Abra Cadabra Alakazam

 

Oh my darling,

my one and only love,

watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat.

There is nothing dirty

about love such as ours.

Get a load of my white gloves. 

When two people join

in matrimonial oneness

or as volunteers from the audience,

Magic takes on its special sheen.

People just want to be seen,

not sawn in half,

And so we make each other more than we were

like an endless knot of scarves

pulled from our sleeves or our hair.

If I should suddenly disappear,

my angel, my dear,

let me let you in on my schtick...

(Though it may make you feel sick)

it's one of love's magic quirks

that that trick

never works!

________

for What's Going On? "Magic"

Don't forget, the Word Garden Word List is still active through Sunday!

Why So Pale & Wan, Fond Lover?

 I'm not a vampire, silly.

No more bewitching than your auntie's 

freestanding lamp,

all hat and flat feet.

Yes, I favor red

lace, a little lipstick

and I'm Irish pale

but I only bite muffins.

Just a harmless mouse,

shy of cats and mirrors.

________

for Dverse Quadrille #208

Music: The Motels Icy Red

The Legend of Large Larry Lilliput

 The Hollywood heavy left the bughouse

to become a public gangster,

then dynamited the studio

out of some imagined rancor.

"I am the King of the Eskimos!"
he declared with eyes gone glassy

and wore in his hair a plastic rose

convinced it looked quite classy.

His career was a catastrophe

playing ghouls and goons

but they say he gained some mastery

in the place where they count the spoons.

After a time, he married a mime

who made crickets seem loquacious.

They had nine kids--one sublime

and the other eight pugnacious.

He coughed and keeled and passed away

in the middle of his biggest caper.

You can't even visit his grave today--

he vanished into vapor!

______

posted with profuse apologies to Alicia Suskin Ostriker, the subject of this week's Word Garden Word List. 

The image is of Lon Chaney Sr. 

Music: Betty Booom & Ashley Slater Spooky Scary Skeletons

Refraction

 does light lie?

do these leaves deceive? 

what is green 

but a word for a thing 

we see a certain way

inside our skulls where no green thing grows?

here is my yellow dress.

my yellow hair.

and yellow fields stretching flat and far.

inside, my reasons.

outside, the sheltering trees, 

our house in their lee.

also, your face, the flickering planets, and stars.

i want you, but i want the wind.

you say i deceive,

but what is wanting

but a word for a thing

for which there is really no word at all?

does light lie?

here is the yellow sunflower

and the yellow night-window

but they never

called themselves those things.

here is my silver ring and my yellow ticket--

i love your face, even though you don't believe

and wish me damned and dead because i go.

____________

for Sunday Muse #204

A Message For Dumb-O-Crats

No need to fret about climate change.
You silly twit, you're just Trump-deranged.
"So what?" about fires, storms and floods,
"Thoughts and prayers" are more than enough.
If the water is rising right up the stairs,
relax, my friend, it's "alternative air."
We're sending cows--because we care!--
to the Arctic to be "alternative bears."
POTUS, most powerful man in the world,
takes no crap from a teenage girl.
So rest your mind, don't listen folks,
it's all a radical Democrat hoax.
________

Hoping you feel all better now, for Wordy Friday.

The Slats Stuffenberger Story

Today, not many people remember the story of Sigmund "Slats" Stuffenberger, a major league baseball player of the 1950's. Other things command our attention, such as earning a living, watching "Celebrity Karaoke" or fighting corruption charges in federal court. 

But Slats's story is worth remembering. Born in Pigslop, Kansas in 1935, Slats was named Sigmund by his father, a poor but hard-working tenant farmer who admired 19th and early 20th century Austrian academics. Slats's father, Bifford "Pea" Stuffenberger, had high hopes for his only son to become a concert pianist, but young Sigmund wanted only to play big league ball.

Sadly saying their goodbyes on a train station platform in Phlebitis City, in the rain, wearing torn coats, and not having bathed in weeks, the elder and younger Stuffenbergers parted and Sigmund rode the train to Corn Corners, which at the time had its own Class D team, the Corn Corners Shuckers.

Shuckers skipper Ernest "Mad Dog" Mumford didn't think much of the green kid fresh off the farm, and refused to play him at all until the day when the team's star, Ragland Dollie--who had once batted twice for the New York Giants in September, 1905--broke his femur when he fell from the center field clock tower at the close of a cocaine-inspired spree. "You're in there, kid!" cried Mumford, and with that, Sigmund got his chance.

He tore through the minor leagues like there was no tomorrow, hitting a combined .439 for five teams, each one in a higher league than the one before it. He pitched, too, compiling a log of 31-3 on the mound. It wasn't long before scouts and telegrams from as far away as Cincinnati and Boston, wanting Sigmund--now known as Slats, for having once hit a grand slam home run with a bed slat to win a game for the old Oakland Oats--to come play big league ball began to arrive. 

