September 16, 2015,
the Republicans’ second debate,
was, in a word, a thing to denigrate —
denigrating the meaning of debate,
that is.
He doesn’t know how to respond.
He hoped the rules of debate
would show up — better late
than never but never is forever
in this debacle of a debate
and so he turned to the channel
that featured drinking spirits
in foreign countries very late
into the evening of the Republican
non-debate or anything but debate.
What exactly or inexactly was that
which was on so very late?

He spit into the DNA vial, a little
too much (The directions said to stop
at the black line and his brother-in-
law said that he had a hard time com-
ing up with all the spit needed. He
thought that his brother-in-law must
suffer from dry mouth because he had
no trouble accumulating more than
enough.), so he poured into the sink
a little of himself, his mother and
father and grandparents back to his
relatives from approximately 150,000
years ago when they left Africa for
someplace like Kajerkistan, Kazakhstan,
Berzerkistan or Kazbekistan before
striking out for the four corners of
the earth back to all those listed in
the genealogy section of the Bible back
to Adam and Eve (figuratively speak-
ing because the genealogy is a story
the Hebrews told about their creator
God Yahweh rather than literal his-
tory). He stood there thinking about
how fragile life is and how fast it
slips away as he turned on the faucet
and the insinkerator to flush the
spit and a spoiled tomato that was
beginning to smell. He waved goodbye,
figuratively speaking.

He rested his bones on the Ethan Allen sofa
inhaling the offending plebian effluvia
wondering from where such smells emanated
and thinking the concoction should be eliminated.

So, he rose from his pose quite sedentary
wondering if a grave was open in the cemetery
only to realize that which caused odoriferous distress
was being prepared in the kitchen by his mistress.

He said, “You, my dear, may leave my domicile soon
but your cooking will linger in the living room
and my wife, with palate so fine,
will let me know the jig is up this time.

So, if we wish to continue our affair with ease,
we’ll have to buy and spray plenty of Febreze.”
His mistress now so offended scooped the dish instead
and exiting the door dumped it all on her ex-lover’s head.

He stood with noodles dripping from his head
and as she slammed the door behind
she informed him that her own shapely behind
would never again rest in his Ethan Allen bed.

The other day, while listening to a
classical music station, the retired

minister heard the syndicated music
host lament that there is so much

commemoration of violence through
war in classical music. Then he said

this most remarkable thing: Aren’t
we supposed to raise our boys to be

pacifists? It caught the preacher by
surprise: a classical music host ask-

ing the question clergy are supposed to
be addressing on Sunday, but aren’t.

While on vacation, they sit enjoy-
ing a cup of coffee at a sidewalk
table in front of a bookstore/coffee
shop. A woman stands in the street
between them and the bookstore.
She is talking on her cell phone. A
man stands behind her. She asks
into the phone, “Where are you?
We’ve been waiting.” She hangs
up and the man behind her, her
husband, asks her, “Where are they?”
She says, “They are in the grocery
store parking lot. What are they
doing there? I told them to come
to the book store.” “No, you didn’t,”
he says, “You don’t know north
from south, east from west.” Then
to no one in particular and anyone
who happens to be within earshot,
he says, “Look out. My wife is
giving directions.” Then after
moving to the curb, he says to her,
“You better get out of the street be-
fore you get hit.” The car next to
where she is standing starts to back
out directly into the line of an on-
coming car. She yells, “Stop,” looks at
her husband and says “See, if I was not
out in the street there could have been
an accident.” He shrugs his shoulders.
Another woman passes by on her way
into the bookstore and asks into her
phone, “Where are you? I’m here at
the bookstore. Okay, see you soon.”
The friends finally show up and stop
to pet the Chocolate Lab who belongs
to the people sitting at the table. The
woman who had stood in the street,
says to her out of town guests, “All
right, we better go inside.” Her
husband sighs and walks behind the
guests.

