Goodnight Kitty

Excuse me.
Please lie down on this plate.
I will watch over you while you sleep.
If anything happens, just jump inside my mouth.
I will rock you on my big pink tongue.
Wear these bread pyjamas.
Just trust me.

Believe me,
despite our differences,
I am here to protect and serve you.
Say goodnight to the cameras, it's past your bedtime.
Goodnight stars, pop-popping in the street.
Goodnight moon, goodnight air.
Kitty's here.
Kitty cares.
__________

for the real toads mini challenge. my absurdist take on the nauseating, paternalistic, entitled, baffle 'em with bullshit, tone deaf authorities in Missouri, USA.

apologies to Margaret Wise Brown, author of the beautiful and beloved children's book "Goodnight, Moon".

 


 

New Girl

Hi. I'm the new girl.

Are you gonna finish that salad? 

I heard about this take-out place, and they made salads from lettuce that grew where all these deer were coming by and crapping on it, and people got, like, botulism or something. They puked and had to go in the hospital and stuff. It was gross.

So is it working?

Well, I just assumed you're dieting. Aren't you? I never diet. I can, like, OD on chocolate pie til I'm cross eyed and never gain an ounce. I'd kill myself if I was fat. I mean, that's just me. I like fat people. They're like, jolly, and don't care what they wear, and I think that's very freeing.

Is this a picture of your husband? Wow, he looks a lot younger than you! He's really handsome. Been married long?

Does he work here? Hey, it was just a question.

I love your hair. That retro look is so popular now.

So, you probably know all the ins and outs, right? If I had been here half as long as you, I'd be running the place. But they'd probably fire me for vericose veins or something. Ha! That was a joke!

Wow, you're really not that jolly, are you?

Well, of course you've got work to do! I thought I could help you. What's this junk? Oh, was that in some kind of special order or something? Oops!

Hey look, I'm sorry. Seriously. Let's be friends. I'd really like us to--

Oh, that's my phone. I have to take this. 

Sorry that took so long. I think I've got a cramp in my ass from sitting on your desk! 

Well, I better run. Oh my gosh, you have such a pretty smile! Anyhoo, don't be a stranger, Tammy. Okay, sorry, Tanya. New girl, what can I say? 

Toodles!

(walking away) What a bitch! 

_______ 

for trifecta week 30. 314 words. key word "new."

Miss January

Miss January leaves her
summer heart
in her boho bag
on the fucking credenza
in the corporate apartment,
and so she has to make do.

At Philippe's,
she is the coldshock girl
at the VIP party
with the killer kiss
and the sweet side shave.

Sleet is the new sincere,
blue the new red,
freeze-blistered the new happy;
kick the bum,
be the face,
don't forget the swag.

Farm Five

it's christmas time at farm five.
ho ho ho.
it's state-controlled.

in the window,
a candle.
an egg.
behind the pane,
a touch of plague.

come to farm five, just down the lane.
the ostler is mad, the butler insane.

it's christmas time at farm five.
religion is dead.
obedience alive.

on the door,
a wreath.
a cross.
behind it, more
untimely loss.

come to farm five, for mandatory yule.
with last year's host's head
skewered on the newel.

_____

J. Jenkins Pomeroy Considers

It takes no small talent
To turn nothing into something
The way I do,
And though everyone may not admire
The Godlike way I make things happen,
I do. Oh, I do!

You see this building here
With its ancient cheap veneer--
A false-fronted horror, how I detest it.
See the pantywaist poets inside
Drinking coffee from styrofoam cups--
They all hate me, I can sense it.

But I don't care!
And what's more,
I can already see the trendy upscale store
That is as good as built.
I won't trouble with these weaklings, or curse them;
I'll simply have the officers disperse them.
Bring in your crew, Mister Harvey,
Place good strong charges between the bricks
And let them fall on whatever heads they will.

Profit is fine and simple, but never simply gained;
People envy a man like me,
And my starched white shirt doesn't show the cum or the cocaine.
These boneless little squatters may not like
The way I get things done, it's true,
But oh, I do. I do!
_______


for dverse poetics "the other"

Hail the V!

