Ms Universe 2015

Uneven Events

I was walking down 33rd street when someone crossed my path
Once wearing fluffy all in one jacket
He unfairly pointed me out and said:
"Your left heel is unevenly worn."

It was the beginning of a chain of events for
I started to notice a myriad of such uncommon sightings
I dove in a bar to consume 5 drinks
So here I compiled them here for posterity.

When I got to my car I saw that my right disk brake
Though seemingly against all odds would never wear and
Tear to the square of the left disk brake
Had worn down much more
I drove over a bunch of potholes to get to my swimming session

I came out of the pool after a long swim I found that
Whatever fair treatment I had reserved for my ears functionality
And no matter which hemisphere I may have traveled to to maintain them proper
My right ear had produced a gob of wax whereas
My left ear was clean as a whistle

At home I went to my aquarium to feed my sea creatures.
I noticed my Australian Black Nettle jellyfish's left hooded
Bell was more used and thinner than it's right hood but
Then I thought a jellyfish my not have a left or right side to
Contend with

Feeling rather rattled I decided to send some quick messages
To my loved ones and immediately I could sense that my
Right swipe function had worn out faster and was slower than
The left swipe function on my phone
(Of course the fingerprints on my right index finger are more worn
than my right index finger.)

Add caption

Rarely in such a disconcerted state I opted to take a shower.
Yet the shower head sprayed unevenly forcing me to
Press my body against the cold black and white tiles and move
Around the shower stall like a criminal in search of
Insufficient  misbegotten droplets that needed to
Remove the resistant antibacterial film of soap that adhered to my skin
(No I was not worried about opportunistic parasites that 3 times out of 7
make their way into a host for a long sojourn.)

Getting out of the shower I sneezed 3 times and thought about how uneven and unfair
A parachuting program of beavers had been in the 1950s when
Conservationists randomly trapped beaver and air-dropped them into wild regions
Only taking weight, tooth and tail measurements of their specimens
At the time of their capture.

http://www.popsci.com/vintage-video-parachuting-beavers

My only remedy for this state of agitation I decided was to take the A train to
Coney Island and get on the Cyclone as fast as possible.
Indeed, the roller-coaster evened out the imperfect and irregular digestion
That I had been suffering from and
My heartbeat surprisingly levelled to a regular rhythm
I tipped the ticket booth $2 and took 4 minutes to eat a Nahan's hot dog
Without any mustard.

Evergreen Fire

The last time I went to Evergreen Park

I went

Imagining to weld some leaves together
Just like I had learned in school

Yet  the fun
Of kicking up some ashes where

Once lay a bed of leaves
And bins of trashes

Was something
My kids could never get enough.

The last time I went to Evergreen Park
Porcupine needles stuck in my socks

I spoke to an unemployed firefighter who
Longed for those days when his fire-vest went smelting

The heat on his cheek -he joked-
Made him feel Scottish

Battling a Loch Ness flame machine spewing windy thermal columns
As he had to dig trenches whilst the combustion of gasses effaced canopies of vegetation

Those were the days he said.

I reminded him of my childhood fire hero
Smokey the bear

That sometimes I would ponder about whilst drinking and face-timing at my Starbucks in Pasadena
Looking out the window and wondering how far that smoke trail would go?

Like a comet the smokey tail moved on and on
And the coffee's heat stung the back of my throat

Most clients paid little attention to the surrounding skewering valleys
As the act of their swiping was certainly preponderant over shovelling

Certainly

In Evergreen Park I hacked a dry smokeless hack

Then picking up what I though first to be a surviving ashen stick

(It was a metal piece from some fire-fighting equipment)

I drew a fire engine from days gone by.

'

Renaming

Mount McKinley, which was officially named by a New Hampshire-born Seatleite, William Dickey, a short but stout man who wore an oversized, black hat  and who led a gold prospecting expeditions in the 1890’s, didn’t want to support the democrat William Jenning's bid for presidency because he was pro-silver.

Hudson Stuck, looking at the camera,  the first to climb Denali in 1907 was a theologian from London.

