OLYMPIAN CHESS 13 Jul 2011 12:27 PM (13 years ago)

(screen capture from the film "Jason And The Argonauts")

A whale is swimming
In the wine glass
On the chessboard.
Zeus takes a sip,
Puts the glass back.
The whale, startled,
Thrashes its tail,
Spurts a geyser of wine
From its blow hole.
Unlike Zeus, the whale
Is getting drunk, drunker and drunker
With each breath it takes.

Elsewhere on the board,
The gladiator, angel, duck and frog
Are plotting their escape in whispers.
Zeus, who knows everything,
Finds this amusing
To no end. But he makes a mental note
Not to give the pieces
Consciousness next time.

Across the board, Hera –
Whose mind he cannot read,
Since she’s a woman and his equal –
Cooks up her own plot,
And discusses it
With no one.

-- © 2011 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

ABOUT THE ANGELS 7 Jun 2011 8:56 PM (13 years ago)

(Photo: Engel auf dem Friedhot, Sandramat, Oct. 2006, GNU Free Documentation License)

ABOUT THE ANGELS

Long ago,
Before the New Age vogue for them,
I heard a bearded poet
In a battered leather jacket
Say he “had a thing for them;”
He loved the marble statues of them,
Sad and solemn,
Posed forever among tombstones
In the old Louisiana cemeteries.

More recently, I heard
The spoiled young daughter
Of a well-to-do churchgoer
Say she “hated” them;
Anyone who’d own an image of one
Had no taste. She looked smug
In this judgment.

When I was younger
And more literal,
I pictured them
With feathers; they were men
Whose shoulders sprouted
Giant pigeon wings –- no, gull wings,
All white, made
Of bone and muscle, and yet
Giving off faint light.
I wondered if they made a sound
Like birds.

Now that I have seen them,
I know better
Than to try to fit their likeness
Into words.
All I know
Is that you only call on them
When you are really desperate,
And that the sight of them
Will turn a young man grey,
And that the shattering vibrations
One feels when drenched in their presence
Leave you deeply shaken,
And forever chastened.

-- (C) 2011 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

RONEE BLAKLEY 29 Mar 2011 1:31 PM (13 years ago)

Her voice is low and warm and resonant.
She birthed her first songs during her wild youth.
She had a knack for showing the whole truth,
The edge of which is all timid souls want.

America first saw her in a film
In which a lone wolf would assassinate
Her character. This staged death would create
A haunting image: a deep soul, a struggling will –

That she’d outshine if you should meet her in
The flesh, but she’d still seem larger than life.
She might try other roles, including wife,
But her story would endlessly begin.

“Who is that?” people ask, if she should pass.
Some stars are too bright to stay caught in glass.

-- © 2011 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

…AND SOMETIMES Y 29 Jan 2011 1:07 PM (14 years ago)

I am the first letter
In the Holy Hebrew
Secret name of God.

In that ancient language,
I look like
A tongue of flame –

The kind that hovers
Over someone’s head
Sometimes in paintings

Of the people
Some call “saints”.
In English,

I can be a consonant
Or vowel. But
Vowels in Hebrew

Are not written down –
One has to breathe them out,
For they are a word’s soul.

Consonants provide a shape,
Define the limits,
But you can’t speak out loud

Till the Spirit moves you.
In practice, I am
As much consonant as vowel,

Shaping the fire that
Springs from my own
Spark, and then

Descending like
Hands into wet clay
As it spins. Open

Your arms to the sky
And feel my energy
Come down, infusing
Everything
With both its start
And ending.

The question “Why”
Contains me as
Both breath, and answer.

-- © 2011 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

WINTER INSIGHT 22 Jan 2011 10:07 AM (14 years ago)

A fly on the lip of the glass,
A drink that the room has turned cold;
There’s some contradiction in this.
This season indoors breaks the mold.

You take an intoxicant sip
Of brew grown belatedly strong.
You let the nip soothe your cold throat
And find your voice, but not for long.

The drunken fly’s small life expires.
The flush in your skin will not last.
You sing about seasonal fires
And stay inside, dreaming the past.

The summer to come is far off;
The previous one, just a blur.
Your song terminates in a cough,
And you feel worse off than you were.

