All the Biblical Golfers Yelled, “Meta-fore!!!”

The horny, biblical golfer’s drive went astray and he cried, “Fore-play!”  or was the fore-play meta-phor-ical?

The question is, how many strokes did it take him to get it in the hole?  Three, seven, twelve, one hundred-forty-four thousand?

The answer is known only to Crazy John, who is reputed to be the first and Onan-ly golfer on the Isle of Patmos to miss

the putt on all one hundred-forty-four thousand tries not to mention the first three, seven and twelve, all being very important, symbolically.

Exhausted after such an effort, he shouted to the heavens, “Come, Lord Jesus!” fell into a deep sleep for twenty

some years and awoke as an old, Dutch guy in upper-state New York with a long white beard who looked a lot like most Americans’ metaphorical

image of God that they like to take literally and talk about the old man upstairs.  He arose and Rip-ped a 300 yarder in a Wink-le, hopped in his

Van and headed straight to New York City shouting “Fore, fore, fore,” all the way home. Somewhere in the New Jersey distance, a voice was heard shouting,

“Play ball!” Giants were there, but the Saints failed to show. However, Rip and the Seven Sleepers, Christians all, were now awake and cheering in the upper deck along with the

many Muslim mono-theists from Sura Al-Kahf. It was an interfaith game.

The Blonde in the Always Black or White

The blonde in the always black or white, at least midsize, mostly huge Beemer SUV pulls out in front (of me), turns right, apparently without giving it a thought as

she adjusts the rear view mirror to check her—make-up, teeth, hair, eye-liner, lashes, whatever related to her head.

Then a really big Detroit truck rams, zooms, flies, rips, past (me again) on the left. “Fools to the left of me, jokers to the right and I’m stuck here in the middle with” myself, blood-pressure rising.

We ride our classic chromium and molybdenum (chromoly for short) Reynold’s 531 “steel’s the real deal” tubing, all Campagnolo (Campy for short) equipped Batavuses ( short for Made in Holland) bi-cycles

through the back roads of downtown Phoenix on a slightly chilly Sunday morning in mid-winter while, I’m sure, Blondie and Macho-man snooze universes apart in bed together.

After the pint-sized preacher with the strawberry toupee, not unlike Robert Redford’s dyed locks, preaches his heart out and flat-out nails the texts about the love of Jesus and how much St. Paul loves the Philippians and how he,

soon to be retired, loves us and his wedded partner and how they want to travel until as he says, “None of us gets out of here alive” to much appreciative laughter. It’s his penultimate goodbye message and I’m wondering what he is going to

do for the ultimate. A dog barks on the outside aisle and the signer’s Doberman perks those perfectly pointed ears. We go to Communion.  I watch the lame, the halt, the wounded, crippled, abused, slim, pudgy, down-right obese,

buxomy man turned woman, little kids, buff guys, two queens with identical toups hold hands, two tall gals with really cute butts seen from behind reach and touch each other on those sweet heart shapes with tender taps, then move

to the center aisle, cup their hands in reverence and move forward. “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight.” I sing harmonic bass to a well-known hymn and stop half way through the last verse because

I’m crying.

Sitting in a Condo in Phoenix, Arizona

Sitting in a condo in Phoenix, Arizona

watching the Waste Management TPC (whatever that means)

Tournament, in a condo, which broke off from Conrad

awhile back and is, in reality, a little short of prime but

better than choice. Phil hit a drive that stopped just short of

the green and settled into the rough.  Sheesh, Phil.

Someone sits in a condo in Phoenix, Arizona

watching the Waste Management TPC (He knows what that means)

Tournament.  He has a really nice condo, which didn’t break off from

anything or anyone but which cost in the one percent.

Two guys watch a pro in iridescent yellow pants

tossing future memorabilia into the stands while they

wait for Phil now in deep shadows to make just one

more birdie to make it into the weekend so they can both have

the thrill of watching Phil, the Thrill, and the

guy with the iridescent yellow pants when they

all wear green because the CEO of Waste Management (kind of conjures

up images of city dumps and stuff not particularly appropriate to top flight pro

golf tournament, but, hey, you take what you can get to keep the

the thing going) wants everyone watching to know how environmentally

friendly his company is. Phil marches, humbly, through the tunnel,

smiling sheepishly while the crowd at sixteen is screaming bloody murder

in the sunset as Phil sets up and pulls out a pitching wedge for a hundred-

eighty some yards that he really has to kill and puts it four feet from the pin.

Then Yellow Pants puts it four feet from the pin; then Black Shirt puts

it four feet from the pin and the whole rowdy crowd

goes bonkers in the deep shadows. Phil buries it. Black Shirt gets booed. Yellow Pants

watches it roll around the edge of the cup and hears a collective sigh from the shadows.

Wait a minute; the guy in the one percent condo isn’t watching his 64-inch, high-definition,

plasma T.V.  He’s in a corporate box right above the sixteenth tee sitting quietly and calmly

while everyone outside the corporate boxes bellow like Banchees. The Ninety-nine

percenter turns to his wife and

asks, “Dear, would you like another glass of the exquisitely dry, citrus-y Pinot Grigio in the

beautiful, black box?”

One Hundred and Counting

This is post one hun-

dred, and my dog is ninety-

nine. Haiku you, too.

