Squirrel: Book III

by John Keats Lang

There are those who fly it o'er their fellow-men
With most prevailing: yet those who unfurl
Their vanity tails, to browse away
The comfortable bark and smoothy acorn
 O torturing fact!

Teetering branches
That, through an idiot blink, a misfired trigger
Fire-branded hunters  sear up and singe
A maple tree's wide ripe squirrely hopes.

With not a tongue
Oh, sanctuary of splendour, not a sight
Able to face an owl or a drone at night,

Bleary-eyed no news nations,
Where crowns celebrate flacons .
Unleashed beasts,

Fearfully nod to the acorn tree

Tip-toeing the dull skies 

Gathering strength like  the

Perch of a pole vaulter

These fierce intoxicating tones

Of trumpets, shouting after bamboozling baboons

With humming cannons that will moan

When unwakeful ears

Clap like thunder in 

Babylon.

Are these regalities gilded mask offerings?

Are these seatible unscaleable thrones

The constant spell of the ethereal squirrel?

Or can a ladder be birthed to approach the 

Abysm of he who hums, mouths and kisses the beloved Acorn?

Oh Apollo!

As bees gorge their cells

Thy sweet cream sickle  smoothie is thine

When thy gold breath reverberates like

The moaning squirrel

No tail is more resplendent

No cheek is more cheeky

Than yours that blesses  

Spatially

Sorted nuts in their plutonic and nutritional order.

Broken Backs

I broke my back

Back back back

Taking a wheelbarrow to

Move memories 

Forward 

I broke my back 

Back back back

An act that i enact 

In a Frida Kahlo  painting 

Today my back flies with

The bats

And Rats

Cozy up to gnaw

On nerve endings 

I hear 39 taps

On the dark warm window pane

Dancing taps

Screaming in a park

Where my shoelaces 

Spin out of control. 

The Italian Barbecue

The Italian Barbeque

By James Lang

A one act play 

The Scene is in Tuscany, it is the summer of 2018 and Italy is going through yet another heat wave. We are in a 400 year old hunting house that is isolated and detached from time. There is a long table with an umbrella and dangling Italian ribbons that ornate the door that leads to the kitchen. The grill is adjacent to the table. It is dusk and to the rear of the scene there is a wild forest in the backdrop. The characters are dressed according to their period.

Actors: Marie Antoinette (MA), regal and in great form, she is hosting the event.
Thomas Mann (TM): well-dressed, intuitive and calculating, stocky shoulders and sure of himself. Dante: wearing a long cape and cap, slightly hunched, quick nervous movements and very expressive with his hands. Milton: a great observer, light on his feet, he likes to hold his chin and pretend to examine things. John Pence (JP): Grey hair, beady intense eyes, walks around like he is in a parade. Queen Elizabeth (QE): Big had, ginger on her feet, elegant and queeny. Virgil: the parking attendant, observant, lonely and bored acts as if destiny has its role. MA (Wearing a regal gown, her hair made in her famous style)

MA    Gentlemen, today is a special evening, Italy has cleared the remains of the Morandi bridge that collapsed in Genoa, and I have invoked the spirits and the powers of my Lord to invite you to celebrate, discuss, eat and drink at this special hunting house in the middle of Tuscany. Here you can express yourselves freely, there are no devices or spies except for the few wild boars that we might hear scrounging around the woods. Regardless, you should know that this slab of beef that I have brought and which we shall grill tonight, comes from a cow that was pasturing under the Morandi bridge at the time of its collapse. Miraculously, although a truck fell on top of it from a height of 55 meters, the cow was found by rescue workers 6 days after the tragedy, unharmed, and the local residents decided to name this cow Santa Mucca. The cow was then given to Marco Airoldi, the director of Benetton, but when Edwin Musk heard about it he flew to Milan and offered 100 of his electric cars in exchange. Airoldi accepted but when he learned that Musk wanted to put the Santa Mucca into his next rocket ship that would orbit Pluto, he pulled out of the deal. He tweeted, “Santa Mucca looking for Marie” probably thinking of Virgin Mary and when I replied he gave the cow to me.

Dante    That is so kind Marie. It took a some days to walk to this saintly place and I have left Virgil at the parking to watch my valise. I hope you don’t mind.

MA    Tell him there is a chain that he can use to attach you things and he can join us if he wants.

Dante    Virgil is too shy, I’m afraid. But if your lost and googlemaps doesn’t work he’s the man to have around.

MA    Indeed.

Milton    It is an honour to be here too Marie. I’ve been writing so many letters these days that my feathers are running out. It’s good to get a break.

MA    Who are you writing to Milton?

