, hadn’t tossed his heart up to a balcony in Capua?

And what if Juliet had smacked down that tentative tender heart, had capitulated to the withered logic of parents, politics, and polite society, had covered her ears to the sweet sound of angels singing:  “This is the one, this is the one”?

The world would still have spun on its axis.  The tragedy of a romance would still have occurred.

The Capulets and Montagues would still have spit out each other’s family name and stomped on its heritage.

But the major question still remains:  what would have become of the celebrated young lovers themselves, this being a tragedy even greater than the Bard could tell.

Romeo would have eventually married a much younger woman from a most proper family.

His tights would have grown snug from good food and drink, while his spirit would have settled comfortably into the blue armchair of aristocracy.

He would have grown bald, apathetic, and unaware.  No lightning bolt of love would ever have struck his spine and electrified his soul until the hairs stood up on the back of his neck.

He would have slipped through life unconscious of his own power and magic.

The same for Juliet.

She would have pleased her family, negated herself, and agreed to marry an older man of wealth and power.

Her beauty would have coalesced into a mask while the light of possibility dimmed slowly from her eyes until the vacant stare made her even more alluring.

The sweet breath of her children would become the only tether holding her to earth, preventing her spirit from drying to dust and disappearing on a kiss.

Oh how the choices of one or the other could have turned this romantic tragedy into a tragic romance.

Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?

Leave thy wife and return to sweet Juliet.

Copyright 2009

Why didn’t the turtle feel the need to evolve?

Was it lazy?  Maybe bored?  Did it believe it had a good thing going and didn’t need to improve?

I don’t think so.

I have a theory that the turtle understands the concept of the circle the way Buddha gets down on zen.

Everything in life marches around back to where it started.  It’s the first law of nonsense.

So when the hands of the evolutionary clock hit high Cretaceous, the turtle merely tucked tail, content to ride out the storm of adaptation within the safety of its shell.

Let the rest of life run amock – growing hair, warming blood, filling up nature’s vacuum with mammalian lint.

The turtle would maintain its spot on the bargain shelf of life.

Simplicity can sometimes be the key to survival.

Copyright 2009

She was as frail and unnoticed as a whisper on the wind, floating beneath her cotton sail of memory, content to ride out the tempest of one last adventure.

A generic Ulysses, she sought out home with the same epic passion.

Only there was no Homer to immortalize her saga, to witness her quest for life’s answers.

Her voyage, her search, her story was destined to fade on the breath of the wind.

Ah, but once…

Copyright 2009

Attending an art reception where a piece of your work is on display and you are so not an artist is a bit like being pushed onstage when you were just wandering around looking for a hot dog.

The only thing going through your mind is “ketchup?” while everyone else is expecting Shakespeare or Fosse.

This is not the time to switch gears and pretend you are Othello with jazz hands.

It’s best to do an about face, grab a skewered chicken oer’doevre, and head on over to the bathroom.

Someone will come to get you when it’s time to go home.

Copyright 2009

Brave larva, be yourself.

Dare to shuck the shackles of binomial nomenclature and evolve into a subspecies rare and unexpected.

I only encourage this metamorphosis because you have chosen a chrysalis shaped like the resplendent letter “y” while the rest of your order goosesteps down the branch and slumps into the conventional “j”.

Dance, eccentric larva.

Wiggle and jiggle to some distant disco beat while the rest of your comrade cocoons deafen themselves to the music.

And when the moment for caterpillar self-actualization occurs, as indeed it eternally does, spring forth in your transvestite showgirl splendor and take center stage.

You are magnificent, you larva coming out to the world as a butterfly.

I literally hold my breath as you burst from your cocoon, arms extended in victorious triumph.

You are bedecked in ultimate drag queen regalia:  silvery-antennaed tacky tiara, sequined Halloween-colored gown, over-the-top-under-the bustier fishnet stockings, and makeup makeup makeup.

I am riveted as you flitter and flutter in your catwalk across the sky, the regina of queens, the mother of monarchs.

But alas!  You are viewed by others as an ant in drag.

I sigh as a bird of prey swoops down from the heavens and swallows you whole.

I should have known the world would not tolerate one so flashy and unique.

Copyright 2009

I wish I could write like Pollock paints, grabbing fistfuls of language out of the dictionary, squeezing emotion out of the alphabet, drizzling pronunciation onto the page.

Sheets of lined paper would litter the floor while I tarantella’d around them, pouring out liquid words, heedless of connection to any idea.

Balancing precariously on the head of the moment, I would teeter back and forth between past and future.

How envious I am of Pollock’s ability to stand so firmly on the microscopic present as if  it were a steel-girdered bridge instead of a freckle.

Maybe I could even randomly include words like “nail” and “cigarette” into the piece.

I wish I could write like Pollock paints, dancing out language and composing with my body, entering into my work and becoming its partner.

I would love to shout “Opa!” at the top of my lungs!

Copyright 2009