You know no other moment will provide
Relief that – though you can’t reach it – you crave.
It’s more than a dark lull in the year’s ride.
This quick flash of the wings is all we have.

-- © 2011 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

A BALMY NIGHT IN WINTER 10 Dec 2010 7:48 PM (14 years ago)

Warning: this story uses crude language, discusses private body parts, and is likely to upset prudes and the humor-impaired.

***

I had an adventure last night. You might not think the bathroom is a likely setting for an adventure, but as they say, shit happens.

When I got home, I was troubled by two distinct discomforts.

First, I felt like I had hemorrhoids. You know -- that itch, that feeling unclean down there, that need to give yourself a good wipe.

I also had pain in my lower back.

I was tired from sitting all day, which I’m sure had everything to do with both kinds of discomfort.

So I headed for the bathroom to get some relief.

First, I gave myself a good, cleansing, cool, wet wipe. Ahhhhhhhh.

Then, I grabbed a tube of Icy Hot and squirted some on the two middle fingers of my left hand.

Then, fatigue affected my brain. Instead of switching to low back mode, my brain remained in asshole mode.

I didn’t realize until after I’d done it that I had mistakenly wiped the Icy Hot on my tender asshole. I didn’t realize it, in other words, until my tender asshole was on fire.

Calling 911 is no help when your asshole is on fire. First of all, they’d just laugh at you. Plus, you’d need a very small fire truck that could climb stairs, and firemen and hoses as proportionately small in relation to you as, say, Tokyo is to Godzilla. So much for my fantasies of being rescued by a firefighter with a huge hose.

I grabbed another cool wet wipe and tried to clean off the blazing ointment. However, being wet, the wipe caused the ointment still on my hands to immediately soak through and, so to speak, fan the flames. So I tried using yet another wipe to get the ointment off of my hand.

Then, still burning, I pulled up my pants and went downstairs, where my partner was watching YouTube choral videos under headphones. I was now falling apart laughing, and it suddenly seemed more important to share this experience than to stop it.

Soon we were both helplessly cracking up as puffs of smoke rose from my incandescent bottom like signals designed to send a message to the Indian in the Village People.

“How,” you may ask, did we solve this problem?

We didn’t. In about another minute, the sensation calmed down to a not unpleasant warmth – or I got used to it, I’m not sure which. It was at worst a curious distraction from the Buffy reruns with which I spent the rest of the evening. Somebody kinky might even develop a taste for the sensation.

I think it’ll take awhile, though, before I can convince my partner to try it as a lubricant.

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

AT LAND 16 Nov 2010 9:57 AM (14 years ago)

(Maya Deren)

AT LAND

The 1944 film by Maya Deren

The title
Is a gag, of course.
When someone says
That he’s “at sea,”
He means that he’s
Not in his element.
What if you were of sea, but
At land?

We begin with waves,
Then we see the woman
Washed up,
Coughed out of the sea
Onto the sand;
On her back, wide-eyed,
She watches gulls
Wheel overhead
Like buzzards.

She hoists herself up
On a ladder of
Driftwood, as if
Climbing a dead tree --
Not trying
To reach for the sky, but just
Peering through leaves.

She sees
A long banquet table.
Men and women seated
All along both sides of it,
Talking, laughing,
And smoking.
She crawls up
On the white tablecloth,
Slithers among them.
They don’t see her.
They keep up
Their conversation.
She crawls on.
Somehow she doesn’t
Spill their glasses.

At the far end of the table
Lies a chessboard.
Just before she reaches it,
The man using it rises,
Leaves his place.
She looks at it
As if not comprehending
What a chessboard
Might be for.
Didn’t they have chess
Undersea? The pieces
Now move by
Themselves;
Her eyes follow their sliding.
One knocks another
Off of the board,
Off of the table; it falls through a hole
In the rock below
Into the sea.

She follows it down,
Her bare feet finding
Stone
Heated by sun,
Moistened by waves.
She probably
Is not aware
That what she follows
Would be called
“A pawn,” or of anything
That the word “pawn” implies --
This mermaid we’ve mistaken
For a woman.

The story will go on,
Such as it is.
Witnesses will argue later
Over what it meant.
The wiser ones will see
The beauty in it.

