The Wicked Witch O’ The West – she’s an intimidator, a terminator, even a scarecrow baiter.

But a fashionista?  Never!

What goes through her head in the morning?

Does she consider her mole-peppered avocado reflection in the bathroom mirror and think:  “I’ve got it!  An ankle-length black sack topped off with an inky spire for a hat.”

That Bubonic Plague look is so not happening anymore.

She should invest in a quality moisturizer and accent that exotic skin tone. 

Maybe use some kohl liner to bring out those beady little eyes.

Cash in on that edgy ethnic look.

She definitely needs a makeover.

But whom can she consult?

She’s surrounded by devotees of fashion faux pas.

Her minions, the flying monkeys, dress like simian bellhops in drag.

The munchkins, while an endearing little race, are enamored of horizontal stripes, tacky flowers on hats, and turned-up-at-the-toe footgear.

And Glinda, the good one with the high falsetto voice and cascading curls?  She looks like Marie Antoinette on her way to the prom.  Off with her head!

The poor Wicked Witch O’The West doesn’t stand a chance.

If I only knew the zip code to Oz, I’d send her some pink thong panties to head her in the right direction.

Damn that Dorothy!

If only she’d given the witch those ruby red slippers.

Copyright 2009

I never tried to put an anaconda into a taxi cab, but I imagine it would be fatiguing (for the both of us).

I never pumped vodka and perfume into the gas tank of a compact car, but I imagine it would be dangerous (and costly).

I never danced a rhumba to the ringtones of a midnight call to the White House, but I imagine it would be alarming (and undoubtedly illegal).

I never baked Chicken Picasso using tempera paint, sequins and clay, but I imagine it would taste horrid (not to mention the calories).

I never stroked a cat (not my own) with an electric toothbrush (not my own), but I imagine it would be unnerving (for only one of us).

I never floated behind enemy lines in a boat made of newspaper, but I imagine I wouldn’t make it (not even the headlines).

I never did a lot of things and it’s probably for the best – but I can always imagine (for the both of us).

Copyright 2009

Vonnegut walks into a bar.

It is the end of the (insert name of current American conflict) war.

Vonnegut always has a drink at the onset and resolution of any American war.

That is why he’s an alcoholic.

He is a patriotic rebel without a just cause.

As Tolstoy once pointed out to him, it’s a very long stretch between war and peace.

“What’ll ya have this war, Vonnegut?”

Vonnegut bristles with remnant shock and awe.   “The Breakfast of Champions.”

The bartender runs his stubby fingers over the necks of bottles and the spines of books.  He is a chiropractor for aching, tired souls:

                     Bushmills – Hemingway

                    Chevas – Fitzgerald

                    Wild Turkey – Vonnegut

A 325-page unread paperback smacks down on the bar.

Vonnegut snorts.  “Not that trash.  Give me the real breakfast of champions.”

The nonplussed bartender transforms into mixologist.  A martini appears.

“I drink.   Therefore, I am.”  Vonnegut makes his toast and disappears.

All that remains behind are a dusting of cigarette ash, a white curlicued moustache hair, and a soiled cocktail napkin bearing the felt-tipped rendering of a sphincter.

The gist of this vignette?

                     War and peace are too cumbersome to ever learn.

                     Bars and libraries are siamese twins separated at birth.

                    Authors who pack tongues in their cheeks always

                         prefer the real deal.

God bless you and rest in peace, Vonnegut.  Your war is over.

Copyright 2009

There was a time in my life when I lost my soul, literally lost my soul.

I didn’t forget to take it with me, or misplace it at the library, or lend it to some religious zealot with burning crosses for eyes.

My anima, my essence, my spirit had called it quits, packed its bags, and hitched a ride to Budapest, the Mojave, or wherever it is that lost souls go to find themselves.

I never even got so much as a postcard.

Did we fight?  Was there someone else?  Were irreconcilable differences the final fatal straw?

I wish it were any of those.

But I simply forgot to feed it.

My soul became the abandoned carnival goldfish left neglected on a shelf.

No wonder it became famished and left.

