Silverfish

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)

Posted in Animals, Who Knows?

Epididymis

     For T.M.S,. M.D.

                  I
I never knew an epididymis
Was there—floating high. Insulted scrotum
(Formerly agent of intense hot bliss),
Harbors, now, one right-side lump—grim totem.

My first thought was my kishkes falling through.
A wise surgeon doubted that—more likely
An epididymis! And that may be—
Yet definitions note there should be two!
He’ll poke about a bit, and then we’ll see.
                                 (7/24/08)

                    II
“It’s not an epididymis at all,”
He murmured, when the poking part was done.
“The rupture fix, the mesh wall we installed,
Is firm, in place, and tighter than a nun.

That lump is not your kishkes, falling through—
It’s a taut seroma or lymphocele,
Seepage from insulted cells—no big deal;
No cause to kiss your battered life adieu—
Some lumps do not sound cancer’s death knell peal.”
                                     (7/26/08)

Posted in Aging

The Monday News—Page A6

     Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2008

Australia
The main story’s
Not too bad:
“Pope concludes Australia visit.”
But the subhead
Arches brows:
“Benedict XVI meets
With victims of sexual abuse
By clergy.”
Sexual abuse? By clergy?
Visited upon children
Sent to church
By pious parents?
Nah! I don’t believe it!
(In the photo,
That same pope,
High on his popemobile,
Caresses a toddler’s head.)

China
The next headline’s
More grim:
“Explosions on buses
kill 3 in Chinese city.”
And just where
Was that vaunted iron
Neck-pressing
Law and order hand?
“Terrorist attacks,”
We’re told,
“Are relatively rare in China.”
“Authorities,”
We’re told,
Are rounding up
“Islamic separatists”
Planning to disrupt
Olympic games.
(One wonders: which came first:
Explosions,
Or the rounding up?)

Short “World Briefing” spots
Complete the foreign news.

Zimbabwe
“Mugabe to seize
some foreign firms.”
Not unreasonable—
You sanction us
And we’ll transfer
Your stuff to more friendly folks.
(Never mind Zimbabwe’s
World record:
Two million percent
Inflation! Really!
You can’t make this stuff up.)

Spain
“Five bomb blasts
shake north.”
But, this time,
No one got hurt
Because terrorist
“Basque separatists”
Phoned timely warnings.
(One sometimes wonders
Just who are the terrorists—
Separatists,
Or fierce governors
Stepping on their necks.)

Britain
“Doubts on U.S.
torture assurance.”
Hard to believe
The House of Commons
And the Foreign Secretary
Of our closest friend
Would stop relying
On our assurance
That we do not torture
Terrorism suspects.
Hard to believe.
Yet our President
Did, last March,
Veto a bill
Forbidding water boarding.
Damn! Hard to believe.

Southeast Asia
“ASEAN censures
Myanmar regime.”
Ten countries
Ranging from tiny Brunei
To resurgent Viet Nam
Have taken a moment
To strongly rebuke
Military-ruled Myanmar
(Formerly—remember?—
Known as Burma).
For what?
Why, for extending,
Yet again,
The detention of Ms. Suu Kyi
(Never mind her Nobel Prize,
Or any modicum of decency).
But not to worry—
She might, we are assured,
Be freed within six months.
And why?
Because the law
Says so.
“Might” be freed?
What “law”?
And why should the kleptocrats
Of Burma,
Target of ASEAN’s
Huffed and puffed
Stern rebuke,
Give a flying fuck?

Added prospective on foreign news
Most of page A6
(Newspapers being what they are)
Trumpets a multi-color
“Limited time offer” ad.
The Bank of America
Will pay four percent
(APY of course)
On a seven month CD.
Wow!
(Be sure to read
The tiny print—
It might constrain
Unwarranted
Enthusiasm.)
     (7/24/08)

Posted in Greed, Today's News, War

Encomium

     For T.D.

Ashanti Princess!—words roll off the tongue
Like melody, and yet, precisely fit
Our Tyra. Sturdy, tall, strong, serene—sprung
From disheveled family, her sharp wit,

Blunt bone (ripened Ghanaian fruit), deep delve,
Within arcane string theory, to point out
(Gently correcting me) it needed twelve,
Not ten dimensions, and, further, account

For precise, two-handed, wicked, backhand
Strokes—the envy of the courts! Beautiful
Is too bland, too thin a word—her grandeur
Thunders majesty; grace displays her cool.

When I sought in ancients—Nefertiti,
Cleopatra—those cheekbone origins,
Others set me straight (with arch, knowing grins)—
Her high cheeks bloomed from native Cherokee!

Who better fit to sit on King Tutu’s
Divine, enchanted, potent Golden Stool?­­­1
                     (7/21/08)

1 “Essential to Ashanti nationhood is the legend of the ‘Golden Stool’ (sika ‘dwa); the legend actually tells of the birth of the Ashanti kingdom itself. In the seventeenth century, in order for the Ashanti to win their independence from Denkyira, then another powerful Akan state, a meeting of all the clan heads of each of the Ashanti settlements was called. In this meeting, the Golden Stool was commanded down from the heavens by Okomfo Anokye, the Priest, or sage advisor, to the very first Asantehene (Ashanti king), Osei Tutu I. The Golden Stool floated down from the heavens straight into the lap of Osei Tutu I. Okomfo Anokye declared the stool to be the symbol of the new Ashanti union (‘Asanteman’), and allegiance was sworn to the Golden Stool and to Osei Tutu as the Asantehene. The newly founded Ashanti union went to war with Denkyira and defeated it.” [Wikipedia]

Posted in Friends

Dementia

     For J.G.

I asked my friend Jim (down at the beach bench
Where we sit, weary, watching the sun set),
If he worked crosswords. “Not now, no,” quenching
Abysmal thirst with beer, sucking the wet,

Slim, tired roach that passed from hand to hand.
“I used to be addicted, but gave up
Some time ago.” “Pity,” I mused, “one strand
Of plugged-in folk think working words may stop

Dementia, or, at least, slow it down.”
His gray-blue eyes, at the same time twinkling
And sad, widened—with thin lip twisted frown
Hiding a grin: “Marv, you have no inkling,

No clue at all! Why would I act to stave
Off dementia, the happy state I crave!”
                                        (7/8/08)

Posted in Friends

Ocean Front Walk: Venice, California

Laughing, the guys down at the beach challenged
Me to poeticize our Ocean Walk—
As ribald a concourse as ever plunged
Along a shore—lined with savage gawkers.

And why not! Remember that tendency,
In the mind’s eye (whatever that might be),
To strip the clothes off certain women, see
Them (imagined) cavorting, fancy free!

Add, from the passing mob, the head-perched birds,
The python, coiled and menacing, the dogs
Decked out in chic regalia, the words
Whined by skate-borne, turbaned Harry. Joggers,

Ubiquitous, prancing both south and north.
Nervous tourist crocodiles, bus-spawned hordes,
Gaze from side to side, searching, sally forth
Yearning to have their lives strummed, feel bright chords

Of startling rich experience—T-shirts
For sale are mostly what they see, along
With hotdogs, cokes and fries, while some avert
Their eyes from creased and bulbous thong clad throngs,

Insouciant, unruly herds, hippos—
In mind’s eye, stunned, we cover them with clothes!
                                    (7/6/08)

Posted in Local Color