The reluctance of media to say certain words has been discussed in this space before, and as always, I say hail to the V! That's va jay jay, bay bay. Take me back to old Vagina. Oops, I said it, didn't I? Do I never tire of compromising conservative Christian values?

Mercy Me/ Gibsom Street

Two videos I thought were really good. From the global,

HERE  (sorry, I couldn't embed it)

To the personal...



Happy Sunday.

Bullshit

Nothing is ever as it seems.

The Chinese people downstairs are like big jolly panda babies--

When I come in in the evening,

Bones gone rubbery and my heart growling like a fighting dog inside my chest,

They smile, ladling benign ancient blessings over me like pork gravy.

I become a biscuit,

The white girl smiling back, calling them honey and darlin just as if they came from

Alabama and not Shanghai.

Then,

They go in, draw the curtains, and speak rapidly to each other in dialect while waving kitchen knives,

While I

Let myself in upstairs, take off my absurdly heavy parka,

And put the newly arrived bills under the chipped jade Buddha paperweight an old girlfriend gave me.

That was in ancient times when love seemed possible

And the old Polish couple still lived below,

Boiling their cabbage,

Never hearing the rude jokes we made at their expense

In between kisses

And lapping up

The ridiculous, absurd shit we told each other,

Like, "No matter what, I will always love you,"

And

"Wherever we live,

Wherever we are,

As long as we are,

I'm happy."

________

for One Shot Wednesday 31

Dr. Phil vs The Martians

Dr. Phil's dome reflects back radio waves from an orbiting Martian space ship;

Due to atmospheric distortion, the Martians believe they are being unkindly mocked.

"Czar of Mars" comes back sounding like "Czar schmar"

And so they send a vaporizing beam at what they feel certain must be a Venutian spy.

Dr. Phil, right in the middle of leaning forward, pointing his finger at a guest, and saying,

"Where I come from, we didn't have any trang sexuralls. A man was a man and a--"

FOOM!!!!

Dangit. No more Dr. Phil.

The audience gasps.

His invited expert retracts her fangs in surprise and drops her promotional copy of her latest book,

"Stop Being A Fuckhead Today! (With Maryanne!)"

It immediately bursts into flames.

Only the trang sexurall says, "Poor Dr. Phil"

While the trang sexurall's mother, seated beside her, weeps.

"Dr. Phil was my last hope!" she wails. "The last chance for my son to get right and become a Navy Seal/long haul trucker like his Dad!"

The Martians vaporize her, too, just because she is annoying.



Dr. Phil, or his spirit, hits the ground running through the Underworld with his trophy wife on his arm.

Flames lick at them.

Brimstone fills the air.

All the hapless fucks he has lectured or set up to be laughed at over the years poke him with pitchforks.

"AAIEEE!" screams Dr. Phil.



In Hell, Dr. Phil meets Hitler, Anita Bryant, Harry Chapin, and the entire Texas Longhorns football team.

Harry Chapin keeps strumming a burning acoustic guitar and singing heartfelt story-songs;

The denizens of Hell wail and gnash their teeth.

However, the Martians use a tracto-beam to pluck Harry Chapin out of everlasting suffering

Because they kind of liked "Taxi".



Returned to Earth, life, and the same old crappy hair he had before,

Harry Chapin takes over the Dr. Phil show.

Guests say, "My child is promiscuous and takes drugs!"

Harry Chapin says, "The cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon..."

Guests say, "I am anorexic" (or a kleptomaniac, or a serial killer, or a born-again Christian)

And Harry Chapin says, "I am the morning deejay at double-you oh ell deeeeeee!"

Ratings plummet.

Advertisers withdraw.

The show is canceled.

Furious Martians land on Earth.

Their Czar goes on the Oprah show and they weep together.

Rachel Rae feeds them all on forty dollars or less.

Dr. Phil is dead,

And the world is saved by Martians, Oprah and chocolate cake.

Kewl.