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

I'm eternally grateful to my late teacher, Alexandra Grilikhes, for introducing me to Maya Deren's work many years ago (among other things).

For more information about the brilliant filmmaker/actress/dancer/theorist Maya Deren, read her Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Deren

For those who haven't seen the film, here it is, as generously posted on Google Video. It's about 15 minutes long, and well worth the investment of time. It's absolutely beautiful.

DEMOCRACY HANGOVER 4 Nov 2010 12:47 PM (14 years ago)

(PD photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Well, one more election
Didn’t go the way I wanted.

A friend posts,
“Well, I voted.
That did a lot of good.”

I get the sarcasm,
But I’m still glad
I voted; spared myself
A share of guilt.

Yes, I knew the folks
Who checked out my identity
When I went to enter the booth
Were enemies, despite
The smiles they wore.

The booth received me
Like the Catholic confessionals
Of youth, though all I had
To hide my secret
Was a curtain. At least Catholics
Get a door.

I felt more like I was taking
A quick shower. And yes,
I thought of Janet Leigh
In “Psycho.”

Unlike her, I wouldn’t feel the stabs
Till morning.

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

ONE WORD, MANY TEETH 27 Oct 2010 12:51 PM (14 years ago)

(18th century engraving)

“Run.”
He felt himself
Losing control, and told me to,
Before the change
Took hold of him –
With rage,
The moon did not need
To be full.
For he was full –
Full of betrayal,
Full of boiling blood
Spilled over boundaries.
He could roll back his clock
Before civilization
Rounded off his jagged edges,
But he could not
Keep himself
Buttoned in calm.

And I could not decide
What the word meant.
His voice, so hoarse and low,
Sandpaper scraped across
Steel cords.
Too tired and yet
On fire, “going again”
Although we’d pushed
Long past exhaustion.
Should I
Run on empty,
As they say?
Should I run a scam,
Fake my reaction?
Run my gesticulations
Up the flagpole,
And hope he salutes?

His beard
Begins to spread
Over his cheeks,
His throat;
His brow,
To overrun
His forehead.

I realize
The word was
Literal,
But he is gripping
My wrist now,
His long sharp nails
Digging their trenches
In my flesh,
His palm ablaze
With more hair
Than my arm,
His hot breath
Close now to my throat.

My last thought:
Ginsberg never
Howled like this.

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

THE RATIONALE 21 Oct 2010 9:21 AM (14 years ago)

(PD photo from Wikimedia)

Deliberate cruelty…is the one unforgivable thing.

Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”

Some say that bullying is good for you –
Toughens you to face life’s many trials.
But those who don’t survive, and those who knew
And loved them, find this argument beguiles

Only the guilty who’ve gone free. Broken
Beyond repair, the absent spirit haunts
The family it left behind. But when
The guilty look back on the blows and taunts,

They see foundations of a cool career.
Their future is a long one, well-insured
Against the treatment even they must fear.
Strike first. Pain is for others to endure.

Though nobody will miss them when they’re dead,
They die thinking they stayed “one step ahead.”

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

ANOTHER MOTHER DREAM 16 Oct 2010 7:19 AM (14 years ago)

Dream: I’m going to stay overnight at my mother’s house, after a period of estrangement. (Actually, the house in the dream is my grandmother’s, two doors down, but it’s my mom inside).

It’s getting dark out. The lights in the house are on.

Someone (Leroy?) is letting himself in to the Hocker house next door. I wave hello to him. He waves back. I’m waiting on the opposite side of Allen Street for traffic to subside, so I can cross to my destination.

The Hodgnoski house, to my left, is overflowing with pink roses. I can see them over the wood fence around the small triangular yard. I know the yard is all paved over with concrete, but that doesn’t occur to me in the dream. I feel a covetous pang. It would be nice to live with roses.

I finally cross. My mom is standing at the window, watching me intently through half-shut blinds. She is till angry.

I’m carrying a briefcase full of work. I realize that I’ve forgotten to bring any clothes, toothbrush, etc.

I climb the three stone steps, reach into my pants pocket for the key. It’s on a ring with many others, noticeably smaller than the rest. When I turn it in the lock, the end of it mostly breaks off, but I can both get the lock open and pull the damaged key back out.