Milton    Mostly the church. Ever since I published my novel there has been an unending surge of scandals emanating from the church. What’s worse is the cardinals know all about it and they keep it under cover.

Dante    More sinners. God as a tool of...

T.M.   Power and

MA    Persuasion! So gentlemen, now that you are here there is a decision to make and that is who will cook the meat?

The 3 men in unison, “I will!”

MA    Now, now. This must be decided in a civilized way. For example, we could decide by hearing which of you wrote the most about human suffering.

TM    Unfair! Dante would likely win and even if he didn’t such a conversation would take days. The meat would go bad by then.

Milton    I don’t mind a good debate Thomas, in my day we wouldn’t count days but years.

Dante    Then let us decide on who amongst us wrote the most about women.

Milton    Oh, I see it coming: Dante, the lover boy crazy about Beatrice, crazy, untouchable, pure love, LOL!

TM    (With an exaggerated Italian accent) Oh, Be-atrice, I will go though hell for you!

Milton and Thomas Mann laugh together.

MA    Gentlemen! If I were your mother I would say “maléduqué” Now, I remember in the Crystal Palace, if we couldn’t decide on something the King would send us into a labyrinth in the jardin and the first one to get out would be the winner.

TM   But there are no labyrinths here my Queen. What if we try paper, scissor, rock?

At this moment the sound of an old gate makes everyone turn around.


MA    Mike Pence! How timely! I had given up on you! Just now we were looking for someone to grill this slab of beautiful meat.

MP    Howdie y’all, sorry I’m late but I had to memorize the nuclear code for my country. I may be more used to grilling dogs but you give me a grill and Lord I shall come one step closer to heaven.

MA    (Handing over the sacred beef) This is no ordinary slab of cow I am giving you Mike, I need you to grill it like you would grill one of your own children.

MP    As a loyal person you have my utmost trust my Queen.

Milton    I thought you were Vice President of the United States? Why the nuclear code?

MP    “Have nuclear code, will travel” is what I say. Fake news! Code or no code I have been calling the shots since day one. Still, I made this trip to Italy to sidestep tweeting and...

Dante    Si, this tweeting business has me very intrigued. Today, if I would rewrite the Divina Commedia I would include some tweets.

MP ... and to meet Marie Antoinette. You are a big fan of mine!

MA    That’s sweet of you to say so Mike.

TM    Where would you introduce a tweet?

Dante   In Canto V, where I meet Piero and Francesca.

TM    I see, you would have Piero tweet Capaneus what a dead sinner he is!

Dante    Not bad Thomas. I think I would rather have Francesca tweet Ugolino telling him how earth and God are without pity. It could go, “Bad earth, bad God, no pity, whatta shame loser. #Francesca”

Milton    I like it, a little clash in a poem creates irony.

MP    Just wait a minute! Before I ask where the lighter fluid is, let’s be clear that God has pity and mercy on us all.

Everyone: Are you sure???

MA    Now gentlemen, let’s not get carried away. In Tuscany, (nor in Versailles) we don’t have lighter fluid. For years I use these bones with some paper.

MP    Bones? Where from?

MA    Rabbit paws. They come from my favorite French restaurant, “Chez Mon Lapin”. This is from a dish called “Ailes de lapin” or “Rabbit wings”. These dried bones light a fire faster that you can say “Le silence du people est la leçon du rois.” (She hands the bones over to MP)

MP    I took French in High School Marie and I can tell you there ain’t no silent people today in the U.S. of A. (He takes the rabbit paws and stokes up a big flame.)

Milton    Ladies and Gentlemen, I have to step in. When I arrived on the Continent in my carriage I was watching a Youtube video on a singer who appears very famous.

TM   How do you know?

Milton   She has a few million hits on her song. The point is it was filmed in the Louvre.

MA   They did a song in the Louvre?

Milton   Not only are they singing but dancing too! Dancing! And to top it all, they are all colored.

MA   Black people in the Louvre... Mon dieu!

Milton   At one point they’re rapping and dancing in front of a favourite painting of mine, “Dante and Virgil in Hell”.

Dante   They’re dancing in front of my painting?

Milton    Dancing in front of light and shadows, looking hip, just as Virgil looks in control.

Virgil   Did someone call my name?

Dante    It’s ok Virgil, just keep watching the parking for us.

Milton   And then it got me to thinking, watching this video, about when I wrote on fear and silence.

Milton steps into the darknss of the night, takes a deep breath and says,

 “In this nightmare that you and I know best
 You and all the rest
 In this nightmare that you and I confess
 You and I regret
 The face in the dark cloud haunts me
 The safety in silence taunts me
 All that I share, indifference at beast
 You damaged all intent For all the sins I've done, I still belong”

MA    (Clapping) Bravo, John, Bravo! That was excellent.

