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On Angels and Messengers

Friday, April 30, 2010

ENVY or "Consider the Turtle"

Does the turtle envy the bird
for its ability to fly?
No more than the bird envies the fish
for its effortless swimming.
Does that fish envy the amphibious frog
for being equally at home in two different worlds?
No more than the frog, the fish and the bird
envy the turtle for its invulnerability.
And so it goes; for all creatures were given
special talents that define their individuality.
Most of them never complain.

Find your gifts. Some are well hidden.
Open them and use them. Make them shine.
Say "Thank You!", even if you hear no applause.
Others may envy you, though this might surprise you.
Chances are, they are none other than those
you regarded as more gifted than yourself.
Consider the turtle.





BE STILL ~ Based on Psalm 46, more or less


There is nothing in the world that resembles God so much as silence.
~ Meister Eckhart (1260-1328)



Be still and know that I am God

Be still and know

Be still

be

b

...






Monday, April 19, 2010

BY POPULAR DEMAND


The Termite is a self-portrait,
but since this blog is all about me,
here's another.





THE BULWER-LYTTON FICTION CONTEST -- 2010

GREETINGS TO WRITERS WORLDWIDE
WHO WRITE WELL ENOUGH TO WRITE POORLY!

THIS SITE IS NOT THE OFFICIAL ONE.
THE RESULTS OF THE 2010 CONTEST ARE NOW POSTED ON BULWER-LYTTON.COM .
'MID-JUNE' ARRIVED A BIT EARLIER THAN EXPECTED: ON THE 28TH!
MY ENTRIES WILL BE FOUND HERE -- AND ONLY HERE.
THAT MEANS THEY WERE TOO GOOD TO WIN.
BUMMER!

I INTEND TO WIN THE CONTEST BEFORE I DIE --
SO IT LOOKS LIKE I'LL HAVE TO STICK AROUND ANOTHER YEAR.
IF YOU DECIDE TO STICK AROUND, TOO, PLEASE PERUSE MY ENTRIES BELOW,
AND PERHAPS SOME POETRY, SILLY AND SERIOUS --
FOR MORE STUFF, INCLUDING BROADWAY PARODIES, VISIT MY OTHER WEB-SITE: HTTP://DrSpeedbump.com

Thanks for stopping by.


The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, conceived by Prof. Rice of the English Department at San Jose State University, is an annual literary competition that welcomes “wretched writers”. The objective is simply (editor's paraphrase) to compose the first sentence of the worst of all possible novels. Check it out: http://Bulwer-Lytton.com . If you have a sense of humor that’s slightly askew, it just might get a little askewier. The contest was inspired by this classic opening sentence by George Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1830 novel, Paul Clifford.
"It was a dark and stormy night and the rain fell in torrents -- except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
Until 2010, the only time I entered was in 2002 -- when I was surprised to be deemed the runner-up in the Detective Category for this little gem of a sentence, which I really didn’t think was particularly good:
Detective Driscoll had fallen off the wagon like a frozen turkey from a Goodwill helicopter and, like a talking elephant reunited with his old circus buddies after 50 years, he reminisced about the most memorable collars of his career -- and he guffawed so hard that he fell off the bar-stool like another turkey from another helicopter as he recollected the time he arrested a mime for shoplifting and had to say “You have a right to remain silent . . .
I received congratulatory email from Finland, from Australia, and from points in between.
After an eight year sabbatical, I entered the 2010 contest with the following carefully crafted crappy compositions. As you can see, once you're in the swing, it's awfully hard to stop.


SCIENCE FICTION
SF-1
The Galactic Armistice was signed in blue blood and the Little Green Boys, who were too small to fight, were sweating slime, having heard that their fathers would soon be returning in defeat -- and after Vinny, the boy they called “Smarty-Pants”, realized that since they were green, and their mothers were Little Yellow Women, it could only mean one thing, and a rather scary one at that: “Oh God! No! Daddy is a violent blood-thirsty Smurf, bigger than me ~ and now, after just getting whooped, he’s black and blue and he's coming this way!”