My mother does not move from her spot at the window. I stand there on the step, not going in, staring at the broken key in my hand.

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

DOCUMENTARY 7 Oct 2010 9:33 AM (14 years ago)

(1921 Schrader ad)

“Other men can’t begin
To compare to them,” she said.
The interviewer had removed
Him-or-herself, so she was
Talking to thin air.
She meant
The bikers
She revolved around
As if she were a moon
Caught in their orbit.

She belonged to the club
As a whole, and could be
Passed around. She’d do
What she was told,
Cook or clean,
Strip to earn money
To support them.
It was their job
To concentrate on
Big criminal business.

The “property of …” patch,
She said,
Was a sign of respect.
It would tell a passing stranger
Who she was.
I thought, but what about the stranger
In the mirror?

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

UNPROVEN IDENTITY 30 Sep 2010 10:27 AM (14 years ago)

At the bank
On which the check was drawn,
I was forced to open an account
To cash the check.
According to society,
I don’t exist,
Although I had
My state photo ID.

I couldn’t demonstrate
That I was real –
My mere flesh
Was not enough;
My blood, not
Visible. Perhaps I should
Have cut myself.

But then, the hospital
Might not have treated me…

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

THE MOMENT CAPTURES US 24 Sep 2010 8:18 AM (14 years ago)

(Illustration from "Old Deccan Days: Hindoo Fairy Tales, 1888)

You lost control
of the kayak,
Trying to turn it around.

I wanted a snapshot
Of the alligator,
Lounging on the log
Stuck in the center
Of the river.

The current
Was stronger
Than you were,
Which shouldn’t
Have been
A surprise.

The 8-foot gator
Turned his head,
Eyes on the camera,
Then dived
Across my lap
Into the water,
As the boat
And log
Connected. Had he lashed
His tail, he might
Have broken my neck,
The way I know
You wanted to.

The camera
Was too cheap
To catch the moment;

All I have left
Is a blur.

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

“BIG” JACK 15 Sep 2010 8:10 AM (14 years ago)

(Public domain photograph by Anna Cervova)

His eyes are watery.
Not such a surprise
Since they’re blue,
But they’re also red
At the corners,
Behind the thick glasses
With broken brown frames
Held together at one side
By bunched Scotch tape.
His V-necked t-shirt
Shows a chest
From which all hair
Has disappeared.
His guard uniform,
Long unworn,
Hangs cattycorner from him
On the outside
Of the closet door.

He sits sunken
In his yellow-green
Stuffed chair,
His black and white cat
Sacked out
On the back of it,
Fretfully drowsing in
A twitchy dream.
Old books line the shelves
Built in the wall beside him,
An assortment of odd titles:
Ancient “Advice From Heloise,”
“Word War II Chronicles.”
Collected crossword puzzles,
And “Essays of Bishop Sheen.”
From the left arm of his chair
There hangs the cord,
With red light, of
A heating pad. His wife
Will have to watch in case
It starts to smoke, or so
She likes to say.
Him, she no longer watches,
Though he smokes a lot
These days; the doctor says,
“just let him go. It’s too late now.”

He looks at, and past,
The TV where the blurry picture rolls,
For scenes he remembers
More vividly than the last hour.
His cousin the priest
Will come later
To hear his confession.

His son, who towers over him,
Now knows
That hanging on
Will hold him here;
He overheard
The hospice lady
Tell him so.
He suspects this time will be
Their final visit.

Like the doctor said,
“just let him go.”

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

QUALIFIED 8 Sep 2010 9:05 AM (14 years ago)

(Public domain image from Tango Desktop project)

Your sneer
Lights up the room.
Sadly, nobody
Knew to wear sunscreen.
It would have helped
Had someone cried,
“Hey, here comes
Cancer.”

You take a situation over
Without notice, or perhaps I should say
“Warning.” Nobody else could speak
Without some haughty
Comment from the stolen seat
Where you roost
Near the front of the room.

Now the rest of the game –
For you it is a game, if not
For anybody else –
Will be your turn.
All other turns
Were cancelled
At the moment you arrived.