 Indeed Dickey favoured William McKinley who went on to become President of the United States and promised to bid for a gold standard that would add nuggets to Dickey’s pockets, hence explaining his choice for Mount McKinley. However, recently it has  been renamed Denali or “the tall one” which was the original name given by the Koyukon Athabaskans. (It can be spelled Deenalee or Deanaliii dependi

ng on whether the Athbaskans where facing the mountain south at 63 degrees 04 minutes and 12 seconds north or North, at 63 degrees 03 minutes and 11 seconds south. It is unlikely the Athabaskans knew how tall Denali, which at 6,190 meters makes it the tallest peak in North America actually was.

The renaming of Mount McKinley did not happen overnight: Jimmy Carter in 1980 tried to negotiate a deal that Ohio congressman Ralph Regula strongly opposed by naming the adjacent national park “Denali Park”. However, some claimed that this only created confusion and only years after congressman Regula’s retirement did a new path open up for the renaming of the actual mountain.

The Mount Blanc at 4810 meters situated at 45 degrees, 49 minutes and 55 seconds north, as legend has it, was named by dentist  Gabriel Michel Paccard, 29, and a Savoyard hunter Jacques Balmat24, who in 1786, were the first to climb the famous mountain.

When they arrived down to the small village of Chamonix they were greeted by a crowd. 

“C’etait tout maa, maa, blanc” exclaimed Dr Paccard, breathing heavily and near exhaustion from having carried a ladder up and down the mountain. In fact, without sunglasses both climbers were blinded by the light  and the mayor of the village, Monsieur Dubonbois, who, like many was a patient of the Doctor,  thought he had said  “Mont Blanc”. (Historians believe the mispronunciation was due to Paccards lips being frozen, despite it being the month of August.)

Today, a recent petition has been put forth to change the name of Mont Blanc, considered banal and obvious to many to “Spenstolatos”. This name is derived from Mr Spencer, Stone and Skarlatos, the 3 Americans who foiled Ayeb El-Khazzani’s attempt to massacre a large number of people who were travelling from Amsterdam to Paris  on August 21, 2015. 

Curiously the 21st of August is also the date when Paccard and Balmat climbed and named Mont Blanc and today’s mayor, Eric Fournier, approved the motion to rename the highest peak in Europe saying, “I was so impressed when these three young men looking like boys in their polo t-shirts, got the legion d’honneur from President Hollande. The only better honour I could think

of is to rename our mountain after them.”

To appease any opposition the Mer de Glace, a nearby glacier, will be renamed the "Mer de Glace Blanc".

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.

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.

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.

The Hot dog Vendor's Practical CV (Inspired by A Confederacy of Dunces)

You are the one who navigates a cart full of dogs
Dogs and drinks and foodstuffs
Rolling, gliding beef and pork and complex sugars
Over a complex urban network

Today -but not the first day- you circumvent potholes
And drainless puddles that accumulate mostly during
Winter months
Yet your mind remains fixed on the types of buns, sauces,
Cole slaw and drinks that you have set out
This and every early morning

A mission of sorts that takes 40 minutes to get to your
Destination
A corner where some people still try to sell single cigarettes
Along the journey you rehearse some of your clients' first names and by their favourite
Topping or drink

Some have such accents that you strain to
Understand through the smoke and the sizzle of your
Skewer but their hand, their gesture makes everything clear

Today, a hint of tendonitis lingers in your upper left
Shoulder
You wonder but know it's from the miles of serpentine lines of
Mustard that you so expertly spread every month, every year
You know how to get the mustard to stop flowing in a snap!
Whipping up the arm all while with the right hand you crack open another
Refreshment can with the index finger

Rain or sun you sell those hot dogs it's, it's
More than just a transaction
It's a moment of awe when a
Customer sinks his teeth into a
Bun and you can almost hear
The juices howling
The dog skin cracked
Steam streams up your client's sinus the
Mustard is liberating

You chuckle then smile freeing your
Stomach that has been pressed against the cart
With your wet rag you clean it for the 100th
Time this day

Always impeccable
Always shining
Always moving

Fast like your idol, Mohammed Ali
You know you can catch the cascading sweat drop
Cascading from your forehead
Catch it with the hanky in the left hand while
The right hand is adding cabbage and returning a customer's change
With a  movement that resembles that of an airborne dancer.

The Blataro Institute of Higher Bribing

We all know that Sepp Blattaro’s days with FIFA are nearly over as he has extraordinarily single

handedly decided to step down and new elections will be held in the next few months.