______

Old Postcard Wednesday (on Tuesday): Evelyn Nesbit

Hello, my friends! Today I am participating in a new feature! It is called Old Postcard Wednesday and is the brainchild of my friend Lydia. If you haven't been to visit Lydia's blog, Writerquake, then I'd like to know why ever not? Well? I'm waiting. God, I love me when I'm bitchy! Anyways, Old Postcard Wednesday consists of Lydia, and me, and...Lydia...and...me...well, you get the idea. It's always a good thing to get in on the ground floor of these things. Okay okay...thanks to Lydia for letting me horn in. You're a sweetheart. Now stop twisting my ear.

Now, on to the star of the show, the Old Postcard! This postcard is from someone named Elise, who is promising her friend Frieda (in Newark NJ) that she will be home on Saturday. I wonder if she made it? I wonder who these two ladies were? I have loved old post cards nearly all of my life, and I always wonder who the people were who chose them, wrote their little messages and mailed them to someone, so long ago. The truth is, I am drawn to anything from the 1890s through the 1920's. Silent stars, gangsters, gilded age financiers, all of it. It tugs at me. Part of me has its heart there, and I can't explain it.

This postcard is of Evelyn Nesbit, and her story is absolutely fascinating. She would be on my short list of famous people I would love to meet somehow. If I could do lunch with Evelyn and Marlene Dietrich, that would be it. I could just keel over after dessert with a huge smile on my face.

When I was a library rat wayyyy back in high school, I discovered a series of coffee table books put out by Time-Life, about each decade of the 20th century. (thanks, Daddy, for making me love history) In one of them, as I leafed through, I saw such a remarkable face staring back at me through the years. I thought, "who IS this?" There was such a soulful, beautiful, heartbroken quality to her. I became fascinated with her, and fascinated I have stayed. That incredible face belonged to Evelyn Nesbit.

She was just a girl from the wrong side of the tracks in Pittsburgh, when she was noticed by an artist, who paid her to pose for him. She was only fourteen. Soon, she was in demand as an artist's model, though she hated having to stay still for long periods. It brought in money, and a little bit of independence from her mother, and so she posed away.

In time, she found herself in New York, and in less than a year, at the age of sixteen, she was essentially America's first supermodel. You can see her face in hundreds of vintage advertisements, for everything from soap to magazines. She was, in fact, the inspiration for Dana's famous "Gibson Girl." She was supporting her mother and brother and working non-stop. (I have found that many famous women of the era were the breadwinners for their families at a very young age, Mary Pickford and Mabel Normand among them). 

Evelyn's mother wanted to marry her off to a millionaire. Any millionaire. And indeed, she did marry an unstable millionaire named Harry K. Thaw. But the most important man in her life was the celebrated architect Stanford White, designer of Madison Square Garden and numerous other New York landmarks of the day. Before she married Thaw, the much older White had a secret hideaway just for Evelyn and him to meet. (White was a married man). It was in this apartment that White had a giant swing suspended from the ceiling for Evelyn to swing on, nude. Yes, she was the famous "girl on a swing." But despite all of her bewitching beauty, and success as a model, when White found her she was still a virgin, just a teenage girl from Pittsburgh. That all ended the night he spiked her drink and, as Evelyn lay groggy and helpless, had his way with her. Why he did this, who knows? It broke my heart for her when I read about it. In any case, in that era, Evelyn considered herself damaged goods after that and so began a long affair with White. 

One of the things that endears Evelyn to me, is that she loved to eat good food. She was so different from today's starvled stars, and White had the means and the inclination to provide spreads of things that she not only loved, but had never even tasted before. Also, Evelyn took a childish delight in any kind of mechanical toy, and any time White spotted one, he would buy it for her. I share that with her, too, I adore the old toys from that time. 

In time, as she got older, she grew restless, and made demands of White that he would never satisfy. And so she married Harry Thaw. She told Harry about the way Stanford White had raped her, and he became obsessed with it. In the end, in a public place in front of dozens of witnesses, Thaw fatally shot the great architect. So ensued the first "trial of the century" at which Evelyn had to endure days of painful and embarrassing testimony. She handled it with grace, for which I admire her tremendously.

