» Who Knows?

Blondie (1/29/13)

Marvin — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 03:53:48 +0000

Little Elmo, Bumstead’s grade school neighbor,
Displays a wisdom way beyond his years.
While Dagwood, wide-eyed, listens to his lore,
Elmo reveals our major source of tears.

“Boy, school is really tough this year,” he chats,
“Especially biology.” A pause.
“The boys are studying girls, the girls [of course]
“Are studying boys, what makes us tick, all that . . .”

The child stops walking; Dagwood peers, nodding,
Patient, waiting for the culmination.
Quickly it comes—“So far everybody’s
Flunking.” A child’s insight to creation—

In one three panel comic strip, enthralled,
We find the hist’ry of the world writ small!
(1/31/13)

Jennifer’s Collection

Marvin — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 18:10:25 +0000

Jennifer confided: “My mother asked
‘What do you collect?’” Everyone collects,
It seems—a necessary human task
Illuminating artful intellect.

I fawned, when I was young, on postage stamps.
And thus was spawned a new philatelist
(Which doesn’t mean I lurked at children’s camps—
I, after all, was just a hobbyist).

Some gather paperweights, some fountain pens.
I know one guy who favors wristwatches.
One paid 4 mil for Babe Ruth’s shirt (weird yen)!
Another one collects strange fabric swatches.

But Jennifer’s peculiar rare symbols?
A global slew of esoteric thimbles!
You can’t make such stuff up—you heard it right—
Those patterned thimbles—Jennifer’s delight!
(5/31/12)

Silverfish

Marvin — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 09:13:50 +0000

Lepisma saccharina dwell in dark
Drawers. Sometimes, you see them scoot for cover—
Silverfish—darting among spoons and forks,
Searching for sustenance, or, perhaps, love.

You wonder what food they find on bookshelves,
Amid the cutlery, in cabinets.
They feed on crumbs, on mucilage—they delve
Incessantly, scouring bleak habitat.

For what? How do they differ, these slick, quick
Insects, from the rest of us, mimicking,
For three hundred million years, the lyric
Lift we, the much evolved, advanced forms sing—

Adrift upon that legendary ark—
Des’prate for food and love despite the dark?
(8/9/08)

Wi-Fi Biochemistry

Marvin — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 06:45:27 +0000

Whence flows the anguished gush we all endure?
What neural interplay of chemicals
Transforms my quiet heart, that soft tambour,
Into a pounding snare, hurling feral

Jolts through blue avenues beneath the skin?
How does it work—how do unwired sight
And sound first pierce, then raise a raucous din
Along my arteries, kill appetite?

What molecules, released by darting words,
Suffuse the face with fierce, untrammeled blush
Or ire, while the mere sight of blood (absurd
As it might seem) can strike one senseless, crushed?

And why does that machine, controlling mood,
Churn out such havoc, push the same effete
Collapse within the flesh despite what’s rued—
A child’s death, or the home team’s grim defeat?
(3/9/08)