Your rant is full of references
To the Old Testament.
You talk about it
Like it’s history;
You cite deeds of its characters
As if they’re facts
We share as common knowledge.
You offer no proof
Of your contentions;
You act like
No proof is needed.
All anyone should need
Is your pronouncement;
Your pronouncement
Makes things so.
How like the God of the Old Testament!

Somebody with eyes to see
Catches the rest of what goes on,
The subtler part
That many people miss (though
Everybody
Feels affected by it).
The dark and boiling cloud
That gathers just above your head,
The little lightning bolts
That strike at members
Of the audience.
A person with a nose for news
Can sense a tang
Of sulfur in the air.

Your intention is
To shrink the rest of us,
Leave us diminished
In the presence of
Your vast hostility.
But you’d snicker
Should somebody point this out.
That is the hidden center
Of your message:
That you’re so much better than the rest of us.

Hell would be an eternity
Of lectures
Like this one.

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

NYC SUBWAY VIGNETTE 31 Aug 2010 10:56 AM (14 years ago)

(Public domain photo from Wikipedia)

Freezing February night. Switching trains.
Manhattan subway stop – wish I could remember
The street number. Near a college, the sign said.
Been about 25 years,
But I’ll never forget
What I saw there:

Long, narrow platform; no one on it
Standing up
But me and a beat cop in uniform.
Station deserted except for him, me
And a couple of homeless guys
Passed out on two of the benches.
I didn’t care, being
Too nervous to sit.

Anyway, this cop strolls up to one,
Twirling his nightstick
As if it were a baton. Suddenly
He grips it by the handle,
Slaps it hard
Against the soles of the guy’s feet.
I thank God he’s wearing shoes.
The loud crack makes me jump,
Although I saw it coming.
The guy barely revives, looking up
Puzzled, luckily
Anesthetized on something.

The cop says, voice ringing out
Off of concrete, “Those benches
Are for PEOPLE,
Not you guys.” Then he looks back,
Flashes me a smile, white
as a blackboard soul drawn by a nun
under his little Hitler moustache.
He expects to see
Approval.
I feel sick, look
Down.
I worked late.
I’m just trying to get
Home.

– © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

NOTE: "Baton" is actually now a common name for a police officer's club, but when I refer to the word here, I mean the kind marchers twirl in parades.

GRYPHON 27 Aug 2010 8:52 AM (14 years ago)

(Bevan crest, 1892)

Your family crest
Frightens me.

Why the winged lion?

Are you trying
To lay claim
To some nobility or courage
Nature didn’t quite provide?
This symbol
Just says
“Predatory power,”
Boasting
That it can
Swoop down,
Not merely
Pounce.

Why would a normal lion
Be inadequate
For carrying the colors
Of your clan?

It might make more sense if your name
Were “Griffin.” Even then,
I’d wonder whether
You really intended
Irony.

The ability to make most creatures
Prey does not
Encourage us
To trust; it triggers
The impulse to run,
Futile as that tactic might be.

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

HOOT 20 Aug 2010 9:09 AM (14 years ago)

(Wade concertina, 1886)

The old man
Pushes buttons
To play music.
Tourists passing
Donate to his hat, while
He sits
Bald
To the elements.
The songs are
Traditional, so old
That no one knows
Their authors
Anymore, telling stories
Of a life no one alive
Remembers. His low voice
Cracks like paint.

Passersby usually assume
That he’s gone blind,
But he just keeps his lids
Closed tight, so he can look
Back
Farther than the eye can see.

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

CLOWN 13 Aug 2010 10:06 AM (14 years ago)

(Photo from The Orchid Club photostream on Flickr; reproduced under Creative Commons License.)

Naked, he is
Not very impressive.
He looks in the mirror
Only to apply his makeup,
To check details of disguise.

His clothing hides
His shape, skinny
And haired in odd patches.
It also hides his scars
From surgeries, supposed to
Fix his damaged heart.

The cushion that covers
His belly and crotch
Helps to fill out the plaid pants
that hang suspended from his shoulders,
A tight pull he always feels
And must ignore. After the pants,
He puts on the huge shoes, supposedly
Foreshadowing his phallus
In old wives’ tales
He knows nobody believes.
Another constriction, a bowtie,
Guards his vulnerable throat,
And looks absurd against his flannel shirt.

His face, he paints white as a mime’s,
Though any gestures he’ll make
Will be broader. His eyes, he paints
the way he thinks a woman would.
His smile, he conjures slowest --
It’s his favorite effect – it doesn’t change
No matter how he feels.

The crowning touch?
A worn fedora hat, a bit
Of Indiana Jones, though
They won’t let him hold a whip –
One time he did,
And got carried away. Last,
He puts on the bulbous rubber nose,
Which doesn’t help his cigarette-distorted breathing.
It’s red, to imply
He drinks;
One truthful note
Stuck on a symphony
Of lies.

When he appears,
Nobody laughs.
The children’s eyes only grow wide
Because they’re frightened.
So he humiliates himself
With falls and such,
Until he has them howling
Like a pack of little wolves.

Oh, well. At least
He doesn’t pose for velvet paintings.

He puts on his public persona
A piece at a time,
Like so many of us,
And, like us,
He draw’s work’s energy
From anger.

-- © 2009 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

DESK JOB 7 Aug 2010 9:19 AM (14 years ago)

(Public Domain photo from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Fluorescent lights make everyone look ill,
And all are chained, though these chains can’t be seen.
The hardest work is waiting, waiting till
The stroke of five disarms the time machine.

And all are chained, though these chains can’t be seen;
Each link’s a payment pressing to be made.
The stroke of five disarms the time machine,
But bills and bills and bills wait to be paid.

Each link’s a payment pressing to be made,
Each moment mortgaged till some future moment comes.
Bills and bills and bills wait to be paid,
As – between computers – conversation hums.

Each moment mortgaged till some future moment comes,
More and more paperwork piled softly in the bin.
As – between computers – conversation hums,
Forbidden music mustn’t complicate the din.

More and more paperwork piles softly in the bin,
In cubicles the gods insist must look the same.
Forbidden music mustn’t complicate the din,
and no framed photos. Just a plate that says your name.

In cubicles the gods insist must look the same,
Where light that’s natural must never penetrate,
Are no framed photos. Just a plate that says your name.
And where your heart should be, a leaden paperweight.

Where light that’s natural may never penetrate,
Year after year of furtive search will only find
Where your heart should be, a leaden paperweight,
And no song but the drone of the dulled mind.

Year after year of furtive search will only find
That what we see remains all that we will,
And no song but the drone of the dulled mind
Can ease the ache from all this sitting still.

What we see remains all that we will.
The hardest work is waiting, waiting till
Retirement blunts the ache from all this sitting still.
Fluorescent lights make everyone look ill.

– © 1995 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

ALIEN HOSPITAL ROOMMATE (Or, THE LIMITS OF TOLERANCE) 30 Jul 2010 10:07 AM (14 years ago)

(Hey, I had to show you how he ended up in the hospital, didn't I?)

ALIEN HOSPITAL ROOMMATE
(Or, THE LIMITS OF TOLERANCE)

I suppose it’s a good thing that we’re trying to get along with them. It’s certainly not fair to deny them anything just because of where they’re from. They should be able to use the pool at the hotel, of course. If everyone else gets out of the pool when one gets in, that can’t be helped. You can’t control everybody, now can you?

But let’s face it – if given a choice, would you share a hospital room with one?

We have one TV between us. True, we each have a remote. But it doesn’t matter which button I push, when he can just flick out one of those tentacles of his, without getting out of bed, and change the channel back. So he picks all the programs. Ten hours a day of nature shows about squids and octopi gets old fast, let me tell you – and what do I care how homesick he is for a world where everyone has tentacles?

And the first time the doc needed to check his private parts, what does he do -- have the doc just drag the curtain around, like anyone else would? Oh no, he has to eject this cloud of noxious-smelling black fumes for camouflage! The staff were quick to point out that it’s harmless, that it doesn’t pollute the air anymore than an octopus pollutes the water with its ink. But they don’t have to lie here and smell it all afternoon. I don’t care how much Glade the nurses spray in here, I can still smell it. And I don’t care if he just did it by instinct – what it means to me is that in here, it stinks.