Harry went to prison and Evelyn divorced him, but her life was never the same. She was forever the "girl in the swing", the temptress who had driven one wealthy man to murder another in spectacular fashion.

Evelyn for many years became an out of control drunk, getting into physical fights in saloons and getting arrested. But she pulled herself up from that, and died, decades later, a sober woman.

Her story tugs at my heart. She had singular beauty and allure, and yet, men much older than herself, and her parasitic mother, controlled her life all through her young womanhood. Her beauty was her blessing and her curse. I don't think that anyone really could see past it, and see her. One of the most poignant stories from her life, to me, is this one: Stanford White arranged a photo shoot in the apartment they used, with a well-known photographer White had engaged for the day. Many of her most famous photographs were taken that day. Evelyn grew tired and wanted to stop, but the session went on and on. Finally, the shoot seemed to be over, and Evelyn put on a kimono. White and the photographer found her so beautiful in it, that they had her pose for a few more shots on a bearskin rug that had been used as a prop that day. Evelyn, exhausted, fell asleep on it. The photographer took one more shot. 

Evelyn Nesbit never did find genuine love in her life, except from the pet dogs she adored. Now she is gone but her photographs survive, looking out hauntingly across a century. They still fascinate me today.

_________

Just Shoot Me

There is a mishap with Jennifer's botox.

One minute she is saying, "Well if you ask me" and the technician's hand begins to shake...

One minute she is saying, "I tried to tell her that dress was all wrong" and suddenly, with an unfortunate jerk of the arm holding the needle,

"Don't say you heard it from me" becomes

"Eeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuughhhh."



Jennifer goes home.



"Foooooouuuuuuuhhhh," she says to her husband.

"Of course, dear," he replies mildly.

"Guuuhhhhhh! Fuhhhhh buuuuhhhhh!" she tries to explain, pointing to her mouth.

"I'd like to eat out, too. How about Chinese?"

That night, they are intimate. After all, it is Saturday.

"Fluuuhhhhh!" she shouts, drooling. What she means is,

"Are you done yet? Get off me."

Her husband cannot remember when he last saw her so excited.



Monday brings Garden Club. Jennifer is to address the other ladies on the subject of rose aphids.

"Bluh. Bluuhhha ayyyublubla..." she says, reading from notes.

The ladies eat cakes and whisper unkindly to each other about her new hairstyle. Afterward, they clap and tell her she was marvelous and that they've simply got to rush home and try all the remedies she suggested.

"Bluh boo," says Jennifer. She is trying to pronounce a common vulgar expression.

"Love you, too!" cry the ladies and kiss her cheek before getting into their Volvos.



Desperate, Jennifer turns to her children. She has their names written down in her date book for just such an emergency.

She babbles something incoherent to them, her eyes aglow with tenderness.

Her son goes on talking on the phone, messaging on his computer, and eating pizza.  Yes, all at the same time. 

Her daughter shrieks, "I knew you'd say no! I hate you!" then runs upstairs and slams the door to her room.

Jennifer is left standing in the hallway, alone.

"Bluh?" she asks no one in particular.



In time, the injection wears off.

"Bluhhh duhhh" becomes "goo bornee" becomes "good morning."

"I'll have toast" says her husband.

"I hate you!" says her daughter.

"Love you!" say all her friends, but they say that to everyone from the pool boy to their wretched poodles. It is completely meaningless chatter, like "how are you?". 



It's been an ordeal.

Jennifer switches botox clinics. 

Her worry lines vanish. 

__________

Please Be Stupid Someplace Else

Darlings, sometimes something or someone comes along that is just so stupid I have to sit up and be ill. Michigan Republican Paul Scott (Grand Blanc) is the latest human syrup of ipecac to stand up and take a stand for good old-fashioned idiocy.

As has been noted, I live in a place where the best minds in the biggest local industry thought that the Edsel was a good idea. Not so much, guys. As has also been noted, our state has plenty of pressing problems, including rampant unemployment, crime, an eroding tax base, loss of population and corruption. Also, the Tigers just can't catch the damn Twins.

