Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Rocking Chair


There rarely came a time when I didn't want to rock no more
The swivel on my chair came at the price of a screech 
The wood planks under my feet perhaps cried under my weight 
As I stretched my legs forward gathering momentum
Pulling my back back with
A magazine firm in my hands

On my porch I rocked beyond the chirps of birds
Amongst 
Unpreturbed
Verbs
That swerved and veered off my original thought of the moment
And though I strayed
The rocking chair brought me back to
Where I started 


John Kennedy used a rocking chair
It was rumoured he almost fell off his chair during
The Cuban Missile Crisis
And due to his bad back
He rocked in the Oval Office and
On Air Force One





The Etruscans and Trojans thought of rocking even before the arch was invented
However the instability of their early mechanisms had horses falling and
Slaves scrambling for a foothold



Just like some modern inventors concocted the Rocking Bed or




The Rocking Table



Not all things that Rock, Rock

Still, as I sit rocking in this chair I cannot help but think of the passing
Seasons, the Whale on Pluto and my fellow rocker here next to me
(Some think of him a touch tinny) 
Above the creaking you hear his circuits 
A Bible of sounds

My robot, 
Zot
Asks me about passing time
Gives me physical estimations on my vortex and
Chair's trajectories 

Worries if I
Over-rock 
How will I catch myself?
And wonders about circulation, digestion and 
The gestation period in the womb that
I so often talk about.


Monday, July 20, 2015

Pluto, my Pluto



On the day Voyager 2 transmitted the images of Pluto
I ran up the Empire State building
Hoping to get a clear image on my Ipad
Clear of the fray of the Apple

It was a clear night
People were taking in views of an obscure
Central Park or
The downtown view of the Freedom tower

And there it came from
3 billion miles away
A celestial body like no other orb
That seduced my eye

Pluto more than Plato has always had a place in my mind
True its erratic orbit and
It's brazen relationship with
Neptune



For years fascinated me as the
Orbiting of these two planets
Come oh so close to colliding
Every 500 years or so

But I am undeniably seduced by the revelation  of
Pluto's topography: there is the "heart" a region of
Nitrogen snow spread across 1500 km
A curvy stretch resembling Miami to New Orleans

That shines out of the darkness exposing
The dark nymph that awaits
Cupid to pluck her with his
Arrow

The ice mountains
Hold us agape
A Rocky mountain genesis
Reflecting active geomorphology in the gym



Let our eyes ski down to Cthulhu or
Clulu or C'thuhu or Thu Thu -for commoners
It's nicknamed the "Whale"-
A rather elongated dark region that



Compared to another batty yet wondrous mysterious expanse
Is the "Brass knuckles" formation
Sure it could have been named "Al Pacino Knuckles" or "Humphrey Bogart Knuckles"
But Pluto is and always has been here to provide punch even as we scan its

Craterless gulf-scape,
Where the "donut"
A 300 km coconut sprinkled body that

Accosts the tail of the "Whale" perhaps


Offering a buoyant relief or
A whale of a snack.
Hence on this planet deemed too small to be one
There lies with jelly eyes

Beyond the vision of most powerful scopes
This God of the underworld is
By no means too far or too dark
To evoke and poke a  revelation of original skin



You, a planet born in Sin
With a floppy orbit
Swinging like a Nadia Korbut
Pluto, the time of your love only begins.




Tuesday, July 14, 2015

The Day I Checked into my Senior Living Home

The car stopped and as I got out looking around, my eyes scanned the landscape. There was a roadworks truck directly blocking the entrance and it was, I suppose, repairing a pothole. The heat from the fresh tar not only penetrated through the soles of my shoes which I had bought on sale the day before at "Pay Less Shoe Soupless" for $29.99, a 30% savings, but both my walker and my shoes adhered to the surface with such vehemence that I was unable to move. What did move was a trickle of sweat that rand down behind my ear. I was just 10 yards from the entrance, I could see the the automatic door getting jammed when a lady wearing a white cotton dress with a blue straw hat that was obviously too big for her and also cover what certainly was a pretty head of hair turned and said, "Do you need any help?"
This could seemingly appear as a friendly gesture but I was keen to pick up her accent on the "you" which sounded condescending and on top of that she could have addressed me "Madame" or "My Lady" which given the circumstances would have been appropriate. 
"Go fuck yourself" I re torqued, "just call the Manager and tell her to get her ass out here fast." 
Bambi the manager trotted out in flat heels like she was out of the woods and a young man probably from the Carribean shadowed her.

"Marjolaine, we were waiting for you! What have you here?"
 Lifting my head slightly to my more dignified stance I offered,
 "Bambi, at least you could put a sign warning your elderly clients of the fresh tar. I've been planted here an hour in the sun!"
"You poor thing, and this is your first day at the Maxi Royal Senior Institute for the Uptrodden. Derrrek, get a new pair of slippers for Marjolaine. I'm sorry, we'll have to say goodbye to those shoes of yours, if you don't mind we can just leave them there as a memento to welcome future clients.

>>> At that I considered loosing my temper but I realized that if I wanted my $29.99 shoes refunded Bambi would probably send me to the city of Miami compensation board which was a three month waiting process that I was all too familiar with. 
"What a wonderful idea! I can only say that I am tickled and honored to accept your offer." 
Derrick arrived with some old slippers and politely unstuck my walker.
“You’re the third lady Ize unstuck today.” he said.
I approached the front door that automatically opened in front of me. First I saw the front desk and someone sitting there hidden behind a large computer.

"Shiiit! The computer is down again. And so is one of the elevators.Hi M'am, are you new here?"
 "Yes, you may call me Mrs Marjolaine. 
Her eyebrows lifted and it looked like she was informed of my arrival. She asked me to sit down. 
 "Oh, Miss Marjoham. Welcome young lady. If you don't mind waiting until the elevator repairman arrives we'll have you up I your room in a jiffy."
I could see the line of elderly citizens growing. They were mostly bent over, waiting very patiently for the one elevator that would take them up to their rooms.
"That could take hours lady..."
 "Just chill sweetheart, our repairman lives in the building."
"Lives in the building?"
"Our two helevators are so solicited you see that every once in a while, I mean every so, so very often - but we're ain't supposed to say this to our new guests (she whispers to my ear)they do break down you see and when they or one breaks down the situation down here or up there on the floors well, well, have you ever had your toilet clogged and the water starts to flow..."


I looked around to find Bambi but she was nowhere in sight. Although it did seem like a rough start this was the Maxi Royal Senior Institute for the Uptrodden and my dear friend Dr. Nemia did recommend it.  I heard a door open and saw presumably the elevator repairman rushing out to the hallway with his belt unfastened and a big wrench in his right hand. Could he have been banging Bambi, I thought. Then I remembered that such ideas, if my mother even suspected, would get me in big trouble.