SF-2
The handsome but histrionic, nebbishy yet narcissistic, sexy though celibate, pompous and puritanical Starship Commander had just resisted -- well, at least he thinks he successfully resisted -- a seduction attempt by a nubile nympho-maniacal virgin, actually an attractive adolescent organic android -- well, at least the hologram of a vivacious voluptuous vamp, a vision that was custom-made from specifications in the Commander’s own lascivious imagination and given this mischievous little mission: To chase the chaste and leave them with no memory of being caught.

SF-3
The engineer had just said “I kenna do it, Captain!” (whatever that means), when the starship “Booby-Prize” hesitated momentarily, like a thoroughbred rearing up in anticipation of the bell -- well, more like the Roadrunner -- you know, the cartoon one with the whirling feet, just before he streaks off in a cloud of dust like a thoroughbred … well, more like the starship at the end of the last book in this series, because this is a recap, except for the part about the horse and the bird.


DETECTIVE

D-1
The once-beautiful girl fell into his arms like a corpse from a closet, except that instead of this being a real closet, it was an armoire, you know, a wardrobe like the one you inherited from your grandmother and you really like a lot but don’t have a need or a good place for (because your house is newer and has lots of closets, thus less wall space) but you have to keep forever because it belonged to your grandmother, who could be inside the damn thing, for all you know.

D-2
The facts of the case were not in dispute, but the Grand Jury just wasn’t convinced that a crime had been committed at the mortuary on Bring-Your-Kid-To-Work Friday, after the psychiatrists split on whether “necrophilately” is a hobby or a mental illness; while the DA argued that any creep, even a minor, caught in the act of sticking postage stamps on dead people ought to be held accountable somehow.

D-3
Little Chucky Cheez had whizzed down to the market on his skateboard to get what his mother said was “the usual amount of beef for my Halloween stew”, but the regular butcher,
Wally Wood, was out with the Swine Flu and the trouble started when the two new guys, Michael Myers and Ward Cleaver, Jr. (the brother who lived in Beaver’s attic), started to argue about how much chuck Wood would cut Chuck if Wood could cut Chuck chuck.

D-4
At the crime lab, Grissom was giving a lunchtime seminar ~ a color-slide presentation on forensic entomology, determining the age of a decaying corpse by the sequence of bugs feeding on it, starting with those eager-beaver Blow Flies, followed by feisty Flesh Flies, slightly tardy Dermestid Beetles, fashionably late Mites, and eventually (3+ years post mortem) the Nobody-called-me-to-dinner Beetles ~ when Newman says to the new guy, way too loud, “Hey! If you’re not gonna eat your raisins …


CHILDREN’S BOOK

Boys and girls, you must be very excited ~ but please don’t pee in your pants or shriek in a penetratingly high-pitched 200-decibel tone like that little turd did yesterday at the supermarket when his mother, who already had 43 items in the 7-Items-or-Less express line, refused to buy candy ~ yes, very excited indeed to be reading this long-awaited first edition of “Goofy Goes to Gitmo” by Yours Truly, the author of the profusely illustrated winner of the coveted Publisher's Overstock Award, "A Child's Treasury of Medieval Torture Techniques".

ROMANCE

R-1
Kevin, a lonely zoologist gazing gloomily through a potted Ficus at the Omaha airport, finally found his dream girl ~ a natural beauty with the eyes of a lemur, nose of an aardvark, lips of an orangutan, teeth of a warthog, hair of a tarantula, figure of a flounder, legs of a turtle, fragrance of a musk-ox, IQ of a ‘possum, and the personality of a tapeworm; but now he’s heart-broken to learn that she also has the ovaries of a rabbit and the attention-span of a cabbage moth and she’s leaving for Guatemala with Jim Fowler to film an intimate mud-wrestling scene for Wild Kingdom.


R-2 (belated entry for 2010 or early entry for 2011)

All the forest creatures, small and great, held their furry or feathery breath as Prince Franklin hovered timorously over the nubile, Caucasian waif who was still asleep
on her mossy bed despite thunder and lightning, and -- with his trembling, noble hands descending like timid parachutes toward her tranquil, tender, ‘snow-white’ bosom (actually it’s slightly off-white, yet still virginal) -- he nimbly activated the paddles and yelled “Clear!”, which scared the droppings out of all the forest creatures, small and great.


