Two Terrific Ten-minute Jottings

Dr. Seuss on Breakups

One sheet, two sheet, three sheet, four.

Slam that paper to the floor.

Rip it, tear it, burn it good.

Light it up as though it’s wood.


As you hear the crackling flames,

As you feel the warm remains,

Eyes reflect the flickering embers,

Spleen and liver scarce remember…


What he did to break your heart,

How you swooned back at the start,

How you cried o’er these letters,

Before he ripped your heart to fetters.


Now kiss all the gifts he gave.

Rub your cheek and feel his shave.

Toss this bear into the fire.

Hear it roar like your desire.


You may feel crick in your neck,

Weighty eyes as though you’ve wept

Tickling soft palate above your tongue,

Ringing ears as you’ve been wrung.


All these wants, stuffed in your mind,

Salty-sweet of love unkind,

Prickling poke of lover’s yoke,

Brilliant blaze, gone up in smoke. 

A Humorous Happening

“I did not knot the naughty Norwegian nurse, nay!” I say to the barrister as she lifts her haughty head higher, sliding her specs down her protruberant and bulbous nose. I wish to honk that nose and I know that she knows that I know she knows it!

“But sir,” the barrister bellows in a reedy, sinewy snarl, “You were locked in her chambers, the only one!”

I snort and hock a particularly phlegm-filled hunk of malevolent mucus into the bin.

“And I’ll have some decorum in my courtroom!”

“Awright,” I relent, congealing into the visage of an upstanding citizen. “I’ll take you there: see, the shipmate and I had spied a trifle of glinting gold in that there stowhole not two days prior to her nursehood’s ‘napping. An’ we, ‘aving ‘eard of ‘er reluctance to part with treasures, either internal or ex-, went a-sniffing our way ‘round the floorboards above, where the bilge’d been spilt and reeking and rotting salty sea water only a few days prior. So the mate, ‘e says to me, ‘why don’t ye stick yer wooden leg under that there board and heave to with yer hips and cascade it over, lettin’ us shimmy downward into Her Highness’s quarters and ransacking her all good ’n’ proper?’ Only that cankered, leprosy-ridden, flea-infested mate sneaks down ‘imself and grabs the gold and hoists ‘imself back up, only to push me down into the hole myeself, to be caught by yer most High and Honorable lawmen!” 

I’ve always wanted to be Ellen. (A Crowdsourced Poem.)

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John Prine

John Prine died today. He was my first concert. He wrote every song I love that I don’t remember who wrote. He wrote this poem, too, but he wrote it through me. I’ll miss him. One day I’d like to see him again.

I had a feeling I could be someone.

You’ll only feel by listening 

to the same song

fifty versions

but none better than the downtown boy

with hair like Dylan

accepted to Yale when I was

but dropped out 

and now plays to a Farmers’ market audience–

an empty picnic blanket and me. 

At 24 years old,

he looks more like twelve

and sings folk like a wizened bluesman.

Will he go anywhere

or stay in Fairfax forever,

wearing the same uncool shoes

as the classmate I bullied in 4th grade. 

If America’s misfits come to San Francisco

and SF’s go to Oakland,

where do Oakland’s go?

We’re only fifteen miles north of The City,

but you can believe in the stars having a plan for you

and we’ll still believe in you.  

If you move too quick,

you hit the speed of loneliness

like a too-fast car,

breaking the sound barrier,

collapsing into yourself,

emptying out.

We all feel that way. 

Some of us become. 

We all pass away. 

“Thwack!” goes my head, pummeling the van door.

“Thwack!” goes my head, pummeling the van door.

See bright spots of light. Can’t balance no more.

Closed out my phone call, “I love you. Uh, bye.”

Stumbled to my knees, my head hanging high.

 

Called my chum Em’ly, the reason I’m here

Coordinated as if drunk on beer.

“I’ll call you in ten,” she said and hung up,

so I wondered whether I was wrung up. 

 

Am I concussed? I had seen stars. And my

neck mashed. From whacking it hard and uh, high.