Dante    You say the safety in silence “taunts me”, yet all your writing stirred up quite a lot of noise.

Milton    There is a need for stirring Dante, when there is a decline in morality, there’s no need to speak up.

 MP    (Acting busy cooking the beef over the smoky grill) Thank God in America we speak up and Tweet up!

TM    Not wishing to step into your flames Mike but a society can make considerable noise yet all that noise or brouhaha can be just a cloud that obfuscates the issues.

 MP   Such as?

TM   Issues such as racism, sexual orientation, crime to name a few. Your country is not out of the woods.

 MP    So you think the noise we make is to avoid dealing with these issues in a real way?

TM   Y es, I do.

MP   Have you got an example.

TM You use religion, Mike, to override all these issues.

MP    (Making an effort to flip the beef) And you think you’re a saint?

TM    If you read “Death in Vensie” then you know I am not a saint.

Dante    A sensational novel. The boy was so pretty!

Milton    There’s so much tension and drama.

MA    You describe the boy like a girl...

TM    Thank you gentlemen, my Lady, it was the most difficult novel I ever wrote. How can a man, feel love for a young boy who is coming of age and yet still has such delicate feature of a young woman?

MP    But that’s revolting! Have mercy on your sinful soul! (sticking a fork into the meat) Marie! Marie! I think it’s ready!

MA   Mike, Mike, (taking the large slab of beef over to the table), this is so moving. Did I tell you that this is a Genovese cow that was found from under the collapsed Morandi bridge?

MP    I read a tweet from Milton before I arrived. I know all about it. Her name was Santa something. Now, we were talking...

MA   Mucca. Good. We still need to check to see if it’s not too raw inside.


MP    It is a thick, thick slab M’am, even for Indiana standards.

MA    Mike, you told me I could trust you to make it right.

MP    Yes, your majesty. It’s just I would feel a little more comfortable if I could cut it in two...

MA    No cutting! It has to be done in one piece, am I understood?

MP   (Looking around the table for support) Yes of course. I’ll sear it just like in Indiana and that’s the truth. (He runs back to the bbq with the beef.)

MA    That’s why you’re here Mike, because we need you to cook it until the inside is a juicy blue red colour.

MP    (Almost choking and looking blue red in the face) Blue red! I can make it red, my Queen but you’re talking to a proud Republican who is all red and cooks red too.

 Everyone in surprise: “Ohhhhhhhhh ohh ahhhhhhh”

Milton    Are you implying that you won’t do blue cold washing laundry cycles? That you avoid looking at the sea or the sky because it’s blue?

Another sound of the gate is heard and the voice of a woman speaks to Virgil. The sound of her approaching footsteps in the darkness approaches slowly. Queen Elizabeth appears wearing a large green hat and walks with a cane.

MA    Queen Elizabeth, I’m so glad you made it!

QE    I’m sorry I’m late Marie, I was so involved with my gospel singing lesson that I completely forgot the time. Have you all finished eating?

MA    Not at all. I’m afraid this dinner is running late and Mike is struggling to bbq the beef.

Milton    Let me shake your hand your highness. It is such an honour to meet you. I’m...

QE    I know who you are John Milton. (Tilting forward with her big hat) Marie told me about all the guests including the one at the BBQ.

Milton    Let me just say it again, “it is an honour”.

TM    It is an honour for me too your highness, and I must say I am impressed that you are taking up gospel.

QE    When Harry married Meghan at Saint George’s Church, I got tuned into that American gospel, I couldn’t believe how they belted out with so much sincerity and love. Mike, you’ll probably like to know I’ve learned a lot from you people – though not exactly you people. And now my gut needs a good stuffing, so where’s the beef Mike?

MP    Coming up soon everyone!

MA    I sure hope so. It’s nearly 11pm. (Then she walks over to the BBQ.) You called that cooked Mike? If this were your election I would say “You are cooked”.

MP    I’m trying Marie, but the fire ain’t as hot anymore. Maybe those rabbit paw bones burnt too fast.

Dante  

Them rabbit paws
Ain’t so bourgoise
I eat them with fork
And Chainsaws.

 Everyone:  Bravo!

TM    That’s what this BBQ needs, more poetry.

Milton  

When Lucifer is hungry
He gets a monkey
To steal a cow from a Greek rugby team.
Then he licks his chops
Viral fire burns in his eyes.

TM    Why Greek?