HISTORICAL FICTION

Fourteen-year-old Prince Dwayne was as quiet as a limpet, hiding behind the drapery in the castle library, where it was moldy as forgotten Limburger for it was damp as an October morning on the moor, and he was eaves-dropping on his strumpet of a step-mother, Queen Grenadier, supine on the divan, again, teasing Sir Lancealittle about his well-deserved name.


PURPLE PROSE (Excessively Flowery)

Seymour squinted at the booklet through his hefty spectacles and haltingly discerned the following instructions: “Hearty congratulations are bestowed upon you or your benefactor for the sagacious purchase of the finest product ever manufactured in Malaysia, which will now be personally consummated by your fastidious assembly of the 873 miniscule pieces that you behold in the carton, unless, of course, one of our pre-pubescent or illiterate production-line workers has concealed a lapse in ability to keep pace and jettisoned some of your pieces into the carton of the next unit to glide by on our state-of-the-art conveyor belt."


WESTERN

Cowboy Bob, who should have known not to mix whiskey and milk, was ashamed and embarrassed to find himself upstairs at the Sundown Saloon after the Wednesday night karaoke contest, with Miss Lola Palooza, a multi-talented “showgirl”, who declared impatiently yet somehow still sultrily, “I don’t mind the ventriloquism dummy ~ in fact he’s kind of fun ~ but, Cowboy Bob, you gotta jettison the spurs and the ukulele!”


GENERAL CATEGORY
GC-1
After the meeting, Bill started to get an inkling that he had disclosed a bit too much about the planned merger, when the CEO crushed the elevator’s plastic stop-button, jerked Bill’s necktie up until he was tippy-toe like a 4’10” ballerina trying to stow overhead luggage, and whispered (odoriferously) into Bill’s nose through clenched, cigar-stained teeth: “Now that the genie has left the barn and the cat has been rung, how do you propose to get the cruddy toothpaste out of the cow’s bag and into the stupid bottle that spilled the milk on the damn beans? … Huh, Billy-Boy?”

GC-2
“What up?”, inquired Beauregard.

GC-3 (or VILE PUN)
Sister Marie Claire Voyante, a perceptive teacher and far-sighted visionary, revealed to her pupils the spectacular discovery that the eyeglasses she thought she lost on C Street had miraculously appeared on top of her refrigerator, so she vowed to put bouquets of irises beneath every statue of St. Seymour in the diocese, but couldn’t find even one, so she went to the Holy See and made a spectacle of herself protesting that St. Seymour was obviously conspicuous by his absence and, besides, she didn’t see why there were no statues of any saints wearing eyeglasses.

GC-4 (or VILE PUN)
At the Awards Banquet in San Diego, all the literati, including last year’s winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, are strutting around like roosters in recycled prom dresses and rented tuxedos, or is it “tuxedoes”, or perhaps “tuxedi”, in which case one of those little pieces of colored paper falling from the rafters is a “confetto”, when a nervous chicken prematurely jumps out of the cake and the flustered maitre d’, Vincenzo, grabs a myopic English professor by the suspenders and asks, “Which one of these so-called writers gets the Pullet Surprise”?.

GC-5
Bubba, the understudy for the role of Hamlet, moaning in pain, walked around the dressing room like a knock-kneed flamingo in the tights usually worn by Derwin, the diminutive flu-stricken principal, who then crawled into the room, shivering like a slug in green jello, and quickly diagnosed the problem, as he pointed unapologetically at the bulge that makes the schoolgirls giggle, and immortalized a line from his soliloquy (Act III, Scene 1): “Ah! There’s the rub!”

GC-6
She lay on the floor, as motionless as a flounder on a bridge
in the late afternoon sun, except that her lips (which were
still as plump as a nervous blow-fish) were moving feebly, so I bent down like a heron stalking minnows (well, more like a flamingo except that I'm not pink and they don't eat minnows, do they?) and she whispered softly in my ear, “Cats don’t care if you fart, you know, and dogs probably like it, but if you’re sitting in the aquarium, it sure scares the crap out of the fish”, then she died.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

TOWARD FULFILLMENT

    Where are you going, my Little One ...?