Big ol’ thwackin’! A painful a-whackin’!

I pray the world fades not to, uh, black, and

 

but if it does, at least I’d’ve learned… Not

much of anything. An accident turned

me into a grave. A silly way to

die. In future, I’ll be A-More-Aware-of-Surroundings Guy.

 

If I wanted a Boat

The boat I would get, if I wanted a boat, would be everything that I am not.

Carefree and easy and flexing completely, withstand wind and rain and hot,

Skating along atop cresting blue waves, easing through shifting tides…

 

The boat I would get, if I wanted a boat, would not take me for a ride,

but summon me near, caring not if I come, chuckling and holding the ropes.

The boat I would get, if I wanted a boat, would dash dreams in favor of hopes.

“You’ll never go far with that kind of boat”

But I’m already too far, too fast.

The boat I would get, if I wanted a boat, would be one that my soul cries would last.

 

Days turn to weeks turn to months turn to years,

Then one day my boat turns on me

And I’d be its ears.

And it be my eyes.

Together, we’d share a mouth.

 

We’d turn, heading down, past the capes with a frown

To the warmest of waters due south,

Under the bridges of eyes and sand ridges, I’d sweat hard, shoveling coal

And my boat would tell me, “You’re working too hard. Where are we trying to go?”

I’d poke my head up, consumed in the clouds, and not help but utter an, “oh.”

Sometimes I write in pictures.

You!
Yes, you!
Look at this guy:
A short, squat gnome
With a big paunched belly
And an erect penis
And neck
This text is here purely for formatting reasons
Born a dewdrop
That jiggled on a leaf,
Slurped up by a ladybug
That hums above the field.
Clouds billow, foretold shocks:
“Don’t hum begrudging agreement.
It’s not what you’ll want tomorrow-
Just what they demand today.”
This text is here purely for formatting reasons
He writes from a place southwest of my sternum
Aflame from rotting friends.
He wants to show you.
Take a look?
Or run.
“Please don’t run.”

One, Two Pizzas

Why did you buy two pizza pies?

You’re only one man, and you have thighs

That will grow fatter

If you eat all that batter.


“They were deep dish,

Which makes me its bitch

When combined with the heaven

Of ‘second pie costs $7.'”


Well, that explains

Your stretched-tummy pains.

Now go and count sheep

You should be asleep.


“I would be! I would!

But it’s hard to be good.

After crunching all week,

I feel so… uh, weak.”


That I can see!

It’s going to be

A much-needed weekend

Spent with a friend.

When people ask “How are you feeling?”, I wish they wanted this sort of answer.

When people ask “How are you feeling?”, I wish they wanted this sort of answer:

I have this…

Deep, rich, weeping.

Eyes tight, throat… Tingling down my back and a dry mouth.

I shiver though I don’t move.

A cold breeze passes through my head.

A cold breath, a dry mouth, a buzz across the back; a tight lower back, furrowed brow.

 

Wide, blubbery second chin.  Dry mouth, fast breath.

Stab right shoulder, under scapula.

Stab throbs.

Furrowed Brow.

Stab sinks.

I’ll test this sometime: dropping in and describing my felt sensations in real time.

 

I’ll test it 6 times in different contexts (because I’ll only get comfortable after the first few experiments).

Ode to Xfinity

Xfinity, you tease

In the unlikeliest of places

By stoking my hopes with the promise of bars

Then dashing them all with a “cannot connect!”

 

I must say I’d rather

Have no WiFi at all—

Be forced ‘pon my phone’s hotspot

Than hear your wispy false claims.

 

But sometimes, my dear,

You appease this old soul—

Like this ‘forenoon, when I video called

My boss from the street.

Though your robustness did waver

So we switched to “just audio,”

You did remain connected! Aye, you stood strong throughout,

Leaving boss none the wiser

That I’m a van-confined hobo.

 

Why do you toy so, dear Xfinity,

With me, of all people—loyal lover of your service

As I try to log in

With my dad’s friend’s account?