Click the graphic for Sammi’s blog and more bandaged 61-worded wonders.
Keepin’ Safe
‘hello-‘ello! C’mere, lad.
I hope you’ll be keepin’ well.
It happens every year
after a wee bit, a donnybrook
somewhere near here,
sorry now, so
me shillelagh’s swingin,
callin’ fer bacon.
Not well then are ye?
wackin’ the cod,
wi’ narry a nod, nor a bandage
or pad to be had.
T’ank you for feelin’
brave to go, smart to not.
Look both ways on whisky drinkin’ festival days.
Mind the gaps at the tube and lads at the pub.
The annual Donnybrook Fair near Dublin included fiddlers and dancers, but it was best-known for the frequent eruption of whiskey-fueled fighting – often involving heavy clubs known as shillelaghs. “Bacon” is Irish slang for police and “cod’ for fool.
Click this opera thingy to find links to more operatic writings
For Opera’s Sake
Poets find inspiration in
music
I do,
not opera
or classical,
Whitman did.
Likewise Nazim Hikmet,
Dickenson, Bishop, Doty,
and the barstool bard,
Charles Bukowski
who wrote,
“To The Whore Who
Took My Poems,” and
said, “opera sickened me.”
A romantic, Hank was,
by some accounting,
a perv, drunk, dreamer,
a dirty old man
and misogynist
(he claimed not)—a lover
of women and classical
music.
Buk’s been saluted by
diversity like
U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Nirvana, Bush, the Cars,
and Concrete Blonde.
I’ve been
accused
of being mused by
Bukowski
and his oeuvre.
Look both ways for the sin of admiring the imperfect,
the toil of the briar patch, the desire for love and passion.
Mind the gaps lest we stumble into the First Self-righteous Church.
This is the poem, “To The Whore Who Took My Poems” … done operatically (a bit risqué). My apologies if this youtube does not work for you.
Our unrivaled and swimmingly marvelous maven and Friday Fictioneering mistress, Rochelle, has paired up with Brenda Cox to serve up a stinging photo with food, working women, and a mad mugging man to inspire us to fictionalize 100-word stories mused from the minds and memories of twisted fibbers.
If you want to get jiggy with the ways and where-how’s of this Micro-, flash-fictioning adventure, click on Brenda’s photo for a sit down at Rochelle’s blog to check the menu for rules regarding ingredients.
A 76-word, first-word, acrostic poem, using alcazar, meaning a Spanish fortress, palace, or castle.
I did not use the prompt word as a theme.
Click this graphic to read more writings of alcazar,
Wind, Rain, and Life
All I ask are a few good poems and stories and to have
Lived and loved my seventy-six years as me. My
Children and my children’s children brought me to heavenly happiness
As rain brought new life later claimed by the dry range and the breezes of soft
Zephyrus gently passing us by, like time-forgotten memories
Around our lives with now-shortened horizons pointing to sunsets
Restoring my faith in the discovered purposes of life and humanity.
Look both ways to protect your citadel from plunder and attack.
Mind the gaps of your castle walls which may be vulnerable to the darkness of passing time.
I think the a/c has been running since May. It’s August now, driving hotly through a summer of record temperatures and daily threats of more Texas power grid snafus. I just missed being born in this horrible month, but I know several who are so saddled. Yes. I should be grateful. Maybe I am, but.
I’m also somewhat non-clinically depressed and worried, not about me even though if I ain’t dead in ten years, I will be in twelve and if I leave the world better, will it be good enough?
Fourteen billion eyes, ears, and feet, for now; and I only ask for a couple dozen or so to be alright. Go ahead. Ask. How’s that workin’ for me?
Half of humanity seems nuts and hates the other half who hate back. There’s a hypothetical, conjectural god who seems completely cavalier about it all and is dismissal about unbridled slavery, too. They insist I stock credence and believe. What? Why?
The most important thing, apparently, comes conveniently after, and it’s not heaven. It’s hell. That’s where August takes all three-hundred and sixty-five days and nothing was last or is next and some guy keeps asking, what if this is as good as it gets? Ever?
Sweet dreams are made of this,
Amen to that,
Bill
PS: Everybody’s looking (both ways) for something. Mind the gaps for what some of them want to do. Who am I to disagree?
At the car wash
busy with trucks and SUVs
but few cars.
I spy a young HR lady
as she
explains personnel things
to a few male employees
who look confidently confused.
They pay “up to” twelve dollars per hour
there—
so says the help wanted sign.
It’s a hundred degrees Fahrenheit
again today, outside, at the car wash
for not enough dinero to live on.
A customer—tall skinny guy wearing
starched, ironed Wranglers with
a big wide belt holding up a bigger
shiny rodeo belt buckle, in
black cowboy boots
boasting bright diamond earrings,
under a big black felt
unairconditioned cowboy hat with
a long wallet jutting up from
his tight right back pocket
and chained to his belt,
and his big-ass cell phone in the other,
all in his stiff, creased, ironed
cowboy blue jeans while
Mansplaining to his nicely wigged
lady friend—he even told me when
my car was ready (it wasn’t)—she nodded and smiled—
people waiting for their clean and polished rides—
one rest (wash) room for all. With
a mercifully short waiting line,
I see no ‘young’ customers, but
one old man wore his ballooning
starched & ironed loud pink, long-sleeved shirt with
pearl buttons in this noisy, busy business
somewhere in the middle of Texas
where dressing to subculture
ignores realities like sun and heat
except for the guys making top
dollar, one every five minutes,
at the car wash. Plus, a tip from me
in my worn Phish tee and shorts, ball cap
and old gym shoes. My subculture.
At the car wash.
Look both ways at the car wash.
Take notes on the sights and write ‘em up: prose or poetry to get you through the day.
Mind the gaps unless you pay the upcharge for a greater job, done by hand, details.
If you’re unfamiliar with the mid-seventies song and movie, here is a youtube trailer version.
Bukowski had six cats,
a horrific history,
(eventually) a (2nd) wife, a daughter,
and hated his father,
maybe mother too.
he smoked cigarettes
and drank wine
while writing poems
until the wee hours
while
listening
to classical music.
He drove an old VW bug
and was attractively
unattractive.
Playing the horses
was more than
a gambling vice,
it was an avocation.
You say so what? I say, you don’t know?
Look both ways when you need a poem to post on a Monday.
Mind the gaps cuz yer on yer own dude.
Henry Charles Bukowski: a “laureate of American lowlife.” Time (magazine).
Our Literary Journey 