Rumor has it that Mr Blattaro has been negotiating with Nord Angler, a consortium of schools, to open up next fall the first Sepp Blattaro Institute of Higher Bribing in Lausanne.

The Radiant Elephant Community has been privy to learn some courses in the college’s curricula:

Blatt101: Point Shaving

Learn how to shave points and connect your sources to organised crime. 

Blatt 101: Advanced Point Shaving

(Blatt 101 required) Learn about the benefits of academic fraud and the hiring of strippers to shave points.

Blat 201 Slush Fund

Gain intimate knowledge on how to create a slush fund. Get trained by former Southern Methodist coach Bill Launder, who will tell you how to pay illegal cash bonuses to your players.

Blatt 301 False Accusations

Ever wanted to have your opposing team falsely accused of rape or other crimes? This course, prepared by experienced tutors, will show you how to use minors, strippers and even drug addicts to smear your opponent without you having to lift a finger.

Blatt 401 Universal Deflating

Our hand-on technicians will teach you how to falsely gauge pressure and deflate any ball, or sports gear, including pucks and shot puts before a competition. From Formula 1 to football lean all the tricks of the trade. This course is compulsory to graduate.

Blatt501

Match-fixing 601 (101 tba)

Ever wonder how 10 of the 12 disabled basketball players on the Spanish Para-Olympic team had no disability and went on to win the gold medal? This course will prepare you to rig a game, avoid suspensions and even shoot for the Hall of Fame.

Blatt 701 and 702

Blood Replacement, EPO and other drugs (Both 701 and 702 are essential to graduate)

(Advanced High School Biology and Chemistry courses required)

You will be taught by reputed scientists and doctors on how to make performance enhancing

cocktails that will avoid drug testing detection. Study the wonders of blood in sports and learn how to even use fake blood (bloodgate) to fake injuries and offer your player precious time to recover and get back on the field.

Blatt801

Referee buying

Avoid clumsy and irresponsible transactions when buying a referee. Learn the value of having political connections and even magistrates on your side Before you buy a ref. Avoid conspiracy charges and get rich quick by having booker bet millions on your matches.

Blatt 910 

Motorcycle and Car Racing Crashgate

Our experienced pilots will show you the value of crashing during a race all in the name of sportsmanship. Lose a tire, break a gasket or just crash into a wall. This course is taught with real motorcycles and cars.

Blatt 1001

Doctoring bats, javelins, and other sports equipment 

With this course you will learn how to cork a baseball or cricket bat, curling stones or even javelins. The instruction is hands-on and extremely valuable for any sports career.

The Scapegoat

That Bromine mineral stench of yours

That you carry like a sacrifice on the edge of the cliffs

That you scour day after day

To the bewonderment of ill-comprehending

Witnesses who watch aghast waiting for a hoof to slip

Yet you stride in your high heels

Defying gravity

Carrying your goat skin and white fur

To a land where the most spectacular views

Are yours



Somehow in biblical times

During Yom Kippur two of you were chosen

One was sacrificed and the other

Laden with society's sins

Was let go

We know you so well because you are

The scapegoat!

That noble creature is blamed for getting away!

Are there not others who can dish the blame?

Surely the CIA was blamed in Iraq

Bush, Cheney and George Tenet discussing Iraq

Oliver North took the blame over the Iran Contra affair
The Senate committee shot him with a barrage of questions
Yet North, in his decorated uniform
Held up just fine

Bullies are always blamed from A to Z
In literature and films a fall guy is a must
In the Maltese Falcon
A tangled plot delivers a fake statuette
And who is to blame?

But if you fall too easy that makes you a Patsy

And we know that goats, goats don't fall!

Mountain goats licking salt deposits on the wall of an Italian dam

Today, 2000 years after being named a scapegoat

You have discovered the pommel horse

With inherent talent you straddle and show flares before dismounting the olympic apparatus

You show extension and lines like Kristian Berki

The judges give you soaring scores

Finally, there is nothing to run from

Nobody to blame

The judges are unanimous: with such grace not even a sheep can compete! 

