What a show: The Donald, The
Huckster, Rex-Goliath, the 47
pound Circus Rooster, the World’s
Largest Rooster, willing to say

or do anything to get attention
and the poor schmucks sucker
punched by his rooster tales.
Trump playing the Pied Piper lead-

ing his forsaken followers (Repub-
licans seeing only ratty infest-
ers of Hamelin Town) over the edge
into oblivion. And anti-Trump Re-

publican snobs never offering a
word of solace to his followers
or trying to woo them away to
save the followers’ day. They

despise the whole bunch. And
the stupid, old, pathetic, white
guy (78) sucker punching the
young, boisterous, black protest-

or. The last vestige of racist
power: a punch at a black kid
being held by police. How lost
can you get under the circus tent?

His heart ached
for what wasn’t
anymore —
How hard it is to feel
“…forgive them
forevermore.”
Yet, the cliché states
something about
a window and a door,
and at that exact moment,
it slammed in his face
and he heard the
crowd roar.
In your
wildest dreams.
Wake up,
Bozo.
They aren’t thinking
about you
one way or another
as if they
ever did and certainly
not anymore,
correctingly
“Quoth the raven,
‘Nevermore.’”
Look around;
feel the love
flowing from
every pore
building a trickle,
a branch, a stream,
a river raging
right through
eternity’s
door,
all
for
you.

He heard the pastor say
that the average pastor
is simply too busy to
address the social con-
cerns of the day what
with sermons to write
and visits to be made
and administrative
responsibilities and
on and on and on.
He thought to himself,
I guess Jesus was too
busy thinking of
clever things to say
on the mount and on
the plain that he
couldn’t address social
issues; and then he
asked himself, but
weren’t all those clever
things exactly about in-
justice? Oh, right. Those
probably had something
to do with a cross and,
Lord knows, no pastor
wants to bear a cross
immediately trans-
lated as “keeping
a job.”

The sliding doors have rectangles
which are frames through which

bits and pieces of life are captured —
part of an orange, Chinese lantern

speaking of joys and sorrows in
San Francisco’s Chinatown, a hum-

mingbird feeder with just the
right proportion of refined, white

sugar, not red, to water, the birds
insisting on that exact proportion,

another framing the blue and yellow
of the Swedish flag flying to

celebrate immigrant lives lost
in time before their time, a

Batavus bicycle from the Nether-
lands with a well-worn English

Brooks saddle, jalapeno lights
strung in front of orange, terra-

cotta roof tiles recently laid by
Hispanic laborers, the twirling

end of a rainbow-colored fabric
wind ornament purchased in

Boston and celebrating human
rights and a window with those

same rectangular frames across
the courtyard with shades pulled

until Colorado Dave returns for
a weekend with his buddies

during which they will climb
into his Jeep and drive to

a Cactus League game between
the Rockies and Cubs purchasing

Eight dollar beers because they
can’t bring in their own Buds.

As soon as he departed the hot parking lot and
entered the cool confines of the “Fresh As Your

Mother’s Garden” grocery store, his spirit buoyed,
he felt really good and thoroughly enjoyed hopping,

skipping and jumping from one aisle to the next,
from fragrant, freshly baked gluten-free bread to

fresh as fresh can be seafood to fruity, nutty,
nothing-but-the-best wine in the most hip bottles

to crisp garden greens to fresh roasted coffee to
grass-fed beef and free-range chicken and vitamins,

herbs, spices and ever-and-always natural nutrients.
He felt so good to be so well as he danced to the

music…and then it hit him. It was the music — up-
beat, happy, sing-and-dance along music. As the

clerk checked the man’s basket of absolutely
healthy abundance, the man said more than asked,

“It’s the music, isn’t it.” The clerk just smiled
and said, “La Bamba.” As the man pushed the cart

through the heat, he wondered if there wasn’t
just one more item he needed back in the cool

store with the bouncy back beat.

The young, macho-male
driver pulled behind him
turning left from the
opposite direction as he
turned the corner right
from the turn lane. Macho
Man shot up his butt and
flipped the universal sign
of peace which he saw
through the rear view mirror.
He thought to himself, “It’s
Saturday morning for cry-
ing out loud.” When he got
home he read his three daily
meditations about com-
passion, loving others and
peace. He thought to him-
self, “Not today, thank
you very much.” The most he
could muster was an epithet
flung against the wall and
thankfully not at the dog
although his dog didn’t
quite get that fine distinct-
ion, lowered his ears and
headed for the bedroom.

i think about going for a jog, a word
that is disparaged in the latest issue
of runner’s world, but one in which

i take no umbrage now that i have had
five and a half million of my bone marrow
stem cells injected into my right knee

in order to keep me from having an
artificial knee. so i say to my knee,
my knee not one that would cost some-

where around a hundred thousand to be
divided up between many medical person-
nel which begs the rhetorical question,

“why doesn’t insurance cover some-
thing that only costs less that one
tenth of that?” please read previous

sentence about all those benefitting
from artificial knees. now, back to
my conversation with my knee, “knee,

do you want to go for a jog?” and
because it is my knee a human knee
and not a corporate knee, even though

scotus might just as well have said
a corporate knee is a human knee
and therefore has a vote, my knee

says, “yes,” and i say, “that’s
two to none; it’s unanimous. let’s
go for that jog, carefully and

slowly. would you mind if i put an
“unloader” brace on you for pre-
caution?” “no. i would like that.

it feels good all snug around me.”
“fine. i think i’ll take along a
pair of hiking sticks for stability.”

“you go right ahead,” my knee said.

When I click on a Word document,
I never know what size layout is
going to show up. They seem to
come in different sizes arbitrarily,
but then again, perhaps (There’s
that word which pops up again and
again in my writings.), Word has a
mind of its own and knows when it
will send up one layout vs. another.
This particular layout is larger
and if I use a smaller font size,
I find that I write more. Like
now. Maybe (There’s another word
like “perhaps,” which also shows
up quite a bit in my writing. Do
you think that means I’m indecisive?),
Word thinks I’m being verbose, lo-
quacious, wordy and next time will
send up a smaller layout so that
I will write a shorter poem. I don’t
know. Maybe/perhaps Word knows
I’m indecisive and is just trying to
help guide me along. As I said, I
don’t know and Word isn’t talking.

he just sat there
while they decided
whether or not they
would let his frequent
use of the word
“perhaps” pass and
if they decided they
wouldn’t, what
they would do
about it, perhaps.

The guy who lives in the condo
next door is an airline pilot.
They say astronauts should be
risk takers. I wonder if that
holds for airline pilots, too.
I mean you would like to think
that they aren’t taking risks
with your life as you fly the
friendly skies, but he does
ride a motorcycle and just the
other day he flew through the
parking lot in his truck like
he was being chased by terror-
ists, when in fact, he was just
putting the lives of those of
us who stood chatting in the
parking lot at risk. He looks
a little like the late actor
Tony Perkins and when I look
at him I think Norman Bates.
I can’t help it; I think Norman
Bates. I’ll have to ask him for
which airline he flies.