Popeye Talk

An infinx apologiky is no humiligration

Tis not neskessary for exploitification

Once only adopicated me mind is set

Thwart all depressiagan feelings

That me oxbrain do it.

Twas that revolvigating plumber

A misfit of a donor

Disgustipated the kitchen owner

Till she put the infix in a hydrogen

bome-er.

Under the Whale, 1986

The Jewel and the Microwave

It was a mild Soviet Transcaucaucan afternoon

And Nakivechka pulled herself out of her bubbling jacuzzi

She put on her robe and swung a black scarf over her head

Revealing only her dark, eager eyes.

Her two children came running to meet her.

“The microwave is broken” they cried whilst the older sibling, Yesmut,

held on to a bag of unpopped microwaveable popcorn.

“Yesmut, Yilma! Go see if Alkisenko has a microwave and return this to the video store.” said Nakivechka, handing over a cassette and touching her upper brow that she had electrolysed that morning.

“Get with it mom, Alkisenko moved to Tadzhikistan and now sells fax machines.” retorted Yilma, the younger one, intently looking at his mom who was dripping from the jacuzzi. 

“Ok, forget it” she said, patting Yilma’s flattop haircut. “Tonight we will have Bokehra. Yesmut, you will go to Nagorno-Karabach and find Allilev. Here is some money. Take your motorcycles and be back quickly!”

“But Allilev is Crimean!” The two protested.

“Crimean, Mylastokian, Bylorussian or Semjem, you will go to Allilev and get the bokehrá.”

The children left quickly without looking back. Nakivechka sat down on her red bean bag and picked up an issue of CosmoRussia. She indexed to the article on “Careers for single Aberbaijanis” and she smiled thinking of what a surprise Yesmut and Yilma were in for.

(An "Under the Whale" reading circa 1986)

The Potato House

There is a house where only potatoes grow

On the walls and roof

The spuds thrive

A schoolhouse needs a teacher

A patio house needs a pool

a prefabricated house needs premeditation

And the potato house potatoes

If you sit in this patchless, sober space

And meditate myriads of 

Potato possibilities

Their forms so irregular yet in need 

Of being held in a hand

With dirty fingernails

Over time

The potato energy will collect

And as the lights of the sky dim

Bulbs will flash with the low intensity of fireflies

Crossing the horizon 

With the lightness of a dance company

The Knee Defender

A snail has its shell

A tiger its teeth

A Samurai his sword

But the knee

That articulation

Capable of taking us 

up the Empire State Building or

Across the English Channel

The Knee, hath no defence. 

In life your knee can be in deep trouble, so much you 

get down on your knees

And when you're not well 

It's the Doctor's hammer that will fell

Slamming the knee cap

On a pretence to test the jerk

A sensitive galvanic reaction

That would lend envy to any stiff frog

Finally, a knee Tsar, a knight, has been invented

The Knee Defender has been crowned

Take it on an airplane

Whip it out at 30,000 feet

Clip it to your tray

Wait - don't grimace until the passenger in front makes a foray

To recline, I said recline, his stuffy airplane seat

And then your knee will feel like it's in a hotel suite!

Some of you hear the Knee Defender may be banned

Canned from airspace

Where except for first class, passenger proximity is the rule of the land

Fret not world travellers, the Perdu chicken company has made an offer to purchases 2.7 million knee defenders

On a trail basis: Indeed by clipping chicken legs together one saves 25% of space, translating into an 

additional 15,000 chickens per 3000 square feet of coop.

Studies are underway to identify other applications that the Knee Defender may have.

Vocabulary Poem

Her name was lesson 12
She was congruently annoying
being opaque and fallacious
A naturally man-made allusion
In murky waters
Sea-life stood still.

If she jaunts or tantalizes you
with an apathetic repast of lies
Tell her with your eyes
You were born to swat flies

It is not this aquatic circus that is
Hindering my incandescent attention-span
I have a light bulb to parley and I hold it high!