Milton     I donno. They lost things. The Greeks fell to the Romans, their banks crumbled, didn’t they? Hey Mike, is the beef ready in this millennial or next?

QE    I think Mike’s distracted. He’s been looking at Thomas’ derriere every time he walks by.

MP You got it wrong Queeny. It’s Thomas who’s looking at my hot ass and not the other way around!

Everyone: We want the beef!

TM    So you’re admitting you have a hot ass.

MP   My ass is as red hot as God conceived it.

Milton   My silence can no longer be withheld. Beef or no beef, Queens or no Queens, there is a darkness descending this evening on this very little hunting house in Tuscany.

TM & Dante   I feel the darkness too.

Milton   What frightens me most is when Mike will take the beef off the grill and serve it.

MA   What do you think will happen?

Milton  Blue red blood will spray all over the landscape, all of Italy and then all of the world will be covered with blood!

Dante   Do you mean this beef is percolating like the fires in hell?

QE   Do you expect me to believe that your Lucifer will appear and say, "Not bloody enough?"


TM   Let’s get on with it and cut the bloody thing!

Everyone gathers around as Mike Pence cuts the beef.

MP    This is redder than red Marie.

MA    Yes it’s red, but where’s the blue?  

Dante Such redness reminds me when...  

Milton    Did you hear that?

Everyone is silent, listening.

Milton    It’s an owl in the tree.

TM    Y es I hear it.

MP    Me too.

QE   The last owl we had in Westminster Cathedral flew out from a tree and dropped a bloody mouse right before my white shoes.

MA    What was the occasion?

QE    That was Lady Di’s wedding. I suppose it was an omen. I haven’t told anyone about it for years. It was only half of the mouse, the head was missing.

TM    How horrible! Owls are beautiful but vicious creatures.

MP     Unless you sound like Cardy B.

Everyone: Whaaat?

QE    OK Mike, what’s the point?

Dante You know Cardi B your majesty?

QE    She hot Dante. You would like her.

MP   She says “OKuuuuuurrk!!” Sounds like an owl to me.

QE   She makes a lot of “shmoney” but she sounds more like a turkey if you ask me.

MP   Let’s get Virgil to finish the BBQ, I got a rap song for everyone!

Everyone gets together for the song, Mike takes the lead: (Song attributed to Cadi B (Drip, Feat, Migos)

Came bloody drippin' (drip drip)

Came bloody drippin' (drip drip)

Came bloody drippin' (drip drip)

 Diamonds on my wrist, they drippin'

My cow is drippin' (drip drip)

My cow is drippin' (drip drip)

 She called Santa Mucca (drip drip)

 Fell down the bridge,  drippin' rubies

Came bloody drippin' (drip drip)

Came bloody drippin' (drip drip)

 Came bloody drippin' my meat (drip drip)

 BBQ sauce on my spoon, they drippin'

Came bloody drippin' my meat (drip drip)

Came bloody drippin' meat (drip drip)

Santa Mucca drippin’ (drip drip)

BBQ sauce on my spoon

Give my steak something to remember (Cardi!)

Tryna make BBQ LOVE

Wanna Love my Beef

My Genoa Steak ain't quick to grill

My Genoa steak (go) Grillin’ and flippin'

Weeeeeyoooock!

like a right swipe on Tinder (woo) Tinder is Tender

and so is my steak (woah)

Light up my fire using those rabbit paws (dough)

And my BBQ is flippin'


Chorus: You’re the hottest steak in all of Tuscany 

So hot the perfume got Pinocchio’s puppetry 

You wear your slippers when u BBQ 

It’s cause ya name’s Cardi B 

And you can fuck your tender loins.



Came bloody drippin' my meat (drip drip)

BBQ sauce on my spoon, they drippin'

Came bloody drippin' my meat (drip drip)

Came bloody drippin' meat (drip drip)

Santa Mucca drippin’ (drip drip)

BBQ sauce on my spoon

Give my steak something to remember (Cardi!)

Tryna make BBQ LOVE

Wanna Love my Beef, I don't want it RAW!

My Genoa Steak  ain't quick to grill my Genoa steak (go)

Grillin’ like a right swipe on Tinder (woo)

Tinder is Tender and so is my steak (woah)

Light up my fire using those rabbit paws (dough)



Chorus: Now this steak is so gushy it’s all mushy!

 And the diamonds on her Maserati 

Going yucky she wanna eat that blue red meat (right now baby) 

She wanna eat that blue red meat (that cow had rabies) 

Get down! Fuck ya' Marie Antoinette and dat hair (right now) 

Fuck ya Genoa Bridge and tunnel meat (right now)

 Cardi B gonna take Lucifer to strip 

He gonna drive till he goes “drip, drip drip”


 My beef ain’t gushy or mushy Cause I’m Cardi B, an don’t ya touch my tushy!