Bright lights, big city! Slats arrived in Boston to play for the Braves on a June afternoon in 1952, when he was just 17 years of age. The veterans on the club gave him a warm welcome, setting his suitcase on fire and pouring itching powder into his jock strap. Undeterred, Slats got into the game as a pinch hitter and belted a line drive double down the line. Spurred, perhaps, by the itching powder, Slats showed speed nobody could remember seeing before, at least not in Beantown.

The next year, 1953, saw Slats traded to the Phillies, where he hit 62 home runs, won 14 games as a pitcher, and spent the winter playing pro basketball "for fun." He met a young woman named Betsy Helgenshooker, and married her. "I'll always remember what she said to me at the church altar on our wedding day," recalled Slats some years later during an interview for the Philadelphia Phrenology News. "She looked so beautiful. She smiled shyly at me from behind her lace veil and whispered to me that she was 'pretty sure' the baby was mine."  

Perhaps tired from changing nappies, Slats slumped to only 47 homers in '55, and then 31 in '56 as the Phillies dealt him to the Pirates for Spook Jacobs. In Pittsburgh, Slats became a Buddhist and renounced all material possessions. Converting to vegetarianism as well, Slats hit a meager .213 in fewer than fifty at bats before being shipped out to the Elmira Elephants of the Barnum & Bailey League. Playing center field and shortstop, as well as filling in on the flying trapeze, Slats whiled away the time until he could return to the bigs.

But he never did. Georgia Alabama, the circus Fat Lady, entered Slats's hotel room one evening and shot him in the abdomen with a revolver. "I loved him," she explained to police, as Slats clung to life at Hobgoblin Hospital in Elmira. Though the brave young man tried a comeback, first with the Elephants and later with a succession of 'bush league" clubs, it never worked out; Slats became an alcoholic bum, sleeping on cardboard boxes over steam grates in downtown Philadelphia. 

Despite his sad end, the memory of Slats Stuffenberger's exploits as a lad in 1953 is cemented in Phillies lore forever. As his widow Betsy said--with Slats's son Jamaal at her side--"Slats always saw the best in people, and in life. He was a good man." A good man who once swatted 62 baseballs into the seats in the summer of 1953.
______

From A Sugar Bowl Womb

From a sugar bowl womb,
came the World's Sweetest Girl--
Me.

I'm like a vision at lake side,
talking rot to the swans--
and oh how I do go 
on
and
on.

I am formed of the frilly, the feminine, the fine--
thanks to old Daddy down the anthracite mine.

One step,
two step,
three step, five;
I'm made out of honey from an old bee hive.
Work bee, 
fly bee,
sleep bee, then
sink that stinger if he tries it again.

Church on Sunday, Monday do the wash.
See if it sticks or scrubs right off.
Do you think I'm pretty?
Everybody does--

ask around,
ask Alice,
ask sweetly,
ask the swans.
___________

Girl Sphynx

She doesn't know,
and I would never let on.

Didn't I tell you?
I stopped wearing my rainbow jewelry to work.
I act so straight
that I can't even bend to sit down.

So there's this woman.
She has no idea.

She's warmer than a San Antonio tiled roof.
She smiles whenever she sees me,
but she's just nice to everybody.
She's got a husband, if I forgot to belabor the obvious.

I like to make her laugh.
She's cuter than sunflowers in June when she does.

God can she rock that orange tee shirt,
or any of those summer sweaters she's got.
She has gray eyes
and a heart shaped face.

I never let on.
I'm a riddle, a Sphynx, an aviatrix under the radar.

Yesterday she was kidding me the way she does.
She winked,
and I wavered mid-air, but
I never blushed, I swear.
_______

for Izy's Out of Standard challenge at Real Toads: lies not well enough told.

image: Cristina Scabbia 

 

Delirium

I was raving again, wasn't I?
Look at the face on ya, it must have been choice.
I never used to have these fevers,
not until I slept with Lady Liberty, back in France,
with her tablet propped like a painting against the plaster wall.
Oh, I was yearning to breathe free,
and to be in the arms
of a very tall woman;
She had copper-colored hair then,
and had never seen America.
I took my clothes off, lay back on the hotel bed and said,
"Here it is, babe."

Now look, I may not be in a position to give advice here,
but you should smile more.
Even once would be nice, because
you're making me nervous wondering what I said.
I used to drink, yanno,
no ladylike sips either.
I could tip a bottle back and lose whole nights down the rabbit hole.
Goddess only knows what I mighta done, those times,
and I'm glad I can't remember it all.
Mercy comes in all varieties.
One bird-bright morning, I decided I didn't want to die,
and so I swore off, but Jay came and did the heavy lifting.
I been Catholic ever since.