Eva Cassidy could play the guts out of a
guitar. I said could because she died in her
30’s. She could tear the heart out of a song,
too, like in her rendition of “Over the Rain-
bow.” I told a friend how I loved her “Over
the Rainbow,” but he who hadn’t heard Eva sing
or play anything dismissed her with a flick of
the wrist claiming no one will ever out do the
standard-bearer Judy Garland. True, Judy had
known real sorrow and hardship, but my friend
hadn’t. He ended his tepid, prejudiced protest
with a sigh. See, that’s the difference. Eva
ended “Rainbow” with a sigh but not before touch-
ing the hem of some angel’s robe with heart wrench-
ing high notes. When she hit and carried forever
those searing notes of the last refrain “Some-
where, over the rainbow,” those notes flew
from the East Coast to the West Coast raising
from the grave every unjustly treated human
who ever suffered the tragedy of great loss.
Even the petroglyphs in the Painted Desert
leapt off rocks, soared on Eva’s notes and
pleaded to the heavens in that final sigh,
“Why, oh why, can’t I?” before returning to
the rocks.

He watches the fish who have been
around for seven or eight years who

used to swim when tiny in clean, clear
water, but over the seven or eight years

now swim in the water that has accum-
ulated leaves, twigs, dead frogs, dead

brothers and sisters of the fish — debris,
which has deteriorated and turned to

muck. The fish keep swimming having
adapted to their environment and as

long as the water keeps circulating, the
fish keep living. He is glad life keeps

circulating around him as he adapts to
the pond of life as others outside

that particular pond have watched for
seventy years .

“This world is not my home;
I’m just a passin’ through;
my treasures are laid up
somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me from
heaven’s open door
and I can’t feel at home
in this world anymore.”
So goes the Negro spiritual,
pooh-poohed in the hallowed
halls of theological ivy as
escapist, but it served a purpose
to keep the blacks going under
the most dire of circumstances.
“You are not of the world.
You are in the world,”
spoke Jesus in the most dire
of circumstances. Aren’t
we in the most dire of
circumstances with “wars
and rumors of wars.” guns,
guns, guns, greed, greed,
greed, itching ears willing
to embrace fascist fear-
mongering to justify their
anger and discontent and
desire to retaliate against
anyone and anything they
fear, fear, fear? Are we not
“apart from” while “a part of”
— mindful of the beauty of the
earth, sky and water while we
ravage, “apart from” while
“a part of” the fear that grips
the hearts of brothers and sisters
who don’t know they are “a part
of” each other, “apart from”
while “a part of ” knowing there
is a home right here, right now,
our home in the heart of God?
Fear not, be mindful of the
opportunity in each moment to
see, feel, experience the
Realm in our midst, in our
hearts, in the marrow of our
bones, in the center, center,
center of being. No-Thing,
Every-Thing, All-Things, into
thy hands I commend my
spirit. Peace be with you.

I met a man who said he was Joe King.
I asked him if he were kidding and he said
he was not kidding about being a man named Joe King.
I had no idea what he was thinking
when he said he wasn’t kidding but Joe King.
I started to laugh at Joe King but he wasn’t kidding.
He was really serious about such a thing as kidding
saying he wasn’t kidding about any kid who called himself Joe King.
To the best of his knowledge he had no kid
and he really resented being accused of kidding
about a kid Joe King, when he had no kid, no kidding.
So I decided to get serious about Joe King’s protest
about having a kid king and asked him if he were
kidding. He told me he was a kid King to a Joe King
the First but that was his father and he would really
like to be just Joe King, with no kid King, no kidding.
I said, Okay, well, I guess there’s no kidding Joe King .

The Rev. Dr. Thomas Eggebeen, friend for many, many years, wrote the following response to my poem “One Potato, Two Potato”:

The dreariness of wealth …
utterly boring after a while…
no one’s impressed any longer …
ostentation grows heavy,
like carrying a load of old National
Geographics bound together by twine –
trying to look smart with stuff…
no one cares about.
Ah well … and soon to the graveyard …
the truth hated by all,
but especially by the 1% –
the greatest affront to their sense of
invulnerability.