The Whooze

 

After travelling high and low -an Alpine adventure

I've got the shot 

I've got the whooze

The feeling goes down to my shoes

For weeks I was less than enthused

As politicians tried to defuse the potential

Side-effects of this and that vaccine.

My whooziness  reveals

The truth about my Covid arm 

Is it is sore, a wound, a contusion

Only under this iceberg of sore lies

Billons of human cells 

That switched to a manufacturing center

An mRNA production facility that on a molecular level spreads

Over a larger surface than all Amazon warehouses put together.

Today it is not only my body readying for a Corona foul play

Around the  globe we see 

In Mexico next to a cactus, the vaccine is given to a Padre

In Iceland to a dancer at the local cabaret

And in Mongolia to a man who preferred to ignore his tooth decay.

As proteins race around my body

I am tempted to celebrate with some booze

To soothe the whooze -remember?

And that bruise

And hopefully soon end my days as a recluse

Or a hermit longing for a ticket anywhere on the horizon

Soon I shall stop mending buttons and socks

To finally reset Time on my clock

And rekindle connections

That today are fuzzy recollections.

"The Shot" or a Covid Dream of hope

A line snaked around the corner of an old barbershop 

Walled with mirrors

Black and white tiles 

In the corner a nurse is holding a mallet with melting

Blue ice packs poking out of the casing 

Like a backhand in tennis she deftly hands over the needle to the Dr. 

Who is sporting 2 hairy, shaky forearms 

Misjudging his target

-an 80 something lady sitting the barber chair in a reclining positon-

We see half of the precious serum spilling onto the floor that

Is already puddled with a small lake of serum and

Hundreds of vials, some broken, strewn on the floor

(Modrna, Astra, Sinovac, Phizah)

Is this the Center of a crazy Miser?

My turn has come 

The nurse throws me toilet paper, points to the floor and barks,

"Hands and knees!"

I dutifully seek to soak the serum on the floor

It smells of nano-particles and m-RNA

I hand back the saturated ball of TP to the nurse who

Is now donning yellow latex gloves

She squeezes it into an empty vial and

Pulling out a needle form a haystack 

Slowly fills the empty cylinder 

Hands it to the Dr who is pushing the lady 

Off the chair and 

Now the hairy forearms wave me to take a seat

And I hear my shoes cross the wet floor.

"Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass" a nod to Robert Lowell

Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass I

Smelled pop corn popping over and autumn breeze as

Venus rounded the Sun at 48 degrees

Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass I

Took a wiff of peppercorns as

They cracked out of their mill and

Smelled Grandma's armpits sweating from 

Grinding refills

Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass

My salivary glands danced around a plate of melted brie whilst

Driving bumper to bumper in noxious tunnel fumes

In a new olive green 77 Dodge that mirrored my father's showroom.

Before I lost my smell, before I lost my smell,

I would eat eggs with their eggshells

Do barbells and

Run like a gazelle

Today, my impotent nose renders me

Tasteless and rundown

I quit my job

Managing a Scottish carousel

Where horses spun wearing tartans

Chasing whales chasing krill chasing Martians.

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 segmented.

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.