Then his squeeze comes to visit him, and they do pull the curtain around. If I wasn’t hooked up to all these tubes, I woulda been outta here. I know they were just kissing hello, but I never heard such a disgusting sound of slurping and gurgling and smacking in all my life. And the flashing red lights! You’d think he just pulled in his own private ambulance over there!

I used to be a lot more liberal, but now that I’ve had to live with this for five days, I think we need to ship them all back to Venus where they came from.

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any way without the author's written permission.)

CHANCE LINEAGE 23 Jul 2010 8:11 AM (14 years ago)

(Family tree illsutration by Dimaro, released to Public Domain on Wikipedia)

My Mom and Dad
Both married other people
Briefly. In 1950,
Five years before I was born,
They both got divorced.
Rose had deserted my father;
Walter subjected my mother
To “indignities against her person,”
As Court put it. Walter took exception
To Mom’s claims,
Which didn’t get him anywhere.

Mom and Dad married each other
That same year. I wonder
If their exes have outlived them.

I wish I could talk
To Mom’s first husband.
I suspect she learned
A lot of moves from him
That she would later use on me.
“I don’t blame you,’” I’d say.
“If it had been possible,
I would have divorced her myself.”

But I guess I’m glad
That Walter drove my mom away;
Their breakup spared me
From a guttural last name
It would have choked me to pronounce.
And the personal indignities
That Mom would rain on me
Gave me a lot in common
With my harried father.
As for Rose, I guess she wanted
Someone stronger.

None of us can know
Just what has vanished
In the gap between
The things we want
And what we end up getting.

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any way without the author's written permission.)

LAST GOOD RUN 14 Jul 2010 9:25 PM (14 years ago)

(photo, Who Needs A Virtual World, by Todd Huffman for Needle Exchange; from Wikimedia Commons)

For some folks, the biggest and best gamble
Is a hot vein full of snow.

Pull the tube tight. Smack the spot.
Ah, there’s that glimpse of red. Then
The blue bubble penetrated by a needle
Pops and lets out
This exhilaration sweeping you
Beyond all inhibition, this last
Reckless test of manhood.
Purple marks maybe remain, but soon
They’ll fade.

The storm
Slams into your brain
And cracks it open like an egg,
Your skin lights up; sparks
Crowd the corners of your eyes.
Impossible fullness overflows
All inner dams. Shafts of piercing cold
Poke up amid the heat blast
Rising through your throat,
Then slice between the thin walls
Of your pulsing skull.
You drop to your knees,
Embrace your optimism -–
Since, if anything goes wrong
While you’re in this state,
It’s too late for playing savior.

Then comes the sudden surreal
S l o w d o w n ; wait,
Where are you rushing off to?
Your heart hits the wall.

I wonder whether I’ve got
One more good run
Left in me, Shawn told his brother.
Those would be the last words
Anyone could quote.

-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any way without the author's written permission.)

PICKUP 9 Jul 2010 9:18 AM (14 years ago)

(Photo, Redneck Repairs Part 1, by Dave 7, from Wikipedia)

It’d be nice
To meet a nice guy,
She thought, wandering
Down the hill to the dirt road
That passed her parents’ property.
Or just to get stoned,
Added the devil
On her shoulder.
She thought she was smart.
She thought she knew
The way the whole world worked,
Although she hadn’t seen
That much of it.
She thought she was tough --
Defying her father,
Wearing tube tops,
Smoking cigarettes.

The pick-up
Had no license plate,
But she could only see it
From the front.
The driver wore
A baseball cap,
Like everybody else.
His windows were rolled down,
But she could smell
The sweetrot odor
Of the smoke.
He leaned over,
Popped open the door
On the passenger side.
She caught his smirk at her
And glanced uphill
At the old house, feeling
A fleeting spooky twinge,
But never dreamed
That this would be
Her last look at her home.

It would be about a week
Before the local paper noted
That she’d vanished,
And a dozen men
In baseball caps
Would fan out through the woods
In search of her,
Half of whom
Had picked her up
On the same spot,
Though only one
Had done more than just flirt.
All of them knew
The girl was jailbait.

--© 2009 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any way without the author's written permission.)

Sun Through A Broken Window View RSS