End of Play

Departures (A nod of recognition to Ginsberg's "Howl")

I saw the best minds of generations
War time scholars who
Arrested students for a comma or a pronoun.

Intellectual monkeys who
Mocked those who played and
Graffitified Racism under bridges

Yakyaking -almost nasal- in brightly lit
Florescent Institutions
Undressing Shakespeare, Poe and Dante like
Dancers in a strip joint

Estatic no-drama lovers
Stewing in theology
Dreaming of an unknown vegetable

A spy, a tweet, a bloody nose.

I saw a wise fringe heading East and West
Howling like a train
Trapped between
The conscious and the unconscious

A fringe of culture and hair
A rocket smoking
Tears of accomplishment.

Indescribable descriptions

I wish I could describe the lid of my
Broken trashcan that I worked on so hard to
Clean and repair.

I cannot describe my tonsils
Because I always thought they were in the middle
Of my throat and not at the sides.

Now that I had them removed
The white crust reflected in a mirror
Is all that is left to see.

I thought I could describe Justice until
I made a special trip to the supermarket to
Use a $10 coupon only
I forgot to use it.

A group of cheerleaders were preparing for a
Trip to South America with a private sponsor
They approached a propeller plane to take them
to a remote destination. One of the cheerleaders,
Beatrice, threw her baton up for fun but it hit the
spinning propeller and got propelled through the
skull of the cheerleading coach, Bobby.
The cheerleaders looked at the man's indescribable body
and chuckled, adding, "Bobby never knew where to keep his hands
anyhows. He deserved it."

I was so enthusiastic describing the urban renewal in Detroit
That when I read about a writer who couldn't describe it I deemed
That "urban renewal" was not in his vocabulary -or- the unassuming process of a participating
Democracy that stitches warehousing and residential codes to objectifyingly create new borders
Yet at times exclude children, education, public space and even the public, must have gone
Beyond a limited language and Chomskyish conceptual mind set.

Lastly, I am no longer in a, a position whereby I can objectively
Describe my tomatoes or raspberry bushes.
They're so genuinely tomato and
Genuinely raspberry that any approach using
Purpose and Facts
With an irreverent desire to
Speak the Truth will
Leave the listener in a permanent state of
Fear, void of hope and recognition of what a True
Tomato or Raspberry is.

Lazarus' cake

Humbled
Living by my flower
Up before Sunrise
Everyday

My client wanted
Mousse and berries
To Marry his Man
Both named Sam

Over my counter he
Spoke proudly of a chosen Son
A test tube One
Carried in a Chicago mother
And growing as we speak.

All this talk
Stirred my head
The yeast was fermenting
As I counted the layers

I questioned my vision for
How my craft, my pastry, my art
My sumptuously rich
Lazarian 7 layered
Cake

Could be cut in front of witnesses of
An unorthodox wedding

No sugar, no jelly, no honey
Could join these two men

Using my cake, cream and berries as
A catalyst of love.

Showbie detox

It was so easy and friendly to me
Show, Show-bee
I preload my timely notifications
Pinned my voice notes and
Smart document viewer
Texted  my co-teachers for tips and coffee
LOL!
Glanced at the Parent Page to see if their in
The Loop

I could show my quick marking audio exporting
Grades-at-a glance
To Australian and New Guinea schools
Also nourishing on technology

My digital platforms allowed me to
Skip mentoring and better integrate the
Workflow to break the Puzzle

That Puzzle of knowledge that Show
Understanding is garnering curiosity so
My learners are sucking it up
Outside the box

My learners relaxed 'cause
Assignment notifications communicated
Individually and they plugged  in
Spotify -astonishing- music
Reducing  the reusing because of FOMO
(fear of missing out)

These tools nourished me day in day out
I applied applications after applications to make Progress happen
Then, one day, I  Showbied out.

I'm in a detox facility in Arizona
They've tied my fingers together for 6 weeks so I can't text
Not even my parents!
And I'm not allowed to use any Apps -not even in the bathroom.

Today I'm disconnecting to reconnect
And to hell with the smart documents and
Digital platforms and
Education and knowledge.
Tonight I'm going out
4G-less
Putting on platform leather shoes to show
The World who I can be!

Easter sheep on ship

Bah-Boarding.

15 minutes, okay?

Should have known those people better and now they they put sheep on a fishing ship to ship to China. Unbelievable transformation. And the name of the ship is "Miss Sustain-ability".

I know there is no choice: big Sis is going on that ship so I can write this story that all of us can read.

