Saturday, May 19, 2018

The Royal Wedding

We’ve watched every Super Bowl since Vince Lombardi 
The finals at Wimbledon, the French, the U.S. Open
Other galas too: the Oscars, the Tonys, the Kentucky Derby
Even Miss America till Bert Parks retired 
But nothing comes as close in elegance and grandeur as (you know it) 
The Royal Wedding! 
Arguably the number one extravaganza on Earth 

Even our closest friends don’t suspect  
But my wife, we believe, has a touch of royal blood
A mere teenager when her family traveled through Canada 
Numerous strangers approached her on the street
“You look exactly like our beloved Queen,” they’d say
Elizabeth was in her mid-twenties at the time
My wife, a fourth cousin?  A long-lost half sister? 

We’ve always included the royals in our family
Princess Di, practically a sister-in-law  
We see every movie by Helen and Kate
Binge-watched “The Crown” on Netflix
Are glued to the BBC at Buckingham Palace 
But the Royal Wedding, that’s another story 
Few things in life get more real  

The media, of course, a feeding frenzy
Pre-wedding festivities from dawn to dusk 
Then the wedding day itself, Four a.m. till Eleven
I DVR’d the entire lineup 
NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, E!, PBS, LIFE, HBO, CNN
Weeks of viewing pleasure for my spouse  
Mid-summer, it will take, to absorb it all  

No alarm needed, we woke up at six 
Prince Harry, Prince William, ambling into the chapel
Fine military regalia, Harry’s neatly trimmed beard
Then Megan Markle in her Hollywood splendor
Tiara, white gown, a forty foot train
A bevy of flower girls, tousle-haired page boys
Prince Charles himself walks the bride down the aisle  
There among the onlookers, Oprah, George C., and Elton John 
And, of course, the Queen herself, looking stately in chartreuse 
Sweet glances, quiet laughter, Harry’s slight signs of nerves
The gospel choir singing, “Stand by me”
My wife sheds a tear at the holy vows
A kiss on the steps, the carriage ride, the adoring crowd
Seventy-five thousand strong
Red-uniformed cavalry, twenty-six noble stallions 

Suddenly it’s over, this fairy-tale wedding 
The end of royal marriages for two or three decades 
We’ll probably be a hundred two by then 
But Prince Philip looked surprisingly fit at ninety-six
That leaves royal hope for the rest of us 



Saturday, May 12, 2018

Touring the Hereafter

Our Triple-A branch, I was thrilled to learn,
Now takes tourists to Heaven and Hell
Since any day now I’ll be ashes in an urn
I thought I’d see which rings my bell

Heaven, top to bottom, is a pristine place
Cozy cottages with white picket fences
All wear long gowns that are trimmed in white lace
Best of all, they are charged no expenses

The first day in Heaven one is given a harp
Lawrence Welk composed all of the tunes
Cous-cous and kale at six o’clock sharp
For breakfast, poached eggs and dried prunes 

All the radios in Heaven play NPR
People meditate and then do Tai Chi
Heavenly melodies float from afar
Tiny toddlers might sit on your knee  

Finished with my tour, Hell became my next stop  
The dwellings, not so fancy, I’d say
People gobble Big Macs, drink sugary pop
Then torture newcomers all day

The residents of Hell play poker all night
And do other stuff we’d call risky
They write poems with metaphors totally trite
While besot with too much Irish whiskey
           
All the TVs in Hell are set to play porn
Strangers dance the quickstep while nude 
I never saw anyone looking forlorn
One can’t be forlorn when they’re lewd

I’m having some difficulty making up my mind
Of course Heaven is seamlessly nice 
But Hell, I found out, is unfairly maligned
It’s so sad to pass by such fine vice 



Saturday, May 5, 2018

Weird Gender Images: A Found Poem from TVGuide.com

We wish we could watch every show on TV 
But there are at least a zillion to be covered
I checked TV Guide to help plan our choices
Here are some of the plots I discovered 

Emily becomes an Internet star
Sarah decides to take some private time 
Renee talks Bree into going to a pickup bar 
Jane is ready to pursue writing full-time 

Barry joins the high school football team 
Josh turns mad scientist for his biker gang sale
 Kyle disappears after destroying Amanda’s dream
Hank’s erratic behavior puts him in jail  

