He was a scrim-

shaw artist,

a scrims-

hander who

hawked

his ivory wares

all summer long

at community fairs.

He spoke jokingly

of his earrings

dangling

the ivories after they

had been

tickled lovingly

in a jazz trio.

Did the scrims-

hander

not know

that before the piano

ivories

had tickled and earrings

dangled,

some had hung

on elephant mothers

who,

when slaughtered,

left orphaned babies

to howl a song of

woe

across the

the savanna so dry

and low

and not a female

dangling the earrings

while crooning a tune

at the Sands casino?

And to make

matters even worse

and way more obvious,

he etched pictures on

small slabs of tusks.

You could hear the

babies howl all the

way to Northern

Michigan. Maybe

he thought such

small pieces didn’t

matter much

and,

of course, they

were purchased

legally as such.

Why didn’t he just

carve some

Ivory Soap and

then wash

himself clean

of the whole

scrim-

shaw, scrims-

hander, bloody

thing?

She wore a big, black dress in the middle of

summer, covering her more than ample

girth down to the five-finger knock offs

picked up at a Dollar Store in a backwater,

Northern Michigan town; she sat next to

her twelve-year-old van in which she

sleeps and keeps all her jewelry, which she

is showing at an art fair, one in which she

has been showing for, this, her fifteenth

year. She is camping at a near-by city camp-

ground located at the end of one of two legs

of a large lake leading to Lake Michigan.

It is a warm, wonderful day up north, 75

degrees, sunny and 52% humidity, a perfect

day for an art exhibit. She had a really good

day at the first of the two-day event.

She said she had an increase of one-

hundred percent over the previous year’s

first day. She kept griping about her

ex-husband who had a site near her

site at the campground and is showing

his very similar scrimshaw artwork at a

booth near her’s. She said her ex be-

longed in the hoosegow for all he had

done not counting the adultery but she

wasn’t going into the details. On Saturday

evening, she had a disagreement with a

tent camper she said was encroaching on

her site and the previous day, Friday, had

griped about a pickup truck and boat block-

ing her site. Saturday evening before she

crawled into her van for the night, she spent

a lot of time on her cell phone mumbling and

grumbling, maybe about her ex who never

mentioned her as he sat around the campfire

with several other exhibitors that evening, but

he had sneaked a peek toward her booth

earlier in the day to see what was going

on. He laughed freely at the jokes and sell

or not, it seemed like a vacation, they all

said.  On Sunday, the second and last day

at the fair, all the exhibitors hope to make

some more money before heading home,

the woman and her ex to the same

town and only a few houses apart.

“Interested in an interim?” the caller

asked out of the blue.

He thinks he could be an interim again,

a pretty good one, too,

but at this moment he’s camping,

relaxing by the creek with Chris

and Buddy Baloo

and knows he’s through,

oh, so through.

He gave his all for years

numbering forty-two.

“Thank you. You have a good

day, too”

The food writer asked readers

for the recipes they wanted most.

Top of list? Shrimp and Tequila

Skewers. She added chicken to

the mix without being asked and

when introducing the recipe,

stated that the skewers were

delicious with or without the

booze. Discussing the marinade,

she didn’t just say soak the

shrimp and/or chicken for two

hours, she noted that during

the two hours, she had been at

church. Makes one wonder –

shrimp by itself, shrimp with

chicken, chicken by itself –

are her readers kosher? With

or without tequila – AA?

Marinade while at church –

Southern Baptist?

Perhaps she already had the

Catholics, Episcopalians and

Presbyterians in the back

pocket of her recipe book?

Proudly, he sent a note to

the neighbors that he

had a book on the way.

A neighbor thought that

quite cheeky and did so say

to everyone she could

think of along the way.

When the books

arrived, he gave her a

slim volume anyway.

He honked at her hus-

band one day

but didn’t stop to say,

“Hey, hope you liked

the book, neighbor, and

have a great day.”

The husband did wave

but with a scowl, not

a smile did he labor.

Well, in a paraphrase,

the saying goes, “Heap

burning coals of poetry

on the head of thy

neighbor.

Standing in his kitchen,

emptying the dishwasher,

holding a spoon,

feeling the smooth, concave

shape,

the long, slender

handle,

he realized the spoon would

be there for his survivors

to wash and put in the flatware

drawer.

He didn’t think they would

look, really look at

or feel the spoon

as he just had.

When what is wight

confwicks with what

one wants, which

one wins and what

is winning, wheely?

— Elmer Fudd

Editing one’s own writing

is  oxymoronic – irreconcilable,

contradictory exercises

it seems….

Writing then correcting one’s

impeccable pages?

It’s so much easier seeing the

sliver of a misplaced

comma in someone

else’s work

than the whole

plank of a misplaced

paragraph in

one’s own.

The Indian mystic Ramakrishna used to say: God laughs when he sees two brothers divide their land by means of a boundary line saying, “This side belongs to me and the other side to you.”  God says, “The universe belongs to me and they claim two portions of it!” and the Buddha said, “A man says, ‘This land is mine….’ Such are the words of the fool who does not understand that even he is not his.”

A man stood in front of his newly

remodeled home in a very nice

homeowners’ association in the

dunes along a big lake. Speaking

in growing agitation, in a low, growly

voice, “When I bought this house,”

he said stabbing the air rapidly as

he pointed in the direction of the

house, “and sank a ton of money

into it to have it fit into this neigh-

borhood, I, at least, thought I was

getting a private beach!” Much to

his chagrin, he has to share the beach

with summer vacationers who rent

on the next street where renting

is permitted. Apparently, when he

bought, he was not aware of the co-

nnection with the neighbors. He was

not a happy man, but his unhappi-

ness started long before he bought

the house, sank a ton of money into

it so that it fit into the nice home-

owners’ association and thought

he was buying private access to

his very own private beach. His

unhappiness started when he be-

gan thinking of himself as the

owner of a little, red wagon and

he wouldn’t give rides in it to

the neighbor kids. Funny thing;

that way, he never got to ride,

either. He just pulled looking

back at the wagon…longingly.

Without invitation,

but with the

full expectation

that hubris

just assumes,

she assumed

her critique

would be gratefully

received and believed

(the conclusion

being forgone)

because, after all,

she had once

studied at the

Sorbonne.

Well, she let her

opinions fly.

The recipient not

knowing why,

but irritated

as high as the sky,

said,

“Sorry, did you say

you have a sore bun?”

hoping this

surely soon

would pass,

really wanted to ask,

Can you

spell assume,

you royal pain

in the ass?