My trembling hand struggles to take notes. I hear the motors of the turbines twirling and as I squint hard to protect my eyes from the early morning light  I hear the sheep letting loose baas that echo through the pipes of what was once a fishing trawler.

Big Sis is on the ramp and I'm writing this now because possibly she's going to part  forever and I don't want to think about it but her fur is splendid and her eyes deep and round and she looks at me one last time and says something but all I can hear is the turbines and I'm tempted to take off my top hat and run to see the Captain, that pig of a Captain overlooking the deck with his flat nose just pretending it's business as usual even though he has gotten sick of fish and now uses his boat to fret sheep across the South China Sea. All the sheep are boarding, 50 in one go; it's frightening. Suddenly I'm distracted by the Chinese satellite that is burning into the atmosphere overhead.

I can hear the Captain laughing; see the spit spraying through his teeth and as his ship pulls out he turns to me and yells, "I will use the burning ambers of the Tiangong-1 
Space Station to roast myself some nice sisterly Easter lamb! Hahahahahaaaa!"

Lithuanian Toll Keepers

Ask any tourist who has travelled to Lithuania and they will confirm the viral fascination for tollbooths. 

Vincas Kurdica who is best known for composing Lithuania's national anthem is also is the first Lithuanian to have set up toll booths in his country. That's why he appears on the 500 Litu banknote and on the verso is inscribed "maut" for toll.

Wheras the Soviets tried to impose their tollbooths after WWII, the Lithuanians stuck to their original design which was taken from the honeycomb of bees or the hive itself. (This stems from their bee culture that dates back to the middle ages and is even embedded in their language.)

Lithuanian toll booth, circa 1960

Toll worker going back to work in a beehive booth.

as opposed to the Russian designs that were more traditional and include coal stoves to keep the toll workers from freezing.

What few people know is that Vincas wrote a song about tollbooths and it goes like this:

When you drive up to my boothz

You will give me a 10 or 20 litu billz

And you should not be scared to give me a 50

Becauz

Liberty is our motherland

On our frozen lips and lanez

You choose to come to my booth or my comradez 

Stalin will not tell you whose booth to drive up to

We are a nation of hope

And we will build our beehive booths like no other nationz

Our pockets will buzz with change at the end of the dayz

And we will hover over the steamy hot soup our mothers' make uzzz.

My tollbooth operator's arm may be trembling

But I am not scared! 

Let the tanks roll into my backyardz

And I will give you your change and smilezzz.

Dicky Dickens Jr's letters

This is my 13,345th letter, mail, tweet, correspondence, whatever you call it. My great-great grandfather wrote over 14,000 and he died at 59. I'm 79 but I got a later start than Charles that's because my parents wouldn't let me have wifi until I was 20 years old.
Today, like most days,  I got 42 tweets, 67 emails, 131 instagram likes, and about 400 snapchat shares. I gave up on  facebook some years ago because of ads I kept receiving.
Last week some of my fans came down hard on me after learning that in 1996 I slammed JK Rowling when she sent me a sample of her Harry Potter manuscript. At the time I wrote:

The Pierre Hotel, New York, 1996

Dear JK Rowling,

"Do you think it should be deemed suitable that I should pass my eyes, rolls them over such demonically ludicrous characters and then use my name in order to gain favour in an illustrated house of publishing? True, I might do so if your story built something more than a slurry cauldron  of infertile magic posed on feeble foundations that couldn't set tension in the eyes of a scared cat. Your hapless, timid Harry Potter weakling character, transformed into a powerhouse hero only shows you have no inkling of an idea what the magnanimous responsibility true authorship entails.
Go wash some more dishes and think of another career.

So why do you think I didn't stroke her ego? Years later, Rowling's father was an engineer who went bust and when his burger van business failed he needed help. Do you think his daughter helped him? No. But I knew that even before she got famous. Just another unthankful daughter, that's who she is.

So I said I gotta write my 13,000 whatever letter. Whom to? Yes. My wife Martha,
even though I'll see her a few hours from now.