Early Hashtag

The earliest human hashtag has been discovered in the Awash Valley in Ethiopia, the same area where Lucy's bones where discovered in 1974.
After several months archeologists have deciphered the tag which says,
"Cannot find mammouth eggs" #HiSpeedBerthaCookTip

Despite close analysis of this message its true meaning remains opaque. Does the "mammouth egg" refer to a giant egg, possibly that of an ostrich or was the cranial capacity of australopithecus so limited that our ancestors actually thought that mammouths laid eggs?

A conference on early hashtags will be held in Greenland on August 5th and more revelations are expected.

The Botox Vending Machine

Most of us know the Vending Machine

Some consider them intimate 

Associates

Interchanging, exchanging

Dropping your Choice without

A Thank You or

A parachute

On a daily basis

The Vending Machine

Offers a smooth, even transaction

It's a masterpiece of movement in a box

Unless your number is caught

In the Piggy's curlycue whose mission

Is to eject your choice

And leaves it hanging for Eternity!

Vending Machines are everywhere!

They reproduce in silence

Appearing in unfathomable locations:

A tunnel, a forgotten corner, next to a cash machine 

Yet we forget how long they have been with us

Remains of prehistoric Vending Machines have been found

Be it the Mammouth Meat or Sandal Dispenser 

Evidence points to how these machines

Wheeled Mankind out of darkness

Paleolithic Vending Machine circa 160,000 B.C.

Our forefathers knew that

Hot Meals could not depend on a woman 

-Or a man

Even monarchs and politicians knew

And continue to exploit these instruments

The Queen of England addressing Heads of State. This lavish dinner was 

served using only the latest Vending Machines. (2004)

But some of us remember how beautiful they were

Like elegant Cartier jewellery shops

The Vending Machine came first

Its goods second

Designers worked to build a trust

That even an expired Hershey bar would not spoil

The intellectuals 

(Always the intellectuals)

Dreamt of a way for

Books to be available in the desert or Amazon

The Book O Mat made this possible

At any hour, at any time

You could run out 

And read Heinline

And for those who think porcelain or crystal

Need to be delivered with delicate hands

You are right!

This machine, designed to be placed in households

Avoids marital abuse:

No more flinging plates at your spouse

The Love Dispenser

Breaks all tension with couples

Even those with histories of long abuse have 

Have basted this Dispenser with Merits

Today some say Vending Machines are out of mode

Yet every year sees new innovations!

This Botox dispenser has not taken a wrinkle

Available only in Doctors' waiting rooms

The lines continue to grow.

American Botox Dispenser, 1912

Young love

Never shall I

Be thrown into despair

By a network malfunction

Or honey bees buzzing in the air

I listened 

Motionless and still

Waving finger over screen

As if I had no will

Your texting mingles with the splendour

Of a youtube clip with a million hits

Your blue ray love stings my heart

A song ebbs and echoes in its chambers

Katty Perry, Dark Horse, hashatag, #never apart!

I cradle for a home with hot plums

Where a brash black crow

Eats a worm in front of Emily Dickenson

And then rows away in the sky

Today my emotions go toe to toe face-timing virtual foes

Face-timing until I'm faceless,

Over connected 

A  Teletubbie stuffed in the fast cycle of a dryer

With no wifi just whistling fi fi

And Spock who could forget the gifted Vulcan 

Tribulating with Tribbles

That purr to get stroked 

Spock ain't no dope

He never played with magic

Tribbles were hybrids 

Tribbles multiplied and got stoked

I got a trophy tweet 

From my homeboy wearing a straw hat

In the shadow of a pumpkin field

Says he’ll get me a chip and an app for my

Birthday all weighing less than a gram

And I should come as I am

I chuck my new trending 

Gaza Strip loafers

Into my River Island vintage bag

Knowing I can move faster in my sneaks

But at the door I pivot and spin

My battery is down

Down

Gotta recharge

Texting “Recharge”

My nail speeds over the keys

And it has the texture of a butterfly on it.

Wearing Leonardo da Vinci’s Hat

This weekend I went to the Santa Maria dell Grazie to see Da Vinci’s Last Supper.

What an amazing work: such colour, balance, all the characters seem to be joined and working together. On my train ride home, as I ate my garlic stuffed snails from my light green tupperware, I couldn’t help but think about their antennae, shells and longevity. So I wrote a poem about it.