So there I was, soul-less and clue-less in the vast wasteland of suburbia.

Golf-course lawns with no holes for bellybuttons stretched out in feudal chunks as far as the eye could see.

It was a desperate land of clockwork precision, unemployed working dogs, and families who migrated to the ocean every spring without fail.

It was a lemming paradise.

And I was a social pariah, captive in a raised ranch with no plastic containers to burp or random landscapes to hang.

Yea, though I walk through the Valley of Depression, I will fear no evil because eventually my soul will run out of clean underwear and coins and need to hurry back home to its sugar mama, I pray.

And then it happened.

The universe spewed forth a hiccup, a fart, a belch – a release of noxious gases toxic with chaos.

It was impolite yet wonderful.

Any cultural infidel has the innate understanding that chaos is the modeling clay for creation.

What was I to do but hold my nose and roll up my sleeves.

I cried the blues until I turned red.

I pushed the raised ranch into the unwitting arms of someone who could love it  as much as it should be loved.

I inherited a toto dog that jumped instead of walked.

Life stood on its head, stuck out its tongue, and preached nonsense.

So now I’ve taken up with a much older abode, one arthritic with age and creaking with stories.

The wrinkles, dementia, and loose moral floorboards intrigue me.

I think I’ve found love in the city again…if only my soul were here to witness the jubilee.

I miss that rascal soul and its impudent ways, especially now that I’ve morphed from tourist to resident.

We would make for a wicked menage, this house, my soul, and I.

Ah, well.  If wishes were horses then who would clean up the mess?

Today I have the toto dog safely tethered to a string in order to keep him from jumping on the clouds.

He is such a ridiculous bit of love.

This neighborhood suits us both, the misfits, with its oddly dressed landscape of ethnicity, diversity, creativity, and all the other “itys” a city can handle.

I feel like jumping myself.

That’s when I notice it – the perfect palate of upper dentures placed in a planter down by the river.

My imagination could never create such an image, not even when it was young and in shape.

Then there is the giggle, the scent of humor, the tap on the shoulder.

My soul has returned, with a fistful of souvenirs, and a forwarding address.

Copyright 2009

Buddha was sitting in the top row of the vending machine, waiting for the za-zing of coins to drop.

He sat there, all zen in his lotus position, acting as if being between nacho chips and cheese puffs was instant nirvana.

I put in my quarters and watched transfixed as the unpretentious spiritual master floated down into the metal receiving tray.

I chose serenity over empty calories on a dreary Monday.

Besides, who expected Buddha to arrive at snack time?

Copyright 2009

What does Nana do on her day off?

Wendy, Michael, and John can’t be much of a problem.

They’re such Darling children – the future of Great Britain, kneaded and cut out of the thick upper crust, starched oxford souls sewn tight to silver spines, stiff upper lips refusing to pucker around a whistle or a kiss.

Most of their time is spent balancing exotic accents on the ends of nasal syllables.

These are not the hooligans who play with matches in highly flammable closets, the ruffians who roll classmates for tea and crumpet money, the urchins who draw filthy graffiti on the whitened walls of the puritan pysche.

No.  Not Wendy, Michael, and John – the Darlings.

The worst mischief they can imagine is to wear mother’s and father’s conservative chapeaux and waltz (dare say it, waltz!) around their baby blueblood nursery in imitation of some madcap version of a Victorian soiree.

Nana undoubtedly wiles away her working hours in the mundane drudgery of guardianship, retrieving a silk stocking here, fetching cod liver oil there, all the while enduring the ignominy of an inane nanny head covering.

It is a dull and dreary lot, even for the family pet.

So…what does Nana do on her day off?

Now there is a story to rival that of Neverland’s mancub, Mr. Barrie.

Perhaps one day I will sprinkle flea dust over the nursery surroundings and follow her adventure.

Good Nana.  Sweet Nana.  Nana gone feral on her private day off, howling pathetic profanities of the working class at an apathetic moon, rolling insanely in the detritus of unwritten storylines, burying the gnawed shadow of another unsuspecting Pan.

Copyright 2009