The Now Defunct Law and Order

The now defunct Law and Order, Criminal Intent show’s

actor does such a fine job of acting

out the writing with his own unique, quirky style,

getting up close, tilting his head to the

right and then the left, jotting notes in his journal,

pausing, blankly saying it is

an idiosyncrasy passed from father to son

while the guilty guy excuses himself,

exits stage left, that is, out the interrogation room

door not to be seen for a while,

but Quirky Cop nails it and him. This is the Quirky Cop before

he gained all the weight for a different role

and never lost it, except that he began to lose it right

before our eyes. Only this time it wasn’t

a father to blame.  He had a strange relationship with his Quirky Mother.

The Fat Woman sings and the Opera is over

and I don’t even have an ocean

into which to disappear because I live in the desert.

So, you think you are the first one who will inevitably

become (like) your flawed father (or mother)?

Get in line.

What Has Happened to US?

What has happened to us?

Was it lurking just under the surface

all those years I thought

we were making progress?

I shouldn’t have expected much because

I knew all about original sin.

It was in my Reformed blood

by osmosis and conditioning.

I have to re-member that in spite of the doctrine, it

was a couple of really good Sunday school

teachers who exposed me to the real Jesus.

Will he now stand up?

Those (the reality of things going south

inevitably and the good news that Jesus

is still speaking even though he hasn’t

stood up, yet) things

carried me through the seventies after the

dashed dreams of the sixties and Phil Ochs

hung himself on a tree and so many dropped

drugs down their throats.

I held up Jesus or shall I say I sat on Jesus’

lap through it all, but still, still, still, I really,

really wish upon a star that we could

have made a difference.

And now I’m in my late sixties and while

I am appalled at the discourtesy, incivility,

damnable, downright me, me, meanness of

it all I’m sitting here, gotten up out of Jesus

lap watching a slimmed down Andrew

Zimmern really impressed how the affable, once

pudgy Jewish guy from New York made it

through drugs, homelessness only to pull it

all together, become a class act chef, move

to the upper Midwest, and then lose that weight

on a show where he eats everything in sight.

(Obviously, he’s not kosher,

but he is a stand-up kind of Jewish guy.)

He’s not explaining, bragging, hyping,

documenting the accomplishment, at least not

on-line, because I looked last night.

So now he’s a slimmed down version of the kid

every Jewish mother could and would love and brag

about: “That’s my son Andy slurping the pig’s balls

someplace in America for this season.”

Every Jewish boy is the Messiah in his mother’s eyes.

And I guess that means the Mormons are right; Jesus

did make it to America. He had a hard time in New York

but he’s happy in the upper Midwest.

A Young Guy Hiked Up the Trail

A young guy hiked up the trail

with two dogs on a leash –

a four-year-old, lame lab/something or other

mutt with a sadly, gimpy paw from

when he encountered a car two years ago

and a six-year-old pit bull/chow/few more

breeds who was roll over sweet. The lame lab

would stare a dog down not to mention me.

I wondered if it was anger for the gimpy paw.

After all, labs are mostly sweet. We were trying to

get our old lab to move off trail to do his business after

consuming, in grand fashion, a scientifically

approved dry dog food adorned with a saucy,

beefy broth and cubed tomatoes

au naturel-al with a cut up “Beggin Strip” just to catch

his attention.  He didn’t cooperate.

Proudly, I told the young guy with the gimpy

dog and roll over, mean looking mutt that

our ancient lab, the fussy one about food

and when and where he takes a shit,

which I didn’t mention, ran, well really jogged

really, really slowly I thought to myself, twenty-one today.

We put him in the condo and finished thirty-five. “Thirty-five miles!”

he exclaimed. I looked at my wife and uttered quietly,

“No, thirty-five minutes. Come here, Boomer.  We have to go.”

I looked back up the hill to where the young guy was still

standing still with his dogs tugging at the leashes.

He had a bedazzled look in his eyes.

“The dog can take a poop later.”

A Life of Dependency

For twenty minutes and forty-eight seconds the

ninety-nine year old jogged steadily in the

mid-morning, mid-winter Phoenix sun.

Done, he stopped at the bottom of the flight

home. He just stared up the stairs.

He didn’t want to climb.

But he did.  What was the alternative?

After ice water, pain pill and a cold

pack on his head, he made one more

grand effort, plopped himself on the couch

and slept away the noon and afternoon until

his bladder was full.  When he awoke,

he looked around hoping his jogging

partners were home to help him relieve

himself.  It’s a life of dependency for

an old chocolate lab.

Does the Sterling Silver Cross Burn?

A big, butterfly tattoo on her left shoulder-blade,

a cute curly cue on her right buttocks,

a bare bones something or other engraved on her left triceps,

and surrounded by a spider web tattoo, a

sterling silver cross piercing her belly button,

she coos sweetly and lovingly lowers her little boy

into the hot tub with her while the cross dangles.

They sit and she asks questions in two-year old talk.

Does the cross burn her tummy?

The little boy plays on deck while mommy

bathes in the sun.

Does the cross burn a mark on her tummy?

Does the mark then heal, peel and fade?

For A Dead Folk Singer’s Daughter

Folk songs committed suicide

after being on the

brink of Orchestra Hall

fame and glory and all.

After being with the

birthing protest, dad aside,

he gave his girl a ride,

then felt guilty for the

singer’s journey to the fall.

Who knows what writing’s on the wall,

as she looked into the

camera then off to the side –

flinch and twinge she tried to hide.