I slept with a woman once who kissed the crucifix 
that I used to wear on a pretty chain around my throat.
Every word I spoke was holy,
and my love was holy,
and I received her like Heaven does the saints.
Lookit me now, hoo boy.
Restrained for my own protection,
coming out with Goddess-knows-what in my delirium.
I knew a woman once who could fix cars,
she had dark hair and blessed fingers.
If only I could lie on her lift right now, and let her tinker with me;
I just know I'd feel better.
But, noOoooo, here I am with you instead.

I think I know what I must have said,
just by the starch in your bedside manner.
It wouldn't be the first time;
it wouldn't even be the first time sober.
Cranked up with fever, I bet I said,
"Love me, babe, like I love you.
I can make ya happy,
forever true."
Before the day is out,
and despite what y'all say to the customers,
I bet I'll be a funny story in the staff room.
I just wanna know,
is this a Catholic hospital?
I'd feel forgiven if it is.
A girl can't be a priest, but she can be a saint,
so, in certain things, I have aimed high.

Long after that French encounter,
after the fevers began,
I took up poetry
and got kicked out of seventeen countries.
Me and Emma Lazarus ended up here,
as tempest-tossed as they come.
After a while, my third-hand Renault broke down,
before I even got out of New York,
but I met the chick mechanic because of it.
Even a blind squirrel finds a diamond sometimes,
and when, wearing nothing but my silver cross,
I looked out of the window of her walk-up,
I saw Lady Liberty and I'll admit, it gave me a sweet satisfaction
to see her out there in the harbor holding her torch
and turning green.
_______
 
Photograph by Margaret Bednar, from her post of January 21st, 2012.  I have written this poem for, and linked to, her Play It Again Toads #5, at Real Toads.

 
 
 
 

Girl

She's not a nice girl.
Her kiss takes your breath,
and while you're weak,
she'll take the rest.

She'll have your child,
but bear it dead--
then raise it up
(but just the head.)

Kiss me

instead.
______

for Words Count at Real Toads. 37 words on the nose. 
 

Here's The Thing...

Here's the thing about plans--
it's okay to make them,
but don't think making them makes them happen.
(I'm gonna lay my hand on your arm and lean close,
lower my voice...)
Honey, believe me, I know.
(pat pat)

Yup, there I was, in a chair on the patio,
lost in an article called "Forget About Frizz!"
and keeping my dog company,
when these workmen--
they were supposed to be workmen--
ditched their ladders and came over from the neighbor's yard.

They walked all easy and boneless-like,
thumbs hitched in their jeans,
grinning like they knew a good joke.
Look, these were white guys with a van with a name on the side--
how was I supposed to know it wasn't theirs?
How was I supposed to know they were criminals?
How was I supposed to know the trunk of their car would be so dinky
and smell so stale?

Have you ever come out of some coffee bar, walked a block,
running your mouth to a girlfriend and then realized your bag was still under your chair back at Java Jim's?
It's a real bad sinking feeling.
I got that feeling and then some, while I was folded up, gagged,
on the wrong side of these dudes' tail lights.

Somebody better take care of my dog.

So anyway,
(leaning back now, but still confiding. 
Listen to this shit, girl, you never know!)
they took me to some bungalow safe house they had,
where there were two other girls,
Kimberly and Siobhan. 
They did dishes and laid around watching Wheel of Fortune.
They'd been there a long time and hardly talked at all.

So I looked around,
got the lay of the land.
These three dudes, they weren't exactly Murder Incorporated.
What did they want with me?
I decided right then that I would go all Patty Hearst.
Oh, that's a funny joke. God, that's funny--
Cool story, bro--
You look good with that stubble crap on your face--
and so on, till I wanted to throw up.

They started to relax around me, or at least two of them did.
One had nice teeth lost in that stupid face of his,
like he lifted a movie star's smile and then left it in the shed for a year.
The second was skinny, always snorting something,
never wore a shirt,
like his ribs were a permanent display at the Witte.
I called him Skeletor,
the other one Charlie McCarthy.

Not to their faces.

The third dude was mean, he didn't give a damn about anybody,
and bossed the other two around like kicked dogs.
I called him Aztec cos he had no heart.
So the days went by,
(do you want some Diet Coke or something?
a Greek yogurt maybe?)
and I kept worrying about my dog.
I said so once, and Charlie McCarthy said, "Oh he's okay"
and told me he'd seen him and he was fine.
I believed him. It was only later that it occurred to me 
that he could be lying through his pretty teeth 
just to keep me manageable.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb got so they hardly watched me at all.
Aztec, he was different,
he looked at me with this cold suspicious look,
like I was a grenade, or pregnant, or something.
As for the Doublemint Twins, Kimberly and Siobhan,
they were hopeless.
Skeletor would mumble "C'mon" to one of them and off they'd go,
into the bedroom.
Later, they'd amble out, looking like they'd spent the night in a bus station.
(What did you ask me, honey?
Did I...? 
Hey, do you want to try some of that Diet Coke with lime?
It's really good.)

