The Crooner and the Preacher

The crooner and the preacher –

two, big, smiley faced boys who entertained Hollywood

for years — poor, insecure Midwest boys, both, Wisconsin

and Iowa who could sell brushes to Fuller himself.

A much talented talker and an ever so sweet crooner

who said “This is the day the Lord hath made…” — to kick

things off and “Never say goodbye, say Caio.” — to wrap it up.

Their gray-haired, upper Midwest fans watched on Saturday evening

and then Sunday morning.

They always played to the crowd.

One hid whom he loved and what he was and the

other hid behind diets and face lifts and what he was

and they both loved wearing those flowing

robes that swished and swirled like Loretta

Young’s or Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s when they entered from stage left.

Perhaps they had watched on T.V. from their Midwest homes and said,

“I can do that,” and practiced – one behind an orange crate pulpit

and the other in front of an old, upright piano.

The crooner’s museum is for sale and the cathedral has

been sold and that’s entertainment and the show must go on.

Two insecure, eversoneedy, pudgy, little

boys from the Midwest who only wanted to be loved.

The crooner reaches across from the

other side for the preacher’s hand and says, “Caio.”

It Seems Every Republican in the Whole Country

It seems every Republican in the whole country

Has done the Ted Williams’ thing.

They’ve frozen their brains on display in the country

Making global warming an even scarier thing.

A Sonnet About Bicycling in Phoenix

We ride our bikes along the city’s streets

Avoiding deadly traffic is the goal,

So riding on a Sunday always beats

Diving and dodging or jumping in a hole

To avoid the Beemers, Porches, Audis, et. al.

Speeding through the grid laid out so well

By planners mapping for those who move at a crawl

Straight north, straight south, straight east, straight west not hell

As a place of destination for folks

Who thought the word Phoenix was a simile

Not a literal version of a joke

About a bird rising from the ashes to flee

From all the loony drivers on the street.

Perhaps it would be best just to retreat.

Harvard Molecular Biologists

Harvard molecular biologists on a big budget

In the most popular course on campus

Encourage chefs of elitist restaurants to use

Unbelievably expensive tools of physics to

Transform raw eggs into a high-tech, soft-boiled

Version of your mother’s breakfast, chorizo into a

White powdery enzyme which melts in your mouth

Not in your hand helping you envision lunch at a

Really swank Mexican restaurant with former

Presidente Vincente Fox while a rat’s ass worth

Of people scavenge and dumpster dive for anything

Almost edible or exquisitely, sufficiently ripe for the

Picking in garbage dumps around the world.  Last week

Our daughter stopped by with our granddaughter.

We’re seasonal so didn’t have Harvard educated

Toys available, so Zoe Dahlia got plain, old plastic

Plates and bowls and cups with which to play.

They were a super-technological version of her great

Grandmothers’ wooden blocks. We felt so technologic-

Ally, intellectually sophisticated while we ate fried,

Egg sandwiches fresh off the cast-iron skillet.

Free, Free, Free With a Finger in the Face on the Tarmac

“Free, free, free, thank God Almighty, free

At last,” but the bespectacled, respected J. W. Comer,

Self-made man from a Southern family of self-made men,

At least that’s how the story went, oversaw the post-reconstruction

Rise with the help of a ten-pronged strap on the back of slavery —

Beyond slavery – post reconstruction laws making it a felony for a freed,

Former slave who stole a piglet for dinner, or a piece of fence wood for the

Fire to roast the pig or anything—

Didn’t whites in the South ever break any laws?

Mouthy, uppity NEEE—GROWS are surged into round ‘em up

Arrests right around harvest time and anytime in the mines and

Factories, rising in the South which was in the process of rising

Again, once again on the backs of Blacks.

But the stupid, brutal system based on revenge was using up the

Supply — attrition by death — so incarceration was that much

More important than ever, ever since Scarlett, with the back of her

Hand placed against her forehead, stated in exasperation that she

Would think about all that tomorrow.

Then the scholarly, but no less cowardly scaredy-cats in their Ivory

Towers to keep them safe from the mean streets, the sociologists,

Psychologists and all the Social Darwinian- ists pronounced their

Quasi-scientific blessing upon the blatant bias and pronounced the

Incarcerated as sub-human, scary, brutal, black beasts and we all

Locked our car doors giving a faux intellectual veneer and justification

To the repression lived out in dead bodies swinging from

Cypress trees, burned to a crisp in a grisly, bonfire re-enactment of Alexander

Pope’s poem about the savory discovery of roast “boef.”  Why?

Because it could be done, was done and is still being done

In some modern, civilized, legislatively legal way in Detroit,

Benton Harbor, Flint, Grand Rapids (May I see your photo I.D., PLEASE?