We choose our path and pack our own duffel,
     mostly with stuff that's not worth its weight;
         and we set out on our own private odyssey --
             or perhaps we wait for a ship that never comes.

Though never quite sure where we are going,
     we are guided by Wisdom bought with pain
         and by a gift of Grace, which somehow appears,
             perhaps delivered by a prophet, or just by a friend.

The Cloud of Unknowing hides some distractions
      and we suddenly recall what we've known all along:
          that Being Loved is the place we have been longing for;
              and Loving is the only way that will surely get us there.
       
                    All the rest is colored bubbles.




THE CHORAL DIRECTOR

When we're singing in the chorus
the director stands before us
looking like he wants to grab us by our throats.
Our heads are buried in the score
although we've sung this song before.
We're not together ...
     but we're singing all the notes.






NEVER CLOUDY: a fairy tale

In a land that was never cloudy,
not even one raindrop fell, so
the seed never sprouted, and
the chick that never hatched
had nothing to eat,
but no one cared.
Nobody
at all.
Nope
!





Saturday, April 10, 2010

THE TEAR

Is that a tear I see in your eye?
A glimmer of sadness?
A sparkle of joy?
Is that a tear?
Is it yours or mine?





THE DRIVE-IN MOVIE


How big things were when we were teens!
Those drive-in movies' big wide screens
The trunk of Ernie’s two-tone Dodge
for smuggling in big Jimbo Hodge.

We once got smashed if you recall
on Thunderbird at Thunderball.
I’m haunted still by one big doubt...
Did anyone let Jimbo out?





TRUST THE WIND

There's a reason why the Wind brought you here.
Simply being unable to figure out what it is
     has no effect on its fulfillment.  Trust the Wind.

Flowers that go unnoticed will be fruitful.
Blossoms picked will never yield fruit,
     but they, too, have not failed in their duty.

Soak up the Rain and Sun -- Bloom in your own garden.
The Wind will do what it will and, one way or another,
     whether you know it or not, you shall be Fulfilled.





Friday, April 9, 2010

MOSTLY GROWN: A Sonnet

  

When I was just a scrawny pup
So-called grown-ups would question me
"Sonny, pray tell, when you grow up --
What the hell are you going to be?"
I wasn't sure -- then in a wink
Some fifty years went up in flame.
I'm mostly grown, so let me think
Just what it was that I became.

Degrees and titles were conferred
     as I achieved so many goals,
But values changed as I matured.
I hope a few of all my roles
    will be remembered in the end:
Son, Brother, Husband, Father, Friend.






Part II: SELF-CRITICISM

From CRITICISM: A TRILOGY


The Road To Perfection

The harshest critic is usually the Judge within you
     taking over the task begun by your parents.
Perhaps it’s time to send that judge down the road –
     and to exile the Judge’s soul-mate, the Victim --
that pin-cushion Martyr, with arrows by the hundreds
     sticking into him or her from all angles.

Do you set higher standards for yourself
     than you do for others? Isn’t that Vanity?
Why be so slow to forgive yourself for making errors,
     when you would so quickly forgive a friend?
Do you think you can achieve Perfection?
     If so, you’ve already made one big mistake.

Accept the fact that the Road to Perfection
     has not been completed -- nor will it ever be.
Check all your baggage except for one knapsack,
     then tear up the ticket and travel light.
Let the Judge and Victim trudge toward Perfection,
     while you head toward Fulfillment instead.

Your Garden

Peer into a mirror as if it were a window
     looking out on a garden.
Then step outside into that garden
     and just admire it for a while.
Now you may look around for weeds,
     but go slowly and carefully with the hoe.

Every new sprout is not an evil alien invader
     on a mission to choke your petunias.
Welcome some wildflowers,
     like Spontaneity and at least a little Risk.
Trust Helen Keller -- “Life is a daring adventure or nothing.
     Security is mostly a superstition.