Grand Hotel Dieu de Lyon, Sunday March 18

Dear Martha,

I know you say that I seldom speak of myself, share my thoughts and the inner monkey in me. Prey tell I bid you my apologies but the truth is I am inhabited by my characters to such an Everestian degree that they feel more real than my family. You also consider me a liar but what liar would come out in public? Remember when President Bush bestowed me the medal of Freedom back in 2002? He whispered in my ear, "Dicky, who is your true inspiration?" and I quickly replied, "Collodi, the creator of Pinocchio." At that Bush smiled and placed his finger on my nose and then on his nose all the while people looked on somewhat perplexed and the cameras flashed in rapid fire and you were there.
I lie not when I say that I don't think I really should speak more about our 5 children, all of them, nevertheless are gamers and have only the slightest regard for their parents. My thoughts race past these misplaced conceptions and most certainly we should have stopped at 3.
Know that my love for you is truer that the cold that penetrated soviet prisoners in the Gulag.
Yours,

Feeling a little bit guilty I decided to write one more letter, and why not, I had 20 minutes before making my next speech before a French literary society on how most of my characters are vegan and would not even eat croissants. I slid my chair closer to the desk that overlooked the famous fontaine Bartholdi, known for the Statue of Liberty.

Grand Hotel Dieu de Lyon, Sunday March 18

Dear Dora Annie Dee and Sidney Jr.,

I usually don't write a letter addressing the two of my children but the situation seems exceptional.

Your Mummy tells me Sidney Jr. is doing a continuum Airdop on Dora Annie Dee's Airpad and in retaliation Dora Annie Dee is nixing the Mesh network of Sidney Jr's audio relay play. Now that the Bannon revolution has passed I should remind you unless a cessation of hostilities is in sight I shall send you, like your great-great Grandfather's father did, to work on the Wall. (Charles was sent to a shoe polishing factory to pay for his father's debt.) Either that or to Siberia to work in a Hacking Think tank. Have it your way. For starters, I think I'll reconfigure the Zigbee and have your toast burnt every morning.

Your loving father,

Tuffi and polydipsia

Wuppertal, famed for the Pina Bausch dance company, is also home of the first suspended rail that was built and opened in 1901. In 1949 the town was looking to promote its ridership and hired the Althoff Circus to do a publicity stunt. A small female elephant was hoisted in to the train to show how safe this train was. The elephant, whose original name was Tarto, was thought to have panicked and smashed its way out of the cabin dropping 12 meters into the Wupper river. Tarto's name was changed to Tuffi, Italian for "dive" after this incident and the suspended rail became famous after this infamous incident.
When Tuffi died an autopsy was done which revealed the elephant suffered from polydipsia, a rare disease that shuts off the brain's understanding when one's thirst is quenched. Indeed, this elephant drank enormous quantities of water and when it was above the Wupper on that ill-fated summery day of the 21st of July 1950, it was not frightened by the wobbly steel structure that made screeching sounds as the elephant was forced in, but it, being just above the river, saw a flow of irresistible water that provoked her to spring for it.

The Codfather meets the Snowboard Queen

He was head of the New England fisheries

She was a defrocked gold medalist

He sold his fish for cash

Circumventing a complex system of cod quotas

Labeling the fish as Haddock

She was a snowboard specialist who loved speed and wax

In 1998 she was about to take the gold in the cross competition when

She grabbed her ski on the last jump

She grabbed it for show but

Wiped out getting

Snow in her mouth instead of Gold

Carlos Rafael, the Codfather, bragged in front of two IRS undercover agents posing as

Russian Mafia buyers

How he brought in tons of Cod and made millions selling them illegally.

He bragged and bragged thinking the IRS couldn't be so savvy as to hire Russians

To investigate a fish empire.

But he was wrong.

Lindsey Jacobellis, 12 years later, sitting in front of her house with her dog Gigi,

Knows that she ain't fishing for the gold no more but

There's a non-stop loop in her head and if it weren't for Denise

Her mental coach performance architect

She's be stuck in that race and the millions of mocking mails she received since.

Lindsey and Carlos met at the National Portrait Gallery

In front of the new portraits depicting former president Obama and his wife Michelle

Lindsey was looking at Barak's leafy background that appeared like an overgrowing texture

Ready to envelop the former leader of the free world

Carlos was looking at Michelle, his eyes were lost somewhere in her dress that

Any young tot would wish to hide under

Their eyes crossed and Carlos blurted "what a nice dress you have" even though Lindsey was wearing a skirt "If he ate more codfish I bet his hair wouldn't be so grey" he added.

Lindsey found Carlos funny. They went to a fish restaurant and shortly after, on his invitation, they

got on a plane to Pyeong Chang to see the 2018 winter olympics.

II

Knut Nystad is known as the Waxman. He heads a team of 30 Norwegian wax people who take

an oath to become invisible and inscrutable to the press and the public at large. Lindsey and the Codfather ran into the Waxman at a bar on Solbong-Ro street. It was bustling 'cause the weather was sub-freezing outside.