Ella searches for the right hairdo 
Margie scrambles to find child care 
Zoey learns she may have a little more growing to do 
Sammy Jo is ready to wash Jeff out of her hair  

Dirt on Piscatelli comes to light
The cops close in on Art and Bill 
Antoine McKenzie is brazenly shot in broad daylight 
Boss Hogg schemes to destroy his late uncle’s will 

Rebecca tries to reconnect with Jack 
Peggy suffers from a migraine
Mona helps Hanna get her fashion career back on track 
Rikki spots Sophie kissing Zane 

Spencer invents a machine to feed his fish
Stroheim returns as a cyborg and wages war
Murtaugh walks on thin ice with Trish  
Ralph decides he doesn’t want to be a hero anymore

Pam puts on a lunchtime fashion show 
Megan hosts a Sip-and-See for baby Fay 
Holly lands her dream job in San Antonio
Jazz gets an unexpected gift on her 17th birthday

Eli finds farming more than it’s cracked up to be 
Jacques Renault is found dead 
A cross-dressing professor goes on a killing spree 
Two gunmen shoot William Davis in the head 

TV, as we see, is all about gender
The males seek violence and power
Women pursue close relationships 
When together, the couples just glower

All this brainwashing, who the sexes are
Or, supposedly, who they should be
Mostly they choose the male as the star
A minor glitch — it’s complete fantasy 



Friday, April 27, 2018

A Cruise From Hell: A Rondel*

A South Pacific cruise so sweet
Until an ugly brawl broke out
A girl’s flip-flop caused a lout 
To push and kick and curse and beat

This wilding family, such conceit 
They prowled the decks to scream and shout
A South Pacific cruise so sweet
Until an ugly brawl broke out 

The staff attacked in white hot heat
Heads were hammered, men knocked about
Families frightened fled the rout 
Officials made arrests discreet 
A South Pacific cruise so sweet

   *News source: ”’Brawl family’ clashed with staff,” www.news.com.au, Feb. 22, 2018


Friday, April 20, 2018

My Story. By Jack

My mom and I share a cozy homestead
But last week she told me, “No money” 
“We’ll have to sell Old Bess,” Mother said 
A great shock, that sweet cow's our honey

We left for the market, much to my distress
At the gate, a raggedy old man 
He offered to trade magic beans for Old Bess  
To me, such an intriguing plan 

Back home I showed the beans to my mom
But she screamed, “You didn’t get our money???” 
I did my best to stay peaceful and calm
But she told me that this was not funny  

I ran upstairs crying, crawled right into bed
Out the window went the beans, such a shock
I woke in the morning with a feeling of dread
But there, in our yard, a great stalk

I tossed on my trousers, my shirt, and my shoes
Up the stalk I started to climb 
Two miles high, such astonishing views 
In the distance, a castle sublime

Standing in the doorway, a tall lady giant   
With a huge yellow eye on her head 
I tried to act polite and even compliant 
One false step, I knew I’d be dead  

Suddenly loud crashes came from the yard
Her husband was coming, some eighteen feet tall
His face was all ruddy and jagged and scarred 
I hid in the closet at the end of the hall 

The giant chanted, “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum  
“I smell the blood of an Englishman
“Be he alive, or be he dead
“I'll have his bones to grind my bread!”

That creature sat down and reached into a keg 
He pulled out a sickly white hen  
In seconds that hen laid a golden egg 
Worth at least sixty shekels and ten 

I stayed in the closet till the giant fell asleep 
Then the hen and I ran down the walk 
I think that the hen must have made a loud peep
The giant came running as we climbed down the stalk 

We scampered down that stalk as fast as we could
With the giant following closely behind us
I grabbed my axe, began chopping the wood
I could hear the big brute fuss and cuss

At the very last second the stalk tumbled down 
The giant screamed out in loud fear 
Then he crashed right down upon his bald crown
So relieved, hen and I, in the clear 

Our hen now produces a golden egg every day 
The first one, I bought back Old Bess 
Mom, me, Bess, Hen — all contented I’d say 
Is this a happy ending?  Well, yes!




