Saturday, April 27, 2013

The Kidnapping of Brunberlesca

It was a beautiful spring day. Brunberlesca was waiting for the milkman's delivery when suddenly she was kidnapped.


She was wrapped up in a white sheet and thrown, with force, into the back of a car.


For days there was no trace of her. The police put up roadblocks but came up short. Then, 72 hours into the search, they were tipped off about a stolen car in a parking lot.




Brunberlesca was in the car! And on the car's window was the signature of Tony the Condor. Tony had eluded the Vice for years. Rumors had it that it tattooed its wings with stars according to the number of cows it had kidnapped.


Tony the Condor was surprised by Ducky Duck who used Cracked Cat as a decoy to free her.


Brunberlesca was so excited to be home she told all her friends, including Big Joesephina.



Big Josephina just getting the news of Brunberlesca's freedom.



Big Joesephina was elated. She was going through a separation with Mighty Joe who was eloping with some blond chick. She was so busy with her lawyers that she lost touch with all her friends. But thanks to Cracked Cat, she got a film of her Mighty Joe that was bountiful evidence for her divorce settlement.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

The Marabomber




I was having a drink at Penalty Boxes, a small Boston pub,  when a man on crutches turned to me  and offered me a drink. A light smell of gunpowder emanated from his clothes; the closer I looked at them the more tattered they appeared. "What have you been doing?" I asked, "You seem to be in a state!"
"I ran the Marabomb, lady" he replied. I was taken aback. The marathon hadn't been covered in the media since 2014. It was 11 years that I hadn't heard about one single race as there was an international ban for any coverage of the event.
"You run the marathon?"
"Marabomb" m'lady, that's what we call 'em these days. You see this left leg has collected more shrapnel than those pretty rocks on your necklace"
"Why do you run... Marabombs" I ventured?
"Simply the most exciting thing I knows. When you're running and your eardrums go "ping!" and a wave of hot air burns the whiskers off your face, the adrenaline flows faster in your body than any sport I know. Suddenly I  need to put my hurdling skills into motion an' leap over fallen competitors and sometimes a limb or organ in order to reach the finish line."


"But when you're running a Marabomb, you're playing into the political whims of those who set off the bombs." I said, fixing my eyes on the Marabomber and revealing an old scar that I too have been carrying on my face.
"The Marabomb today is taboo. Nobody knows who is trying to destabilize what government. Only in North Korea is it reported freely. My best time, by the way, was in  Pyongyang. With over a dozen explosions the first place runner made it to the finish line in over six hours and I came in 10th.  We had to dig ourselves out of fresh ditches in that one!"


This conversation was making me feel queasy. My reeking neighbor with black, oily hair didn't really inspire me with his story. Yet he went on.
"I may hang up my shoes and crutches next year" he snickered, "not because I don't love what I do, but because I'm loaded!"
"Loaded with booze?"
"I have more sponsors, going from Hammerclick paramilitary uniforms to Glock.com. Aramade gives me flack jackets to run with and my picture is on everything you can think of to promote their stuff."
"How is it that you don't seem stressed out, taking a chance with your life on so many occasions?"
He gave me a long look, took my drink and downed it.
"Life is a blast baby, life is a blast!"
And with that he walked out limpingly leaving me his tab that I gladly picked up.



Monday, April 8, 2013

Time Travel Through Windows, version II

I see through the transparency of my lens
The four mysterious flats, a series of dark chambers
I am enraptured by a repetitive vision:
there is something there that excites me
My saliva runs thin and dry


Now here I am standing by my window in Marseille
Watching the sister ship of the Rafaello
Take my sister to America
From my bed I reach for my binoculars 
And follow the steam spouting as my heart heaves with the waves


Three years have passed, Mother has divorced and my sister paid me a ticket to New York
The water of the East River spins more feverishly than in Marseille
Sister is off to work; I can't see her but I know she's crossing the bridge now.


That day she came back with a letter and a tear in her eye: her beau in Marseille proposed to her.
When she left me her apartment I walled up her window
Finally I could sleep! No more rumbling of tires crossing that bridge
No more snoring from my sister
The Big Apple was mine.


Time Travel through Windows

I see through the transparency of my lens
the light unexpectedly falls into darkness
I've been raped of a vision; rapped yet still attracted
to an unfaithful image that scares me.


Now here I am, standing by my window in Marseille
Watching the sister ship of the Lucitania
Take my sister to America
From my bed my fingers search in vain for my binoculars but they are not there.


Three years have passed, mother died and my sister paid me a ticket to New York
The water of the East River spins more turbulently than in Marseille
Sister is off to work; I can't see her but I know she's crossing the Brooklyn Bridge now.


That day she never came back. I stayed in her apartment until they cut the electricity.
My vision adjusted to the dim and I felt more comfortable knowing
Now, finally, nobody could see me.


Sunday, April 7, 2013

A horse race at the opera



How did Madame Van Gorp
Holding fast in her dainty hands
binocular telescopes





witness a hovering object
on the day she was to go
to the lecture of a new found primate?




Was she being observed for the unconventional choice of her corset?
Or was it her belief that primates were not that dangerous yet
did stem from some similar evolutionary background -and this, this well before Darwin!



Madame Van Gorp chose to ignore all
She retro-spied on the spy plane
She knew her campaign for apes was in vain


Yet she also knew her binocular telescopes
would serve to observe
more than a horserace at the opera.


Monday, April 1, 2013

Full Fathom Five

"Full Fathom Five..." by William Shakespeare and James Lang

Full fathom five my father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that does fade,
But do the suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong,
Hark! Now I hear them -Ding-dong, bell.

Six feet under daddy lies;
Artificial joints his bones are made;
Drones flew over for his eyes
On You Tube nothing of him will fade,
Yo! Yeh be targeted by a Fukoshima transmutation
Into something rich and strange.
Out of the ground Galexy's ringing another voice command
Ding-dong,
Awsome! Take off your headphones. I hear da Dinga-dongas call.