the “permission slip”

if you leave the classroom

you have to have a “permission slip”––

a yellow-colored, pre-printed sheet of paper

which will travel with you.

for example:

“this allows (blank) permission

to use the restroom.”

(blank) is filled-in with your name.

your very own “permission slip.”

there were 27 kids in the classroom.

there were 6 kids in the hallway

carrying “permission slips”

another 7 standing at the urinals.

there are 300 million people in the United States.

there are billions of us in the world

and near a trillion stars in the home galaxy

and yet they say Andromeda is bigger.

I took that as an insult.

estimate wait-time for a urinal is anybody’s guess

and it was required that the “permission slip”

be returned to the classroom "un-folded" which

was quite an accomplishment while standing at a urinal.

Hugo A. Dubuque School

                     southern Ohio / 1971-1973?-1970

the sign read:

“last stop for 20 miles”.

surely I can go

20 miles without incident.

what’s 20 miles

when you’re driving

a fast car?

after 10 miles another sign read:

“death awaits in 10 miles”.

southern Ohio.

what's the driver

of a fast car to do?

I traveled on, fearlessly

into Kentucky.

inside, the sign

above the counter read:

“we reserve the right

to refuse service to anyone”.

I ordered the meatloaf plate.

                     Ramblin’ Billy

I’m sleeping without dreaming and then

I’m awake and the roses smell lemony.

not like real lemons but lemon-scented.

it sprays on and leaves a film of itself

and wiped-off there’s an artificial

scent of lemons.

the wood it leaves behind has a false face.

it looks like something I’d skate upon.

but I can’t skate. I’ve never tried.

lace-up high-tops with long, looping laces

and at the bottom, fierce metal blades are attached.

who would take the time to think of such a thing?

let’s just wake the fuck-up in the morning,

drink a cup and head to the ballpark.

let’s play the game. let’s get dirty. let’s slide

into second under the tag and let’s be safe every time.

 

                    my inflatable punching gizmo

there were a few.

I don’t recall

what each represented.

maybe

a Joe Palooka lookalike

maybe

a robber with a gun

maybe

a priest.. but

what I do recall

is whenever

I punched it

it glided downward

but rose again

like the Nazarene

or pork-belly commodities or

a mid-eastern war.

                   things I cannot do or will-not do because I cannot do

1.

In Dylan Thomas’ “the Poems of..”

the “Prologue” sets the motive.

through three full pages (of small typeface)

he rhymes the last word of the first line

with the last word of the last line, then

the last word of the second line

to the last word of the next to last line and so on

until both rhyming words meet in the middle.

I cannot do that.

2.

while leafing through the big, glossy-

colored Phaedon, David Loeffler Smith said:

“We see in Piero,…”  I don’t recall the rest.

I probably wouldn’t have seen it anyway.

who's to say? maybe I still wouldn't.

3.

many people find the unnecessary complexities

of Rube Goldberg’s apparatuses amusing,

where I find them to be how things actually work.

4.

there are those who, "do not go gentle into that good night"

and that tops the list of things I also will not do.

  

operator?

good morning. I’d like to speak to God.

yes. I can hold....

hello?

I’m on hold for God.

no. not that one.

not that one either.

no. the other one.

which number do I press

for the God who won’t

show up at the children’s wing.

well, that’s the one I want.

no. not the magician.

no. not the one who hates

people that make change.

my niece is a cashier at the

Stop & Shop and she’s fine.

I want the one who

laid down the rules

who kills everybody

the one who’s murdered

everything that ever existed.

that’s the one I want to speak to.

yep. I can leave a message.

tell him to show his fuckin’

hairy-ass face in the children's wing!

 

                   

tonight I'm considering stars as they continue

to change their shapes with the passage of time;

not about the war in the middle east or

hungry children in central Africa or

what Mort Sahl would have said about Donald Trump...

but of what the stars will look like

one hundred thousand years from now.

(although the pictures they make tonight make little sense

without connecting lines drawn by man to define the imagery)

to quote an old, regional poem-writer: "a sky full of stars

and I still can't make out the pictures"... a line which won't

change its attitude in my lifetime. 

in one hundred thousand years the "Big Dipper"

will be bent out of shape. it’ll look arthritic.

in common application it'll be useless for delivering

tomato sauce to the cosmic linguine.

my God! what’ll the kids say when the "Big Dipper" can no longer

hold its goods and even my ash has blown free of the Earth?

 

 current status

there's a pleasantness

to the outside this morning

but I'm inside by preference.

certain things occupy my mind

including a simply diagnosed

but inconvenient rash on my arm

and the recurring pain of splashing water.

now I wonder:

is it a form of dreaded melancholia

in recalling past loves fondly?