Stevieslaw: Exceptionalism

Posted on January 18, 2018 by stevieslaw

 

Political? Perhaps.

Exceptionalism

I only managed a single bite,
before I passed it on.
We passed so many things on then–
wine and weed and one another.
I think we thought it noble.

No one knew the name of that exquisite cheese.
Wealthy parents had sent it from France
and the package was as forgotten
as yesterday’s friendships.
But that single taste
stayed with me, it seems,
although in those days,
we had no trouble parting with anything.

I felt it was my taste of the highlife.
A sliver of the very best.
Have you lived the highlife?
Every whim attended
with silence and precision.
We thought in our innocence
that we would change the world.
Perhaps, we have.
But, I thought we’d make it better.

I searched for that odd talisman
while cobbling a life
I seemed barely involved in.
But, I had no name
and my description matched
a hundred different cheeses.
And anyway, why would you care?
Why should anyone ever care?

Posted in gang gang dance, poetry | 6 Comments

Stevieslaw: Card Players at Ekphrastic Review

Posted on January 16, 2018 by stevieslaw

 

My poem “The Card Players” is up today at Ekphrastic Review.   Here is the link:

http://www.ekphrastic.net

And here is the poem:

The Card Players

Each night, these three—
Nathan, Henri and Charles
make ritual of rummy.
“To pass the time,”
they might offer,
should they so honor your question.
Henri, in beige, so often wins,
the others call him master.
His word is law in all things agricultural.
Poor Albert, skilless,
watches wordlessly,
drawing comfort from his pipe.

I paint and sketch
And daily dream I hear—
“Paul, won’t you play?”
“Yes,” I say in a wink.
My spattered hands somehow
completed by the cards,
I sit with hat drawn deeply down
to hide my thought-filled eyes.
I play with verve and brilliance.
I am gallant in my dream.
But the invitation never comes—
and its lofty cousin, acceptance,
never finds its way to me—
to poor Cézanne,
the master of rejection.

 

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Stevieslaw: The Joy of Home Ownership

Posted on January 11, 2018 by stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: The Joy of Home Ownership

We had a candlelight celebration at the house last night. We had a high temperature of -4 this weekend and not a single pipe froze—what a difference a year makes.

We did have a small problem last week when the sewer pipe clogged up again. It does that three or four times a year. Roots from an old maple tree grow into the clay pipes and start the stoppage. It seems strange since we removed the tree about 12 years ago. Ronnie, from Unplug You, was right on it—after just a three day wait. It really makes you think about the joys of indoor plumbing.

The front walk is buckling. Come spring, I need to get someone to dig out the concrete out and repave it. While they’re at it, I might as well replace the clay pipes underneath, although I’ll miss talking to Ronnie.

The windows in the bedroom no longer close completely. Funny, that seemed fine in the spring. And the lighting in the back bathroom is apparently set to flicker. Bulbs—including those that are supposed to last forever, give up the ghost after a day or two.

I’m starting to get concerned about the sinkhole in the yard. It’s growth is definitely accelerating. The side door to the garage is no longer closing and the whole structure has an odd lean. I’m thinking I may be parking in the sinkhole by next summer.

Oh, we repainted the basement—just before the toilets overflowed because the sewer pipe backed up. The good news is we have left-over paint.

The dishwasher went out of warranty and whack this week. It works as long as you wash the dishes first by hand. We bought it about the same time we bought the fridge—which is shedding little plastic parts all over the kitchen floor. The downstairs freezer decided it was a closet.

I got an “only warning” last week for not cleaning the sidewalks sufficiently after the last snowstorm. Next time it snows I suspect they will fine me. It’s only $50. That’s much better than the price tag ($1500) for the water I used after a garden hose (never kinks, never leaks) split open this summer. It was hidden behind some bushes that weren’t suppose to get more than 3 feet high. I didn’t know it was spewing water until I sunk to my knees in the muck that was once my lawn.

I could go on and on, but you’re probably still wondering why we had a candlelight celebration last night.

Powers out.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody | 9 Comments

Stevieslaw: What Bobby Told Us.

Posted on January 10, 2018 by stevieslaw

What Bobby Told Us.

There is a school of thought that would have you drink a cold drink in the cold to warm you up, drink a hot drink in the heat to cool you down,  and play some serious blues music when you’re blue to cheer you up. I’ve tried it and I’m not sure I can recommend it, but for various reasons I have been reading up on the truly miserable year that was 1968–Vietnam, the assassinations of King and Kennedy, and the political rebirth of Richard Nixon—I could go on.

I don’t believe my reading has made me feel any better about 2017, but as a reward for my research, I came upon a statement by Bobby Kennedy—a hero for my generation, who was shot down in his prime.  I imagine sending his statement to Washington—to the Trumps and the Ryans of this world and watching their reaction.  Do you think they would  get it?  When I think of what we are missing in America right now, I find the words a perfect summary—so here they are:

“We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor national achievement by the Gross National Product. For the Gross National Product includes air pollution, and ambulances to clear our highways from carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and jails for the people who break them. The Gross National Product includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads. . . . It includes . . . the broadcasting of television programs which glorify violence to sell goods to our children.