If she blows in search of a short answer
without irredeemable insouciant clamor
No credit shall be given
Praxis, more praxis and scroll.

Why the Burnt Toast Sings

A hommage to Maya Anjelou and her poem "Why the Caged Bird Sings"

A toast cries out:
"You may come and spread your butter,
Your canola oil
Your margarine
Your vegetable oil in lard spray

You may stand on me and smear
Smear your jam and honey"

For years the toast, the butter the honey cry out:

"You knew and knew nothing"

For years polyunsaturated fats, GMOs
Have been milled and tilled
In to our food chain

The papaya, the olive, the linseed, the corn, the pomelo, the breadfruit, the melon, the grapefruit, the avocado, the tomato, the banana the zucchini

If you will no longer spread the rot on thy surface
If you will bury the past of your chemical infested soil

Come, stand on me!

The Turk, the French, the North American, the Peruvian, the Pole, the Samoen, the Russian the
transgender, the gay the straight,
If you have no shame
Eat
Eat my toast
My butter, my honey
Where no bees longer nest
Eat my butter
From antibiotic-treated cows
Eat my fiber
Containing azodicarbonamide
(Used for yoga matts to make my bread more spongy)

Come, spread your crap on top of me
I will not move nor hunker
I will receive you teeth
To chomp down
From the time of dinosaurs
Chomping, chewing and swallowing
Me

If you fear not and dare
Gaze into my lightly burnt surface
Look into your husband's, wife's and baby's
Eyes
And say
With all sincerity:
"Bon appetit "

Godzilla is coming

The Japanese capital was under red alert

Every road was swamped

Cars trying to leave could have been

Statically stacked on top of each other

"Thump!"

37 Izukuma Street Chiyoko

On the 22nd floor of a 1960's high-rise

Was in his bath

The water

Hotter than usual

Was there to take him away from thoughts of

Evacuation

"Thump!"

Concentric ripples flowed to

The pink extremities of his toes.

Ryuunosuke was running in her

Clumsy platform high-heeled pumps
to the nearest metro

She had been to her elderly parents but

No pleading would have them leave.

Through her thick glasses her mom

Said she had seen Godzilla before

She squinted and a tear ran to the tatami

Rushing through the turnstile her dress

Got caught

People were pushing her from behind

She felt pain and then went cold

"Thump!"

Hoshikomuri

An ambitious 28-year old reporter photographer for Reuters was

Running in the opposite direction of the crowd

From Afghanistan to Syria

He had seen conflicts, gunfire, skirmishes

His hand was so steady friends would shake

his table while he ate soup to see some spill

In vain: Hoshikomury slurped his soup without

Missing a drop

"Thump!"

The reporter looked up and up

Feeling the hot air of his breath.

"Thump!"

Manami was an 8-year old lost

In the streets of Tokyo

The swarm of people pushed her away from

Her parents

Her cries were invisible in the

Mounting panic

The streets were empty

Manami picked up a small rope near a lamppost

She started to jump rope on one foot because the other

Lost its shoe
"Thump!"

The sound shock threw her to her knees

She thought she was crying but

She could not hear herself

"Thump!"

Making transactions buying and selling

Copper, silver and even lithium was all

Sakurako was about

He was a smart talker in his smart shark-skinned

Suit, knitted eyebrows and a phone so pronounced

His left ear

Was flatter than the right one

His fingers flashed over his keyboard 

Somehow the empty open space office didn't affect him

"Ah-huh, ah-huh, ahhhhh, ah-huh" he said

Sakurako was never a genius for words yet

He always went to the point

"2,000,000 Yen is too much, you must do betta, betta, ah-ha."

Suddenly his screen went black and the lights went out

He quickly swiveled in his executive chair

Another light

Deeper, more terrifying than any light he had seen

The light of Godzilla's eye!
Illuminated pearls of sweat on his forehead

"Thump!"