One day while Aztec was out behind the house,
molesting the engine of the car I'd come here in,
Dumb & Dumber left me sitting on the door-end of the ratty brown couch they had.
The Doublemint Twins were watching some shit on tv,
like they'd been lobotomized,
and the screen door was all that stood between me and a run for it.
Skeletor went off to look for his cache of lost shirts,
and Charlie McCarthy kept telling me stupid jokes like he'd never stop.
Ha ha, yeah, too funny, shut the fuck up already I kept thinking at him.
Finally, he turned his back.
Finally.

I was on my feet as fast as a speed freak debutante that's asked to dance.
Kimberly and Siobhan turned their heads, all slow mo,
and Siobhan moved her mouth a bit.
"Shhh, shut up!" I mouthed, slipping through the unlocked screen door and out.
Man, can I run in bare feet. 
Gone like summer I was, over the grass and on down to the street,
off like a prom dress and then some.
I looked back--
Charlie McCarthy had just come out, and even from a quarter mile
I could see that he looked hurt.  
Betrayed. 
Now who's the sucker?

Well, they chased me.
First Charlie McCarthy jogged after me like a broken Tonka toy,
then they got a clue and went for the car,
but I guess Aztec didn't have it running right yet.
Later, I saw it cruising up and down near my house, 
but by that time I was back here sitting on the bedroom floor,
peeking out the window,
with my arms around my dog, who was hungry and confused but all right.
They shouldn't have come back,
cos the cops arrested them p.d.q.
Dumb, that's what they were, and that's what I had counted on.

(So do you like that lime Coke?)
Smile smile.
I can tell you really didn't like it,
hug hug kiss
and that you don't believe a word of what I said.
Buh bye! Yes, soon, for sure!
C'mon, Bosco,
who needs her anyway?
_____



 

Redcoats!

Lambs, it's Independence Day! On this date in....oh, 1922, or 1654, or some time anyway, George Washington defeated Herman's Hermits at the Battle of New Orleans, and with Johnny Horton installed as the first president, our nation became free!

Don't quibble with me Darlings, I'm trying to explain what it all means. I can't be bothered with exact dates and trivia!

Now then. It's hard to imagine that we were ever subject to British rule. I mean, Cherubs, these are people who get excited to the point of rioting over a sport where the score is always 1-0. Trust me, Darlings, London is like a big elevator, where everyone is breaking their necks just to avoid having to actually speak to anyone else. And they're an island. Fiji is an island. Rhode is an island. No self-respecting country is an island. It's absurd!

And now, Darlings, you've got middle-aged duffers like Mabel Van Deusen's husband dropping their golf clubs and stuffing themselves into Revolutionary War costumes so that they can recreate the Battle of Bunker Hill in the park across the street from the 7-11 and the Instant Oil Change place. Why, last year, they sent a cannon ball through the Hyundai showroom window. 

You know me, Lambs. Forgive and forget, that's my motto. Never let the sun go down on an argument. Still, I feel so patriotic ordering escargot at Chez Pierre's, to support the French effort to sink Great Britain once and for all. I feel just like Nathan Hale, except with much more stylish shoes, and a better figure by far! Really, Lambs, what do we need stodgy old England for anymore? We're talking about a country that let a bald man wearing diapers kick them out of India. 

Oh all right, I'll stop picking on them, if you insist. But still! Thank Goddess we're not from some hellhole coal mining village in England, trying to survive by eating the bark off the hedgerows. It would be awful! If those English had any sense at all, they would have forgotten about Lexington and Concord, and established themselves in Las Vegas or Miami Beach. Or even right here in Pompano Beach! Then all we would ever have to say would be tut-tut, and here-here, and oh reeeeally. Life would be so simple! 

Well, I'm glad we had this little talk, aren't you, Lambs? But it still seems a shame, in a way. Well, Dears, I mean all of the struggle and kicking Brits off of the wrong side of the highway and everything, and yet you still walk around with your hair looking a sight. Is that creature who does your cut and color down at BoRic's English by any chance? Mhmmm. A mother can sense these things. I think I'll buy the entire chain and phase them into a line of washeterias instead. I'll put a little American flag in the logo! 
_________   

for those of you who insist on poetry, visit Coal Black HERE.