Into this grab-bag of problems to be solved, leaps Paul Scott. And which, of these many worthy issues, has he decided to involve himself in? Mr. Scott is vigorously opposing relaxed regulations in granting transgendered people passports. Um, that's a federal issue, for one thing, Paul. See the big map? That's fed-er-al. See the little mitten? That's Mich-i-gan. Oh for pete's sake, let's go over it again for Paul.

Mr. Scott is also opposed to state driver's licences being changed for the transgendered. Ever. Under any circumstances. Quoth Paul:

I'll make it a priority to ensure transgender individuals will not be allowed to change the sex on their driver's license in any circumstance.

"It's a social values issue. If you are born a male, you should be known as a male. Same as with a female, she should be known as a female."

Way to set those priorities, Paul. If the transgendered are allowed to change their driver's licences, what would be next? Parallel parking?

When asked to explain how such a mandate from the Secretary of State would benefit Michigan, he said it was about "preventing people who are males genetically from dressing as a woman and going into female bathrooms."

Oh dear. Bathroom fear. What is it that Congressman Scott thinks it is that transwomen want to do in there? Darlings, I think the answers are obvious. First, ladies' rooms have flowers and a sofa and men's rooms do not. And then of course, is the real reason...they want to go to the ladies' room for the same reason that women have always gotten up from the table and headed there in a pack: they want to get away from clueless blowhards like Paul Scott for a few blessed minutes.

He said his mandate would be in place even for those who had completely undergone sex reassignment surgeries.

Um...using the urinal is really going to be a problem, Paul. But hey. No whiskers in the sink. Speaking of the sink, Paul don't, no, oh Paul don't.....jesus, Paul. That's disgusting.

"That's who you are. You can have cosmetic surgery or reassignment surgery but you are still that gender," he said.

No pulling the wool over Congressman Scott's eyes. Someone has to stand up for traditional values. You are your plumbing. A black man is only three fifths of a person. The only good Indian is a dead Indian. God hates fags. Amen and God bless America!

As for me, my driver's licence and passport both say "F." Some have argued that in my case, the F stands for "fluffbrain." I say it stands for Fuck You if You Don't Like Me. I would make a lousy man anyway. I don't like chili cheesy fries.

All right then, anyone want to visit the ladies' with me? Thank Goddess for our own space. I understand that, in that other restroom, there are Republican family-values Congressmen in all the stalls, tapping away with their black FBI shoes. Omg. So that's why there's no sofa in there! It would only encourage them!
__________  

We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident...

The young woman in the picture is Constance McMillen, an 18-year-old Mississippi high school student who wanted to take her girlfriend to the senior prom. She also wanted to wear a tux. When informed by the ACLU that refusing to allow her to do either of these things infringed on Ms. McMillen's rights, school officials cancelled the entire event, rather than let her bring whom she chose and to dress as she felt she wanted to.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (sic) are created equal" and are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In America, a person is free to live their life as they feel called to do, unless, of course, they are gay. Then they are not quite so equal. Then they may not marry. Then they may not walk down the street holding hands with the one they love, or they may be beaten up or killed. They may not take the person they care for most to their high school prom. They can't even stay home and try Eharmony, because, again, you have to want to meet someone of the opposite sex. 

Haven't we seen this movie before? Haven't we been told, from pulpits and every place else, that women aren't quite bright enough to be entrusted with the vote; that blacks need not apply at the State University; that there is always someone different from those doing the excluding, who needs to be kept out, or America will go to hell in a handbasket? 

It's wrong. It's vile. It makes me angry. Let the woman go to her prom, as herself, with the person she would most like to ask to be her date. As Bob Dylan sang, "It is not poison; you will not die." 

I admire Constance McMillen. One day, this may become a free country, with liberty and justice for all. But not yet. Not if you're gay.

(Just to say....a woman can look awfully good in a tuxedo. Just ask any Marlene Dietrich fan)