You duly elected officials may be excused, now and forever.) by those

God-fearing Northerners who look to their punitive, angry, vengeful, hateful,

Scaredy-cat Southern brothers and sisters for their next cue.

But, of course, none of this has anything, whatsoever to do with

A shout down of the President of the United States of America in

Those hallowed halls of Congress during a State of the Union

Address, or a shaking, sophomoric head from a new, pouting

Supreme Court Justice or a finger pointing in the half-black face of

The really Cool Man by the really witchy wo-man of the West on

The tarmac or the persistence of the Bible-believing deadly Birthers.

“No, nothing at all,” shout the scaredy-cats.  “Don’t yu’all see that

You have a Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday?  What more do you

Want?  Aren’t yu’all free, free, free at last?”

Oh, yeah, Jimmy Carter sees it for what it is, but, hey, the interest

Rate was 23% during his administration say the dismissive free

Marketers.

A Holy Week Meditation With Monty Python On the Brain

On the night of his arrest after he had been

Betrayed (Judas Priest!), Jesus gathered the

Disciples together, broke the bread, poured

The wine and said, “Remember what I told

You? Three times, no less already, I told you

That the Son of Man must suffer, die and on

The third day rise from the dead?  Well, I now

Have a more specific schedule to share with

You. On the first Sunday after the first full

Moon following the spring equinox, I’ll see

You right back here in the upper room.  The

Methodists won’t be using it then. Any

Questions? No? Alrighty then.  Waste not, want

Not. Take the bread I gave you and scoop

Up the last of that delicious hummus made by

Martha while Mary watched and rubbed my feet

With something really expensive; bottoms up

On the wine; sorry it’s a little watery; I was in

A hurry, understandably, and let’s head for the

garden after just one more chorus of ‘Always Look

on the Bright Side of Life.’  I  don’t want to be late

For a very important date.” The disciples collective-

Ly, in a rhetorical sort of way, said “What?

We were just beginning to catch on after three

Times to the three-day thing as strange as it sounds.

And speaking of strange, who ever came up with

December 25 as his birth date? Sheesh!” Amazed

At how he spoke with such authority, unlike the

Chief priests, elders and doctors of the law, they

Muttered among themselves, “Do you think he

Has been consulting again with  Melchior, Caspar

And Balthazar On his Blackberry?”

On PBS’s Downton Abbey

On PBS’s Downton Abbey in 1919 just after World War I

ended Her Ladyship contracted Spanish Influenza.

Lavinia, Mr. Crowley’s fiancée took a sudden

turn for the worse.  The physician stated, “Strange

disease with sudden, savage changes.”

Her Ladyship, after severe bleeding from the nose,

and vomiting blood lay in a pool of sweat.

The physician said that if she made it through the night

she would be alright. Her Ladyship made it; Lavinia didn’t.

In 1918, my motherless, thirteen-year-old father sat all alone

watching his father, who had been a captain in the Swedish military but who had

contracted Spanish Influenza from American

soldiers returning home, writhe and sweat and bleed out and not

make it through the night,

leaving my father a thirteen-year-old orphan in a strange land.

I never knew what he went through until I, a 67 year-old,

watched Downton Abbey on PBS on a lovely, balmy, winter’s Sunday

night in Phoenix, Arizona. The thirteen-year-old

never told me.

High Intensity, Lumen Upon Lumen

High intensity, lumen upon lumen, light

Bounced shadows off the brush in the wash

Moving here and there, in and out, back and forth,

Up and down.  The hiker flinched thinking it was

What the neighbor said, a hundred pound Peccary boar

Boring down, moving through the night,

Circling around, getting in position, ready to attack

From behind and go for the Achilles’ tendon.

The shadows shook and

Quivered with laughter.

Walked, Sort of Stumbled

Walked, sort of stumbled, down

Two steps from the kitchen

Into the garage, opened the

Door of the 1987 Audi Sedan

Sat down in the front seat

Turned on the engine, turned

The radio to 90.3, listened

To Ralph Vaughn Williams’ “Lark

Ascending” and hoped to go to

Sleep, dozed a Ten High doze,

Awoke, turned off the engine,

Crawled out of the car, stumbled

Into the kitchen, made it to

The bedroom, flopped into bed,

Grabbed what had been her pillow,

Hugged, hugged and hugged, fell asleep.

In the morning

He thought, I guess I’ll have to

Face this.

Turning Away From the Light

Turning away from the light

Flashing up, down and crosswise through

The brush, shadows flashing

In the reflected light

And across the trail,

He called out, “Please lower the flashlight;

There’s a full moon and enough light

To see.”  The light

Went out; there was a shuffling

Of feet on the stones and rocks and

The sound of footsteps moving

Down the trail.  When he turned back,

He saw only silence.