Moonshiner

Happy Birthday to my dad who came way before:

-- rock 'n' roll
-- rice a roni
-- play doh
-- saran wrap
-- comic books
-- tea bags
-- M&M's
-- liquid paper
-- cotton blends
-- the hula hoop
-- pizza delivery
-- the Jeep
-- velcro
-- sawdust
-- Mr. Potato Head
-- reality TV (or just TV period)
-- fish sticks
-- scrabble
-- CB radios (dad's handle - moonshiner)
-- the magic 8 ball
-- telemarketers
-- drive-in movies
-- self-help books
-- chocolate chip cookies
-- and flashing turn signals

But came after:

-- banana splits
-- kites
-- sliced bread
-- the wheel
-- the Olympics
-- the telephone
-- the printing press
-- ice cream cones
-- planes w/ single wings
-- dictionaries
-- zippo lighters
-- shoelaces
-- AM radio
-- bologna
-- the circus

And who will always be a throwback to the Wild West:

Facial masterpiece
A wax-on wax-off affair
Handlebar moustache.

Root Beer

Sojourn on the wind
Chrome accoutrements a blur
Harley Davidson.

LSD (Light Show Delirium)

Off to work I went
Dude, I must've been trippin'
Kaleidoscope sunrise.

Btw, DO NOT take frenetic photos whilst driving & texting -- It's dangerous & none too bright!

Pencil Me In

Holland windmill chimes
Tulips bloom in lazy canals
Bicycle for two.

So -- one day I'll ask you and your girls -- I'll ask at the eleventh hour from inside a gabled canal house, I'll ask extempore from my swinging pleas, I'll ask from sitting trees, I'll ask under alluvial suns and before consenting gods, I'll ask for a ready yes! Let's go dutch, to Holland under Baroque skies, to ride bicycles w/ silver carillons and criss-crossed baskets, in and around the quay. Straw baskets holding Wagenaar's motifs and Delftware tiles. We'll go to outdoor cheese markets and windmill gardens. And we'll eat behind cul-de-sac windows and we'll play w/ our diamonds as we talk subliterate-ly about the nuances of Adriaen Coorte's stillness at the Rijksmuseum. We'll pick tulips from our hot chocolate cups and drop them from the balconies of brown cafes. Or we could find a mash pot or waffles at the Cafe Americain. Or chocolate sprinkles on toast, if you delight. But we'd have to insist on wooden bowls and Vermeer's light.

And one day you may actually consider it. Come on, you can't deprive me of replacing my cracked tile, the one I dropped inside a canary yellow clog. Winter break, one can skate on the frozen avenues or Summer break, one can smell arrays of flowers while wearing blindfolds. I could simply follow you and the girls, while documenting on posterity's arm. I'll stall the movement of a golden morning while you circle yes or no.

Impossibly Fluffy

For my Southern Crush

Love is made of fluff

Aery marshmallow bouquet

A sweet pantomime.

x0x0

Rabbit Crossing

Once upon an epoch, definitely A.D., there was a white bunny on the holey road to Damascus, where the ultimate profit of sin was absolution. He was carrying a sinner's backpack, which carried an offering of empty light. Along the road he came upon brightly colored yet slightly antiqued plastic eggs. Each egg he found was filled w/ sins, approximately seven to be precise. He gathered all the eggs and it made the rucksack heavy and he pulled & pushed it slowly along -- a trail of his sinner's journey and it made him tired and weak and dehydrated and void. At a fork on the road he saw, like a resurrected mirage, a black hole or a hill.

Although he was exhausted beyond comprehensible repair he chose the hill of tranquil clarity. He dragged his transgressing sins to the height of the hill and fell atop them, w/ his arms outstretched like a veritable cross; his sins sounded like damnable thunder. From the outer pocket of his rucksack he pulled out a red & white crocheted cross from his scripture. He covered his assenting eyes w/ his guilty ears and prayed a sinner's prayer. He felt the manumitting hand of God's will pierce thru his confessor's hands, which felt like an immersion of his repentant's soul in a river of clear water till it stained. He unzipped his bag, w/ a devout acquiescence and the contents rose thru a breath of forgiving air and the empty light shot to the exalted heavens and he was uplifted to a rejoicing that only an Easter bunny could feel.

*My Cross to Bear*

Can't carry my cross
To the end of the driveway
It's too damn heavy.

I was brought to life w/ a sinner's breath
and I will die begging a sinner's forgiveness
for Jesus came to my sinner's threshold
and I, unworthy, anointed his savior's feet
and I pushed my sinner's thorns toward salvation
on his take-away-my-suffering's brow, and yet still
he loves me; I wasn't meant to suffer a sinner's banquet
and on the day of truth I shall drink his mercy he told me so