And if the Gross National Product includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry, or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials . . . the Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America—except whether we are proud to be Americans”

 

 

 

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Stevieslaw: Revision

Posted on January 9, 2018 by stevieslaw

Revision

Some are irreparable.
It’s as if you snatched them from the bargain bin
at Eddie’s junkyard by the train tracks.
Still, you try the tried and true
Elmer’s glue and duct tape,
shims and string—double knotted.

You ask your friends’ advice.
They gawk and stare
and try to sound hopeful.
They talk of home remedies
vapor rub and sitz baths,
little yellow capsules
that helped their cousin’s cousin
cure one just like yours.

Cannily, you set it aside,
in that hard to reach cupboard in the kitchen,
as if proximity to Campbell’s chicken soup
could cure its commonplaceness,
dispel its warts, heal its wounds,
and make it sing with joy and sorrow.

Too often,
there is nothing for it.
You dress it in all the finery you can find,
pancake on your sister’s makeup,
lipstick and a new do,
and push it out the door.
Gamely, it limps along beside you
trying so terribly hard to smile,
in the judgement of the light of day.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, poetry | 4 Comments

The Birth of the Blues

Posted on January 5, 2018 by stevieslaw

This was to be a short poem cycle. Perhaps, it will get there.

The Drabble's avatar

vines-2935678_1280

By Stevieslaw

A weathered vine
made taut
through an accident of ice
moans
in the wintry wind.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

warmth on the winter solstice.

Posted on January 5, 2018 by stevieslaw

Nice. Let kind words abound.

beth's avatarI didn't have my glasses on....

“one kind word can warm three winter months.”

~japanese proverb

—

painting by: alisa black – ‘a winter’s day’

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Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Stevieslaw: Trump Disowns

Posted on January 4, 2018 by stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: Trump Disowns

Donald Trump tore into his heir-presumptive, Donald Trump Jr. today, tweeting that he was only a minor member of the family. “In fact,” tweeted Trump, “Donald Junior bears so little family resemblance that I have been convinced for years that he is not my son.”

Trump went on to claim that he has no idea who Jared Kushner is and certainly would never had agreed to let his daughter, Ivasomethingorother, marry a Jew. “What kind of hypercritical anti-Semite would that make me,” he posted.

Trump argued that he saw Crooked Hilary’s hand behind the whole thing. “She and her femme-fiends will never stop tormenting me, because I beat them fair and square” he tweeted. “Biggest margin ever,” he noted

Moreover, Trump questioned the timing of the newest revelations by Steve (Wormtongue) Bannon. “All of sudden this derelict looking guy—does he look like a bum or what?—that I barely know is inventing family for me,” he tweeted. “Family?” “These people have been buzzing around my life for years—they only come by to whine and beg for money—never even sent me a birthday card,” he continued.

I’m through with these illegitimate sons and daughters,” he said in a final tweet. “How could they ever know anything about me or my incredibly successful—best ever—campaign.” “I’ve disowned them,” he tweeted, “believe me.”

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Stevieslaw: Putting the gifts together?

Posted on December 27, 2017 by stevieslaw

Creator

I scan the pictogram again
for signs of my missteps.
The screw driver is depicted
at such an awful angle
my hands hurt
in sympathy.
The fluffy stuff
I thought was flotsam
had an essential purpose.
Too bad. I threw it out.
Is that the root of wobble?
I could not tell you.

The manual is given in six languages
and I cannot help but try to line
the Chinese and the English up.
I feel that save for words
we find on cookie fortunes,
this is as close as I can get
to understanding Chinese.
Sadly, I find, even this, impossible.

The flattened pictures are of little help.
How often are we left to navigate
with just a single sheet
of well-meant paper?
I tightly fold the manual in half,
and half it yet again.
I give it a thickness,
I give it a presence in the world
and when I place it under the offending leg,
I give it reason to exist.

Posted in gang gang dance, poetry, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Stevieslaw: Scott Pruitt’s Cone of Silence

Posted on December 20, 2017 by stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: Scott Pruitt’s Cone of Silence

Our local newspaper, the CDT, picks up all of its non-sports stories now from News Services, like AP. There is usually one top story and a bunch of stories from the AP bargain rack. Today we learned that Scott Pruitt, the evil head of the EPA, has changed the locks and had his office swept of bugs—at taxpayer expense.

Scotty apparently did not watch much TV in the sixties or he would have jumped at the chance to install Cones of Silence throughout the agency. The Cone of Silence, as anyone my age will recall, is the plastic bubble device Max Smart and The Chief would use for the their top, top secret conversations. The show, Get Smart, which featured Don Adams as Maxwell Smart—inept secret agent, and Barbara Feldon as Agent 99 was written by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.

The joke was that the Cone of Silence allowed everyone outside the Cone to hear exactly what was said inside, while prohibiting those inside from hearing each other. Or as Secret Agent Smart might say,” I asked you not to tell me that.”

I’ve written to Scott to suggest he might pick up some surplus Cones of Silence at CBS. It might really help the public if he used them.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments