Mute me

Mute me

Toot-toot me

Silence the contradiction in me

Today I follow my route

To coif my toff

Ignoring the barber's

Whooping cough

Outside

Molotovs burn over systemic racism and

I want to say  ----------- (mute)

Why did you press that button 

As if my words were rotten?

After my cut I stroll to the mailbox

Circling it with Tango steps and the nervy

Focus of a Matador with a stiff back

Sniffing for the blood of a Ballot ---------------(mute)

You mute! You mute! You mute!

We are not on Crested Butte

Running from the police in 

Hot pursuit

Wearing a double breasted Union suit

Mushing Alaskan Malamutes over

938 miles in 8 days and 3 hours and 22 minutes because

Of a quick undisclosed stop in a house of

Ill repute.

How dare your criticize my ideas when

I am the one to give the boot

And ----------------- (mute) 

Again! Left wing radical pedophiles --------- (mute)

Speechless

Now, calmly descending a golden parachute

My voice is muffled by the wind

Conspiracies will never be silenced  and 

The lights remain dim 

The Constitution says I may

Overstep, overreach, and butt in

Free speech baby

The mastermind of mankind

Superman baby

(mute)

I bet your tongue is burning with Corona fever 

Hotter than a beaver

You cut my sentences with a cleaver

That's the sign of an underachiever!

Go ahead, press the mute

You shall receive a squeeze of banana passion fruit

And invite flies to do business as usual

Toot-toot!

I can't wait, or A painful vote

 Waiting

Awaiting 

For that tidal wave to pass

And the elections to declare a 

Winner

I can't wait.

What can I do?

Hibernate for 3 days, 30  or 300 days?

Drink myself into a haze?

Or on my sandwich, spread some 

Extra Russian mayonnaise?

I can't wait.

Of course, seriously speaking, 

Let me spend this remaining time

Before the elections

Spending much more than a dime

Buying more than 

All that is sublime.

I wish to run myself

Into the depths of a rabbit hole

Than no rabbit has seen before

I wish to occupy my neurons

By E-spending so much on Amazon that

Delivery vans will line up for miles around my house.

Surely my wife and children will offer me 

Mediation crash courses and

Herbal tea remedies to

Moderate my spending spree that is

Only putting the family in danger.

Surely they will say: 

"Win or lose, red or blue,

Stop acting like a teenager!"

But today my heart feels the tension

Of a land rupturing from coast to coast

It is a witches brew that could have come from

The hand of Shakespeare

"Double double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble."

There is no doubt there will be trouble

Yet I am not strong enough to

Beat back the snake that is strangling

My country

Tis of thee.

Elephant Crossing the Alps

It had only 3 legs but preferred to hop on

One

Before it lay the Alps and

Snow reflecting the blazing sun.

Hop, hop, hop

The elephant had to hop

Flop, flop, flop 

Went young climbers in their flip-flops 

Pretending to be detectives

Working on directives 

Of the Pope and the Nation

And Twitter's agitation

To bring it back to the Vatican.

Without a peanut or clump of grass

The nameless elephant hopped towards 

The Mont Blanc

Approaching the Aiguille Trè la Tête

A mouse scurried down from

The glacier of Bionnassay

At 2760 meters the rodent slid down at increasing

Speed and

Slammed itself into the 

One hopping leg of the elephant with no name.

There was a "woosh" and a "smoosh" 

The terrified beast slipped and fell

The glacier went "crack" and

The elephant exclaimed "This is wack!"

And the mouse's brains exited like 

An eggshell.

Going with the flow 

The elephant whizzed down and veered 

Towards France and arrived

Celebrated as a hero 

In Chamonix.

The mayor invited it for a beer

Rich in malt and hops

And said "Crossing the Alps was tops"

One could also hear

Pops

From bottles of Champagne

Such a feat hadn't taken place since

Triceratops.

The Countdown

The Countdown

Learning how not to count when counting too much or too little.

When my friends tell me I count too much -and too little, I tell them this:

Driving though the harsh, historical, Tuscan landscape

Getting flat after flat

Popping tires like pancakes

Counting my bats with

Open and closed wings

And

The days approaching my birthday and Pisa on the horizon

In that order.

My car is hissing 

If I pull over will the Cops

Start frisking

I don't care for I am ready.

Ready to start counting the number of 

Olive pits that in a near future I shall spit.

Ready to follow scientists' advice in maximizing the human capacity of 

Ingesting 

Carciofi alla Giudia

in one hour 

Knowing that a wolf can do better but a black bear gets tired after 10 minutes.

(These Jewish fried artichokes need to be devoured with the spikes facing outwards.)

My hissing tires stop at the Tower of Pisa where during these Covid days

I count the minutes, not hours it takes to buy a ticket to go up 

257 steps to reach the 55 meter summit.

I try to imagine the years, the seasons, the 800 year old monument has been through

And tweeting it to my friends.

So much thinking, during the spiral ascent, gives me

Dizzy spells that I lose count 

How many calories I've consumed  and

How many Madonnas with Child

I've seen.

I remember the portobello mushroom combo with organic

Humus sauce needs only

A few hours of preparation unless

One counts the time it takes to prepare pita bread or

Sourdough, which is so much a la mode these days.

I am willing to bet that if I combine

Portobello, humus, tomatoes and mozzarella for

A period of 514 days

or 1 year, 5 months -minus one day,

 -a number representing a round trip up and down the Pisa tower-

My mother would applaud the nature of such a balanced  diet 

And historically I'm sure even Cimabue or Giotto or Caravaggio -much later on,

Couldn't do better.

I am also ready to stop counting

Stop counting how many times my bones

Crack in a day

Stop counting the percentage of battery remaining in my phone

Stop counting the times I have misplaced a sock, a key or a spare button.

At this juncture even my ability to calculate the saturation point of Love

Is something I can do away with

For Love should not be counted even though it counts.


And all this counting and not counting leads us to

My spaghetti al dente

Which may or may not be.

Hence my steps, carbohydrates and artichokes

Could be inert entities within themselves

Cancelling each other out

While a male mermaid sings a song

Without a meter

The new Space X is launched

Without a countdown and

The Olympics is run without a timer.

Don Quixote in 2020

Don Quixote, in search of the truth and real values, crosses the United States with his faithful squire Sancho Panza. Don Quixote is riding Rocinante, his BSA 500 motorcycle , and wearing his standard metal armor and is holding onto a spear. Sancho is on his 1967 Vespa scooter.

DQ is Don Quixote, SAN is for Sancho.



July 2nd, 2020

A run in with Twitter

DQ  "Sancho, what is this? Everyone is walking around looking at these devises, you call them phones."

Sancho, who considered himself a computer whizzola, explained how smart phones operate and how social networking it what it's all about. Then he got into Twitter, explaining how one can microblog with just 280 characters and use "pound" an hashtags and retweet when something you like comes around.

DQ goes to a youngster, asks him to show him a tweet and then grabbs the phone.  The tweet went:

"Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure, it's not your fault."


DQ "What's this?" he asked.

KID  "It's a tweet from the President of the United States" the child replied, with an admirative sparkle in his eye.

DQ "Sancho! Come here! I need u to help me spear this Twitter thing!"

SAN "Spear Twitter? Master, but how?"

KID "Haven't you heard of Tic Toc?" said the youngster, grabbing his phone back from D. Q.

DQ and SAN "Tic Toc?" chimed in D.Q . and Sancho.

KID "Tic Toc. It's the rave. I'll film you riding with your spear on your horse and I'll put it on Tic Toc"
The boy deftly put himself in position and called out to DQ to gas it up.

KID "Look fiercer! Fiercer! he shouted in his strident voice."

DQ "I am going to spear this ungodly Twitter!" chimed in DQ, leaning forward on Rocinante, the wind blowing his long, greying goatee, his eyes ever so focused on his target.

Like the windmill, DQ imagined Twitter with giant spinning arms. He charged and charged at Twitter, wheeling his motorcycle  around for what seemed like an eternity. Then he heard sirens. The cops had been called because he was tearing up the local high school football field.

SAN "Lets get outta here!" cried Sanchez, pulling a wheelie on his scooter to catch up to DQ.  "Follow me!"

DQ followed Sanchez into a large blue store that happened to be an Ikea.

DQ "I speared that Twitter thing, Sanchez, did you see?"

SAN is walking with his eyes riveted to his phone while trying to negotiate the complex,
labyrinth-like alleyways of the Ikea store.

DQ "What are you doing?"

SAN "I'm connecting to Tic-Toc Master."

DQ "Si, si, that boy said I was going to annihilate Twitter with Tic -Toc."

SAN "Yes, you can see it here, already it is getting many hits."

DQ "Hits?"

DQ moved over to look at Sanchez's small phone.

DQ "I shall buy you a gold case for that little smart think, Sanchez, 18K!"

SAN "I am honored but really it's not necessary--"

At that moment, as DQ was moving to look at the Tic-Toc images, he bumped into an office chair, inadvertently hitting one of the levers that made the chair pop up, hitting his chin and making him fall on his back. His armor made a lot of clanging noise as he crashed to the floor.

SAN "DQ, DQ, are you alright?

DQ, a little wobbly, struggled back to his feet. "I want an apology from this chair, the designer of this chair, the salesman of this chair and the person who put this chair together. I will not move from this spot until formal apologies are presented."

SAN, about to reply but then thinking twice takes another approach. "You are right, his excellency, I shall contact the manager. Do not move."

At that, Sancho runs off and finding a family with 3 children he asks them to to him a favor. "I have a friend who is a little delusional, could you please act if you are the manager of the store, the designer,  and the salesman and just offer an apology to my friend." At that Sancho pulls out a gold coin from his pocket and gives it to the father.

Child 1: "What is delusional, Daddy?"

Father: "It is when you see something, but you don't really see something, and then you see something."

Mother: "Delusional is when someone is going a a self-deceptive head trip because they are hallucinating or daydreaming to find the fool's paradise."

Child 2: "Does that mean that the person is a liar?"

Mother: "Thank you for asking that question Melissa, I will try to be brief. When delusional, the person may be thinking he or she is telling the truth because they see a mirage, and as far as their perceptiveness is concerned, that mirage is a real as can be.

A dent et Eve

Dans le jardin d'Adam une dent, et Eve se trouvaient sous un
Pommier
La dent, provenant d'un mammouth,
Se présente comme
La base d'un barbecue

Les hamburgers rôtissent

Adam
Se trouve sédentaire


Mais Eve et le serpent silencieux
Qui montrait ses crocs  est
(Les Crocs font pas de bruit, que sais-je?)
Se lamentaient   car il manquait le fromage a raclette pour faire le
Cheeseburger!

Le serpent siffla et chuchota dans l'oreille d'Eve,

"Pourquoi tu ne remplaces pas le Cheese par un Marshmallow?"

Eve lui lança un tel regard froid que le serpent eut une crise
Lui provoquant des hoquets, des hoquets et encore des hoquets
Jusqu'au point ou il cracha une pomme rouge.
"C'est magique" cria Eve, prenant la pomme dans ses jolies mains

A ce moment Adam ce réveilla
Le vent soufflait emportant l'odeur des hamburgers vers l'est
La dent commençait à noircir et Adam songea a la dernière fois où
Il visita le dentiste.

Puis, les yeux d'Adam tombèrent sur la pomme -qui commençait à jaunir- et
Il l'arracha de la main d'Eve et l'avala aussitôt.

La suite de l'histoire tout le monde la connait sauf qu'un
Hamburger avec du marshmallow a un gout un peu sucré.

Poetry on the lake

Subatomic Laundry

(My sincere appreciation goes to Dennis Overbye who wrote an article in the New York times on the Grand Sasso Laboratory in Italy.)

            Photo by Tommaso Guicciardini


I live at the Gand Sasso Nuclear Laboratory in Assergi

Often I don't see the light of the day since

Work is underground and I spent 10 years on

The Cuore, Cobra and Cupid projects, been there, done that.

When I go home I've absorbed so many neutrinos that

I take an antacid before going to bed.

I love Grand Sasso, the Big Rock

And I would love it more if not for the stains that

I get on my designer shirts and jeans.

So for my fellow scientists, I've developed a formula for

Laundry:

• Take one cup of liquid xenon 
• A spoonful of axions
• A sprinkle of neutrinos 
• A 1/4 cup of tritium

Use the "Magic 4000" cycle and if dark spots still appear

Rub a photomultiplier ointment into the affected area

Expose the tainted garment to the sun for 20 minutes an 6.8844002 seconds

or

If cloudy, a strong magnetic field will do.

For wool and synthetics 

Double the tritium

Wash for 12.8 years

Remember

Cosmically reflective shirts should be smoked

In dark matter and rinsed with enough axions

To regain all their splendor.

The Dreaming Mailman

Been Mailman for 44 years
I've got less than one to go before I retire
So I thought I would share for all of your
Ears
(One ear at a time
Only the truth is worth a dime)
And I apologize if you can feel that I'm
Beginning to perspire.

Many say to be a mailman is kinda hypnotic
My wife says I'm neurotic but
Let me explain:

On the job we gotta concentrate
And pretend we got blinders on like a horse
So to ignore the barking dog, the latest viruses
Always paying attention to the cracks in the sidewalk
To deliver what the folk want: their mail.

In June 1976, six months after I took the job,
I was suffering from recurrent dreams of
Not delivering the mail or
Delivering it to the wrong address
Always the same wrong address:
2767  Court street, Brooklyn NY 11231

It was the address of a store my Mom used to take me to
Where you could buy Ladybugs and Preying Mantises
Insects that would take care of your garden problems
And we would always be going back there because
The Lady bugs were out of stock

My shrink told me to project myself before
The start of the day
To project and think how I successfully would deliver
All those envelopes
To the address holders who
Waiting to rip 'em open -often without a proper envelope opener
With the smooth edges of a butter knife-
Would barely notice my blue uniform with black shiny shoes.

Therefore, after six months I found a spot
400 yards from the main distribution center where
I could lay
Rain or shine, snow or sleet
In my favorite mailbox and dream.

                                                                                                 Photo by Melissa Zexter

I dreamt.
I dreamt of delivering each and every letter
I dreamt of hearing the soles of my shoes creak as I approached
The last steps leading to the doormat
I dreamt of dogs who would sit regal and observe my passing and
Viruses that would hide under the mat as I arrived
And real stamps that would stick to the lick of saliva
I dreamt.

I knew that I dreamt of my friends that I had lost touch with
Friends who were not always still pacing this earth
And I also dreamt of people who had their hearts warmed by
Reading a few scribbly lines
An emotion
Captured like in the spider's web of love.

Yet some of my dreams were laced in evil
People waiting for a letter in hope to
Conspire
And plot an illusion
and plot confusion
That would spread well beyond 11231.

Yesterday, my last dream
-Dreams because they were multiple-
Went like such:

A man, ready to spill his soul at
A computer guised as a confessional
The camera was hidden in the cross and
The voice required the man to wear a bag
On his head and it said:
"Why did you make bats smarter than preying mantises?"
In vain the bagged man tried to press "alt + delete"

Then there was a loving couple looking over towards the Twin Towers from Staten Island
They too had bags on their heads
The skylight was fading yet
They could not sense it
Only the crackling of the paper
Made their love alive

The last dream was in a loop
I was in a Woolworth's eating a
99 cent Chili
Wearing a checkered paper bag I
Could not see the display of
Hypnotically spinning cakes
Overloaded with sugars and fats

I was in this Woolworth everyday and
For some reason they would not change the menu
It was always the Chili for 99 cents

Perhaps I wanted to reach for a cake that
I could certainly smell through my checkered bag
I could reach and touch the locked display
The plastic keeping those magnificent cakes intact

The Chili smearing over the edges of my plate
I knew
I knew I would have to write about it
Before the rain would fall and
Get the envelopes wet.

Domination is for you and me

I want my Baby Born to Dominate its Space

Dominate streets

Ogling the cops on the beat

Dominate his Mama

And never retreat


I want my Baby to be the Supreme Force

To ignore those who wish to endorse

And drive hard on the golf course


I want my baby to show Command and Control

To burn a big hole with coal

To wipe out the souls for those who

Think life is a stroll


I need my Baby to overpower the Old

And be uncontrolled

Unleashing power that shall make the

Aged cower and show them who lives in

The Tower of Power


My fearless Baby will subdue CEOs and CFOs

It will tear the hair out of a foe in the snow

And rip the hearts out of

Women in throngs


Baby will scoff at animals in need of nourishment

And  scoff at forest fires and firenados

And firefighters in need of chastisement


My sweet, perfect Baby will dictate and gratify

its supreme Id

It will spit at impotence

and clobber those chained

Smothering all those who refuse to be restrained.

The country is in a crouch

(Title taken from an article by Maureen Dowd.)

                                                                                      Illustration by William Blake

The country is in a crouch

It could be that I'm slouching on my couch

Masking and unmasking myself

Inflating and deflating my

Inner tube because

Under confinement  and

Drowning with love for my brothers and sisters

My tubeless bicycle needs to stay safe.


Still, the country is in a crouch

It could be we shall spring out of our pouch

My tigger-striped cat will take a broker's leap

Up the tree and

Stock options will flutter despite

Covid's glee.


I think of bubbles when

I am in a crouch

From Alka Seltzer to Champagne

All is good for the ouch

I had a dream of being tested

100 million times

And each test requested

To guess how depressed  my tongue could chime!


Today, I gawked at a Sheriff who

Fired his pistol at the opening of a restaurant

And I gawked at my hairdresser who

Was drinking liquid crystal at a clip

So I turned on the tube to listen to Dr. Fauci

Offering words of immunization

As he tried not to be grouchy.

Log Cabin Fever

Here in Alaska, 7 years after Corona hit in 2020, I decided almost to never leave this log cabin I bought after selling my apartment in Atlanta. True, they say the virus left a long time ago, but when I open my window and listen to the birds it gives me courage to write, so I thought I'd share a few lines.

My feet

Soaked in black ink

Trace the living room floor's perimeter. 

3000 steps each day

Of the week I don a different color ink

Indeed my floor resembles Rorchach splats

That inhabit my inhibited state

Often daydreaming of Pompei, Boticelli and

N-95 masks

I remember the day the virus attacked my wifi transponder 

It was a study Netgear R7000

My grandfather had compared it to his sturdy Dodge slant 6

The five bars dropped to 3, then to two

Animals were acting strangely

Cows raced around SUVs and

Dogs started howling and Cats became despondent. 

People were racing for Repeaters and chasing down Troubleshooting

Manuels but the infected machines wouldn't even reboot 

And Amazon was down for good.

My Alaska cabin is haunted but I don't dare leave

I have a repeating dream of worms sticking their heads out

Of the soil and singing "Tutti Frutti"

If I step on one of them they will explode, I will explode

And my apple pie will burn in the oven.

My cabin ghost keeps me company and at bay

From wild animals and cavalier bears 

He looks like a Jack London and when I see him

I feel the cabin listing like it was a ship.

I took have grown my mustache long and I dream one day

Of getting my wi-fi back

If only to take another selfie of myself and

Get some likes

Any likes

Just a like.

Mi trash is your trash (1988-2020)

Like a listless marathoner too bored to do it again
The yellow New York trash laden Mobro22 barge drifted
After being refused, like it's predecessors,  by Southern Dump States
It too became a drifting stenchy Dutchman at sea
With the media at its heels

What to do with all this unregulated waste whilst
New York Dumps are filled to the brim and
Scrambling
As the egg yolks seep into the ocean

What to do when
the ocean turns smirchy brown as
Inexhumable
Particles untraceable filmy fragments
Razed unrecognizable polymers
That can't even stand for a comedy show
Multiply and prosper

Protoplasms descend the waters coating
Barnacles, seacows, sulfur worms, tires and Etruscan vases

"Le villain ordure est dégagé"
"Darf nicht traurig sein, es ist zu spät"
Sang a turquoise green mermaid

When the beach is marred with flotsam
And a running chicken has a dry cough
From rising methane
We shall click on an empathetic heart on twitter
Rip off the plastic from an organic food delivery and
Try to flush it down the toilet.



 

Mickey the Feuermeister

His name was Mickey the Feuermester

He was in charge of firing all the kilns

And he relished the gas firing when

He would get so close to the burners that

He'd almost torch his red 

English, tycoon, handlebar mustache.

Mickey was no-nonsense but

He had one favorite hobby

And that was to to to Natasha's

A unisex coiffeuse who

Knew how to do him just right.

Even during hot summer days

Mickey would take his time

Under the hairdryer he felt at peace

As if the machine could cool his hot temper

After all Natasha had pushed her warm body

Suited in a white smock with boots that laced to her knees

Against Micky and

Clipped and clipped and clipped

Snipping what evil spirits dangled from his head.

Tantisaluti and Corona or An Italian Corona Tale

They called him Tantisaluti or “Tantisa” because he used to wave to the customers with one hand while spinning the pizza dough with the other. Tantisaluti ran one of the best pizza joints in Empoli, a small town near Florence.
And then Covid19 arrived. Tantisa saw maybe 200 people a day. His restaurant was bustling, the brick pizza oven, the hot spot, was a squeeze to get by. There was human contact, sweaty contact, everyday. Some clients warned Tantisa about the virus, but he said, “as long as I keep spinning my pizzas, Corona will stay away”. And so he kept spinning his dough, even making pizza that he had delivered to the hospital staff for free.
Just last week Tantisa came down with a sore throat. The virus hit him hard and in one day he couldn’t move from his bed. Doctors were nowhere to be found in Italy and all the paracetamol in the pharmacies were gone. Matteo, a long time friend, said he had to do something. Tantisa’s nonna Kirstena, said she knew of a cure for the virus: she had heard that there was a homeless man, in Empoli, who had survived Covid19. If Matteo could find and him and get him to spit 3 times in a cup and bring it to her, it could save her grandson.
“Go find Jamesola, that’s what they call him” she said in her frail voice, giving him a silver cup from her childhood. “And get him to spit deep spit!”
But where to find him? Matteo ran around town in his red cap, high and low, but there was no sign of Jamesola.
He called the nonna: “Kirstena, I can’t find him, don’t you have a clue about this homeless misericordia?”
“He’s a desperate man. Use your head and think.” and at that she hung up the phone.
Desperate, desperate, Matteo walked around and around thinking, looking especially in places where the homeless lived.
No one had heard of a Jamesola, maybe he had another name, and with each step Matteo was getting more desperate. Suddenly, out of a dark alley, a regal character walked out wearing a 16th century sky blue outfit, with a tall blue hat that featured a golden plume from most likely a very rare bird.
He? She? Sang in a soft voice:
“ Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
You been out ridin' fences for so long now Oh, you're a hard one
But I know that you got your reasons These things that are pleasin' you
Can hurt you somehow
Don't you draw the Queen of Lions, boy
She'll beat you if she's able
You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet”
Matteo was shocked and puzzled. He had never seen such a resplendent character in his life and at the same time, this song he loved from the Eagles, went “Queen of Diamonds” not “Lions”! Before the 16th century person got to say another word, Matteo jumped on his pony and raced to the

Fountain of Lions, where he saw a haggard man in a brown plaid hoodie and striped shorts crouched on the edge of the fountain. Except for a large swan flying by, it was stangely quiet.
Matteo jumped off his pony and shook the man by his head. “Jamesola! It’s you! I need you to spit 3 times into this cup!”
Jamesola didn’t move.
“Come on, now!!” insisted Matteo, his face getting as red as his cap.
“Che, che, che, wha, wha, what do ya want” replied Jamesola in a sleepy voice. It was 2 o’clock in the afternoon and the sky was clear except for a few white clouds.
“What the fuck are you after?” said a big, booming voice that made both Jamesola and Matteo jump. It was the voice of the Lion, who was looking down at them with very intent eyes.
“Signore Leone” said Matteo, “I need this man to spit..” and he went on to explain the story to the Lion and tried to finish it by saying that he would like the pizzas that Tantisaluti makes.
“I don’t like jokes about viruses” the lion said. And at that he roared a roar so loud that all the buildings around the piazza shook. And when he stopped, he roared again and then a 3rd time. Matteo was holding his ears and thinking he was in a Japanese Godzilla movie, what he didn’t notice is that with each roar, Jamesola spat into a cup, a convulsive spit that came from the bottom of his lungs.
The lion went back to its stone state and Matteo, seeing the cup almost full, grabbed it, not even thanking Jamesola and raced on his pony to see the nonna who taking the spit of 3 different bats, mixed it all together and instructed Matteo to have Tantisa drink it down in one gulp.
Although it was said that Tantisaluti recovered from the terrible Covid19, the truth will never be known for two reasons: the anonymous writer, he or she, got into a car accident that broke his or her hand so he or she couldn’t write anymore and original manuscript was also damaged because Matteo spilled Jamesola’s spit over the last paragraph rendering it illegible.

Italian Beach Balloon Seller

I get up early and arrange my gizmos

Floaters, tubes, baskets, watches, jewelry

faux Gucci faux fendi with real glitz


I gather these things with a number of  new Italiano

words picked up on the beach "Poco Caro, ti piace?"

I mouth the r's as I tie the balloons to my walking stick

"Signora, ti piace?" sometimes does the trick.


I walk on the sand

I walk on my heels

I walk like a warrior

Who has run out of appeals


Brazen, I carry my balloons full to the hilt

The breeze from the ocean agitates them like a virus

I am towering, visible like a lighthouse that weebles  in every direction

Yet invisible to thousands of beachgoers,  as if I had an infection.


I am aped

Made fun of

A child runs in front of me,  pretends to be Tarzan

So I show him my urban hero, a yellow-belted Batman.


The beach is my highway

Straight with no detours

It gives me time to think of my love, my home

And Amanpour's news tours.


I get home feeling toasted

And fall into a dream:

It's a modern Tarzan in the jungle with Jane

She's tweeting on her iPhone while swinging on a vine,

"Kowbunga dudettes, boy pumped up. New microwave,

gnarly programs and bell ding dong lol!"

And Tarzan while riding a rocky Rhino tweets:

"If Cheetah could say "I love u" that would be awesome."

They take the elevator tree whose cable is pulled by an elephant


But then I feel pressure on my neck and I am gasping for air

It is a hand holding my head

Pushing me under water, forcing me to swear.

"You must take Amazon Prime" says the hand

My arms flail like my balloons in the wind

"You must have Prime!" it shouts.

Then a lawyer appears holding a thumb in his hand

"You forgot this on the beach."

"I, I forgot.."

"Yes, and Viareggio Beach House is suing you because
the Marchese Santo Pallone found it and threw up her
entire shrimp salad."

Then, I wake up with a glorious Tarzan cry,

aaahuaaa uaaa uaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Going to brush my teeth I see

The Amazon Prime Card on the floor.