Take time often to water your garden,
     but not with a fire hose.
Compassion is a persistent shower,
     but a gentle one --
Enough to wash the dust from the leaves
     and refresh the thirsty roots.

Now go somewhere else
     and do something different.
Come back in the morning light to see how well
     the garden grew during the night --
Simply because you turned it over and left it alone --
     trusting that all would be well. It is.


An Earworm for You

“Has anybody here --
     seen a judge and a victim?
          Can you tell me where they hide?”
“I thought I saw them trudgin’
     Down the road to Perfection,
          with Anger, a Martyr, and Pride.”





Monday, April 5, 2010

I'VE GROWN ACCUSTOMED TO HER FACE


A Song from "MY STATE FAIR LADY"

One critic said, "If reviving one play is good, two at a time must be twice as good. Then again, if a play is awful ...
"IMAGINE PYGMALION WITH REAL PIGS"

Scene 2 -- The MIDWAY
A singing Barker named Henry

Piano Intro -- 4 measures

I’ve grown accustomed to her face
though she has whiskers on her chin,
and though her skin is like a prune’s,
her lips like a baboon’s --
Her squeals, her moans
her grunts, her groans
are second nature to me now
as she breathes out and she breathes in.

When I was working in a circus
patching tents before we met,
there I heard some workers
describing this brunette:
whose head they’d cover with a sheet
or else the elephants stampede --
unaccustomed to her face.
(repeat verse as harmonica interlude)

I’ve grown accustomed to her face
and to her foolish toothless grin.
I’ve gotten used to hear her say
(spoken) “Why'd all the elephants run away?”
Her squeals, her smell
The seals can tell.
It's second nature to them now,
as they breathe out and they breathe in.

Yet I’m so grateful for this woman
for she brought me lots of luck.
Folks line up to look at her
They pay me half a buck.
I’ve grown accustomed to the trace
of something in the air --
accustomed to her face.






Sunday, April 4, 2010

PSALM 95A -- THIS IS THE DAY

 A Song of Eeyore

This is the day the Lord has made
     but let’s not get too overjoyed,
For minute by minute it’s fading away
     and once it’s gone, it’s destroyed.









An EASTER BASKET of LIMERICKS

A Gift of Verse
for Each of My Sopranos
(except the one that married me)
_________________________________

A lovely little lady named Anne
was wed to a very tall man.
Whenever they dance,
she holds onto his pants,
and her legs move as fast as they can.
_________________________________

Debbie came up from Long Isle-
and she always dresses in style.
So when she goes out,
men whistle and shout.
She ignores them, hiding a smile.
_________________________________

There’s another soprano named Ellie.
Her older sister is Kelley.
Like her twin sister Katie,
She turned into a lady,
After putting her mother through hell-y.
_________________________________

Here’s to Elizabeth F_____.
Her blouse is a little bit green-y.
She’s as pretty can be,
Though she’s got a bum knee.
Anne and Lisa she sits in between-y
_________________________________

A beautiful dyslexic soprona
developed a case of dysphonia.
She couldn’t sing for a while.
She’d just stand there and smile.
So we called her our Lisa Mona.
__________________________________

She says it's Reh-NAY, not Reh-KNEE,
But it looks like Reh-KNEE to me.
Although she can't spell,
She sings very well.
She can even hit a high C.
__________________________________

Let’s not forget Kathy D_______.
She’s the County’s kindest pet owner.
Every poor creature that strays
Shows up on her doorstep -- and stays.
On the bed, all the others move over.
__________________________________


Easter 2010



Thursday, April 1, 2010

AN ABYSMAL THOUGHT


Cat’s don’t care if you fart.
Dogs probably like it.
But if you’re sitting in the aquarium,
     it scares the crap out of the fish.






LITTER BOX


My poor cat's relentless scratching
is a message he's dispatching
that he cannot find a vacant spot to poop.
It's only seven-thirty
but the litter box is dirty !
I've looked everywhere but I can't find the scoop.
So first I give the box a shake
with fervent hope that this will make
the buried treasure rise up to the surface.
As I pluck each little nugget
and I drop it in the bucket
I'm grateful that my life now has a purpose.