Friday, April 13, 2018

Mike

When we moved to the river in ’46,
we had only one neighbor, Lew Reed
who lived a half mile west on River Road
with his Irish setter, Mike.  
Mike, a handsome specimen, red hair, strong legs,
keen eyes, a noble disposition.   
Lew and Mike would walk down the shore to visit
and we kids would cavort with the dog.
Running and jumping, tossing sticks and balls, 
wading in the river, resting in the sun. 
Soon, whenever Lew let him out, 
Mike would run away and come to our house.
We too him home at the end of the day.   
Finally Lew Reed relented to  fate
and he gifted Mike to our family.
We were thrilled. 
So fantastic
so smart
mature
a loyal companion
calm, affectionate, well-behaved.
Mike camped with us at Mason Park 
Long hikes on the river shore. 
Tossing the football, foot races in the yard.  
In the summer our family took our boat to Indian Island for picnics. 
Four kids, no room in the rowboat for a dog
so Mike swam along behind the boat — 
. . . . . . . . . . . . a half mile or more.
Mike loved chasing the chipmunks on the lawn.
Squirrels too, occasionally a rabbit. 
Each year he would corner a porcupine, 
winding up with a nose full of quills.
Yikes!  Ouch!  Ooooh! 
Off to Dr. Seidl for painful extractions.
A year later he’d forgotten and
he did it all over again. 
One spring afternoon Mike fell through the river ice.
My mother forbade us to leave the house
and she crawled out on the ice on her stomach
to rescue our beloved dog.
My grandfather bought us a second Irish setter in Florida.
We named her Micki and Mike was her mentor. 
Mike trained Micki to never do her business on our lawn.
Instead, they went to the birch grove next door. 
Mike and Micki got into a vicious fight.
My mother intervened, had her forearm ripped open.
At the hospital she forgave the dogs 
and blamed herself instead.  
Mike lived to a ripe old age.
Then one summer day he collapsed outside our door
dead from a stroke.  
I dug his grave in our back pasture.
A deep grave for a large dog.
My sister added a wooden cross that she’d made.    
I remember exactly how that gravedigging felt.
It still brings tears to my eyes. 


Friday, April 6, 2018

Bombs Are On My Mind

              Hiroshima
          August 6, 1945
      the first atomic bomb
80,000 people died in place.

We learned about the A-bomb in our Weekly Reader. 
Harry Truman, Miss Zellinger said,
saved America from destruction.
She taught us about the 
peace-time wonders of atomic energy.
But what stuck in our child-minds —
the firestorms destroying all life on Earth.  

Fourth grade, we had monthly atomic bomb drills
First, we put away all pencils and erasers. 
Then we hid our heads under our desks.
No one understood just why.  
Deeny-Boy thought
maybe radiation can’t go through wood. 

The nineteen-fifties, the superpower arms race.
In my U.P. hometown many believed
we were a likely target of a Russian A-bomb.
From high in the sky, the elders said, we were easily mistaken for
the St. Lawrence Seaway.
If the Russian bombers were off by only a smidgeon…
So long, Menominee County!

My father and Uncle Lars came to a decision.
Our family needed  an @&%*#! atomic bomb shelter.
So, in the basement of my grandfather’s drugstore
they outfitted our room.    
Canned foods, bottled water, graham crackers,
plates and silverware, dish towels, Brillo pads,
flashlights, matches and candles,
extra underwear and socks,
pillows, towels, blankets,
empty paper bags,
comic books, crossword puzzles,
and lastly a portable toilet.

Uncle Lars argued strongly that we needed rifles
in case the townspeople
tried to force their way into our space.  
My father was ambivalent about
killing our neighbors.
So they never did bring in the rifles.

Skip ahead a few years.
My wife and I, students in Ann Arbor.
October 22nd, 1962, the Cuban Missile crisis.
Nuclear war in the offing.
We were dangerously close to Detroit, a prime target.
Fear, cold sweats.
We thought about driving to the U.P.
to our family bomb shelter.
But then I remembered 
the St. Lawrence Seaway
so we hunkered down with our dog.

Many decades passed
and I almost forgot about atomic bombs.
But now we have a president
who threatens nuclear war with North Korea.
From the air Cincinnati could easily be mistaken for Detroit.
Or Pittsburgh.
Or Cleveland.
   
And we don’t have a family bomb shelter any more.

But at least I learned how to

hide my head under

my desk.