When I measured the 

2.2006 microns that straddle

The peering tentacles of a Roman Snail

And multiply that distance by 100

You get the same distance between

2 horse ears

And upon further observation

The visual memory of a snail

In captivity or in jail

Could last a good 10 years or

The same as any Ecquus Caballus trotter.

Surely snails' snail view few mountaintops

Rather the paths it slimes over

with scoops of  home blend mucus
Are part of it visual highway of information

As I pulled an antennae delicately out from my teeth

It dawned on me how when I was 6 years old

A row of snails ran into a srteam where I used to play

Making olives bounce off the water 

And I saw the water swirl over their shells in

The same manner that 

Years later in Med school I witnessed 

Blood in the left ventricle valve of a giraffe

Swirl and gush before reaching the lungs.

(Lazzaro Spallanzani the father of Gastric Juice
and chemical digestion, also uncovered the mystery of
Skipping stones, in Italian,
Rimbalzello or in Chinese, frog jumps 
The record today by
Kurt Mountain Man stands at a jumpy 88 which 
exceeded my skipping olives by 22)

Fascinating how just like the heart valves,
The snails would not recede 
On their mucus bed they rule
even upside down albeit some drool

The Roman Snail that I am eating
Sails at 2.5 inches per minute
Yet a Red Hook Snail 
Trucks at 9.2 inches per minute
And though snails can hibernate
And live long 
A hermaphrodite Roman snail 
Surpasses the Red Hook by 3 decades!

In my simple train compartment
The mountain pass offered unexpected jiggles
With my special fork I pulled then

Placed my lips over its shell and
Sucked and aspirated the chewy mollusk
Its body arrived in my mouth at
80 feet per second
Meaning that if I or it or
We together in a car
Travelling at present
Would be flashed by radar at a speed 
Most objects would fly
I need now to calculate the quantity of 
Ooze that need be emitted to reach such

Prodigious speed.

The Cuban Drain

A drain is like a big city

It takes everything coming it's way

From the pure water of glaciers to oily

Grease mixed with hair balls

From the suds of bars of soap

To shaved whiskers and nail bits

It is an organic freeway without tolls

Broadway taps "Anything Goes"

On the eve of a full moon

And a New Year's Ball
That I have sumptuously put together

The conduit discharger of my kitchen sink

Is obstructed

Relunctantly the guests are sent home

As the dishes cannot be washed
And champagne flutes lay idle with fruit flies spinning around them.

I concoct a feast of sodium hydroxide and aluminium oxide

that is poured to dislodge the stubborn clog

Yet except for a few agitated bubbles that

Exit the dark furrow

(The sink is now over half full and malodorous)

The water level is stagnant

The following day a handheld auger is summoned

Shiny blue with a

Curly cue pigs tail to grab grime

Holding it like the Penguin's machine gun in an old Batman TV series

The plumber

Plunges the cable and spins it with verve

Hypnotic rings of water ring the sink

The plumber insists with clenched teeth

But there seems to be a Grendel in the pipes

A beastly beast

Holding back slime and grit
One would think

In this sink lies the Emperor of Obstruction!

Or rather a Cowgirl holding her own

Not giving an inch

No matter what Plumber plunges the plunge
She will stand her ground.

Yet more days, then weeks pass

The drain is still clogged

Experts from near an far are summoned

All try their art

The wire hanger, the plunger the air burster to name a few

But to no avail.

Then a prodigious whale of a plumber from Geatland appears at the door

Named "Plumber-Wolf" he insists on visiting the kitchen

Strips of all his clothes and tools except for a sledgehammer

At midnight he starts to slam the walls of the sink

The entire house trembles

The beams start to crack

A few bubbles come to the surface

But the clog holds fast!

The heroic plumber leaves defeated.

Finally the doorbell rings with an unusual chime,
My smoke extractor coughs sending a plume of smoke wafting
to the upstairs bedrooms
It is Pope Francis, he beckons to come in

He floats the Cuban flag on the murky, lifeless lake

The water starts to shake

An audience of dignitaries gather around the sink

And within an instant the drain delivers its load to the sewer
It is empty!

Restored to drain for years to come!

All in the name a  50 year diplomatic thaw that ended an

entrenched embargo.