"Nobody complements a dishwasher for scrubbing clean a whole night's worth of plates" Knut insisted, "that's what makes us invisible." said Knut with a smooth Norwegian accent. Then he took out a q-tip, cleaned his ear and sucked it between his lips. From the bar Knut invites the couple to the multi-million dollar Norwegian wax shop. Inside, people are busy caressing the bottom of skis and the Codfather's eyes sparkle in front of the myriad of waxes. He is thinking of a way to fatten his cod by waxing them so they would stay warmer and burn less calories.

"Fish oil is good for outdoor clothes and Chinese umbrellas but I wouldn't think of waxing up them fish even for a competition." said Knut but Lindsey just laughed it off and said he was such a "good fellow."

Suddenly an alarm went off in the grinding room and everyone could feel the earth shaking as 230 North Korean cheerleaders marched by the shack. They were chanting and twirling in the minus 22 degree atmosphere and pulling 230 identical red carry-on bags.

Knut opened the door and immediately felt his nostrils fill with an exotic scent, so profuse, so exotic it took his brain a minute to cogitate what it was: it had a touch of earthly tar and a hint of a nuclear underground reaction with a tinge of torture room screams. And yet as those beautiful lipsticked girls marched and sang in unison in front of the wax shop, Lindsey stood spilling a drink she had brought with her from the bar as she stared at what she thought was Mrs Um and Mike Pence walking side by side. But what really surprised her was to see Lindsey Vaughn just behind the close-lipped couple with 20 or more photographers following her and taking rapid fire shots of the Olympic star.

Savage Winter Olympics

I spent the weekend listening to a sports broadcaster comparing the savage evolution of a yellow boxfish to a Toyota Yaris and a skeleton bobsled manned by a female Jamaican team only to learn that the angle of the blades of speedsters is offset by .85 degrees in order to accommodate a more gripping trajectory as the skaters spin around the ice at impossible speeds.

It is a Savage Winter Games
And if you feel like a quarantined Buffalo
Corralled at the airport waiting
To burst out of security of your nation

Then consider when 17 year old
Red Gerald won the gold medal in Slopesstyle
Winging so many twists and turns one feels dammed
To dig for what angelic, civilised thoughts
Must have been orbiting in this young lad's head

(Certainly not the Tesla propulsed by the Falcon Heavy
Into a solar orbit that won a gold medal in the eyes of
Push-button happy leaders)

And Red's beastly post-medal comment was
"I just wanted to land it"
His grinning coach beside him
His teeth going "a-ching!" as future green bills
Flipped before his pupils'

Still it is the Olympics that is known for twisting and turning
And what Olympian deserves higher accolades than
Huzuru Hanyu who with his
Pistol pose, hydroblading and signature Biellman spin
(With a generous foot posed over and behind the head)
Is considered the Skater of the Century!

Hanyu's flock of followers chuck Pooh Bears on the ice
Hanyu dips into a Pooh Box of tissues to dry his post
Performance tears

Some on the Alt Right taking out their Gaydometers claim
Hanyu is flaming
But for those who know him they see fearless effeminate feats
Transgressing style
Skating in the silence of the sublime

And even Winnie the Pooh
Walking around the snowy woods like a half-naked savage
Holding hands with Piglet and Christopher Robin
Never had us doubt that he knew where he was going to land.

Hymn for a New Year (2018)

I wanna vaccine
For 2018

Not an antibiotic
That makes me myopic

I NEED TO CAMP NEAR THE EVEREST

And get a Sherpa
Whose got Omertà

I NEED TO CAMP NEAR THE EVEREST

To feel the blood
Throbing in my Aortà

I NEED TO CAMP NEAR THE EVEREST

To turn a leaf on my wife Bertà

And so when you tweet that I'm being a Tourist

Looking for cheap emotions to
Get my soul nourished

Then take a hike over Wall Street's
Golden Index $$$

And kiss a Genie full of Gimmicks

I NEED TO CAMP NEAR THE EVEREST

Cause I don't wanna step on any more frogs
When my pointed shoes
Would turn their skin blues

Now you're tweeting like a Pharaoh
Typing hieroglyphs at such a pace

That bone comes outta marrow

Tweeting like a Pharaoh
Cause you're jealous of a designer Italian
Frigorifero

Now it's 2018
And I have an appointment for that Vaccine

That will burn all the daydreams

Like the one about Love
And Oatmeal
And Tangerines


If you have a beef about my horse whose name is
Eileen
If you've painted a wall at the finishing line
And said "Eileen is MINE, MINE, MINE!"

Well I've got some Cabbage ready to reheat
Cause on top of the Everest
You need warm feat!(1)


(1) The poet has taken out a license to spell "feet" with an "A" for the double impacKT just as "KT" has added more impact to the word impact.