what if God was an armadillo?

It would have the protective covering to ward-off Beelzebub's thugs.

when threatened, the armadillo is quick and agile, but under no threat

it is usually slow-moving as it goes about its unfinished business, and

under those conditions if God was an armadillo, it would arrive too late

to the children’s wing to be of any use,–– but that would certainly be understandable.

I mean, who could blame God for being late if God was an armadillo?

                    suppose for a moment that you were God, and God was a tsetse fly?

well, one thing is, you'd zip around all day from place to place

without having to be everywhere at the same time.

I can't imagine having to be everywhere at the same time, although

on the upside nobody will expect your arrival anytime soon, and

tidying-up would always be optional without those cumbersome expectations.

also there's this to consider if you were God and God was a tsetse fly;

you wouldn't need a senior citizen's bus pass to go downtown.

sure, some things might seem more out-of-place than other things, but––

well, I don’t know.

It's just one of those things which cross my mind early in the morning.

                   the man who would be king

the man who would be king

was shot through the ear by a would-be assassin

from an elevated distance some 100 yards away. 

It was the top, flappy part of the ear which rolls slowly

at a downward pace as he spoke to his subjects

from an outdoor lectern in Butler, about 40 miles north from

the pawnshop on the corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

as a grade-schooler, I’d harmonize the tune of the same name

rocking to and fro on the canopied swing in the backyard with my cousins.

other favorites harmonized were:

“now is the hour”(when we must say goodby) and

“down by the station” (early in the morning) where little

puffer-bellies sat on the tracks all in a row.

yep,..times were simpler back then, slow and steady, so much so that

when a politician was shot in the head, "it exploded like a watermelon"

as the sure-handed assassin's aim struck true to its mark.

("exploded like a watermelon" commentary by whacky Tony Sasso) / 11/22/'63)

  

                    21st century saga

the delivered pizza pie

came to me upside down.

the vegetarian toppings formed a red,

green, black, and yellowish mess as I flipped it

saucy-side-up and began to eat it.

the pre-cut triangular slices varied in size

from ridiculously wide to skinny-pickle.

the big boys draped downward at the point

forced by their own weight when lifted

from the top's rolling crust.

this is the prescribed modus operandi.

I'll say, though, the taste was above average

when measured against past pizza pies.

in full disclosure:

“pizza pie” is a term of endearment

often spoken of, by the 20th century sage,

Edward “Lilly-white” Norton,

and is repeated here without authorization.

title / unfinished

I ask myself: what am I looking at?

my eyes seemed focused

upon an empty space on the table

as though something belongs there.

I've awakened early, but that’s of little comfort.

if the treetops had their way, they might well be

the objects of my interest in the way the wind

tickles their fancy.

the roaring tanker-trucks filled to the brim

with gasoline off to my left as seen from the balcony

can not be reached.

I'd like to gather them in the palms of my hands.

I’d like to play with them on the rug, moving them

toward, and from their stations the way God would,

but that’s not within the realm of sanity.

so, what am looking at?

what’s the objective of this trance?

am I dying, and if so, why now while I’m at the center

of a perfectly noteworthy trance? unfinished

 

                    the on-going composition of a testament

the current state of affairs

pertaining to "everything else" is unfinished;

things laid upon the table

have been postponed and redirected,

as items once of little interest, hung

within narrow spaces here and there

are now overpowering inconveniences. 

across the interior landscape, strange and useless

things are crammed into life as if order

was not an option, and

secret things to be found someday

by someone not assigned to find them

is becoming too real to be ignored.

this is my testament.

I have no messy garage, nor manicured backyard,

nor permanent woman to leave behind,

and what remains in the medicine cabinet is an out of date

"number one doctor recommended" earwax removal kit.

my physical properties seem less involved with responsibilities

than that of a burned-up match head.–– 

(ah..those wonderful Ohio Blue Tip, sizzling and crackling

beneath the secret porch of my childhood house!)

sulphur.–– I'll bequeath to them the scent of sulphur.

"everything else" continues to be unfinished.

                   at the tuxedo rental store

no need to measure material

to accommodate my body stylings.

the proprietor’s once-over is enough.

he starts with the jacket

without asking my preference.

If he thought I knew better

I’d have a tux hanging in my closet.

I try it on without being insulted.

he pulls the material of the shoulders

up and down, he fusses with the lapels

running his thumbs across the shiny

length right and left.

he studies the hemlines leaning his head

one way then the other, giving a slight tug

to insure a proper fit.

the proprietor of the tuxedo rental store

knows what to do and considers the image

standing mute before him as though

I had no part to play in his findings.––

It's none of me, and all about the drapery.

It’s the way Ingres might’ve played around

adjusting the gown cascading over the seated form

of Baroness Betty de Rothschild.

I suppose most things work out for the best in the end.

well, some things...

but don’t even get me started on the pants!

1961? 1962?

                   where is everything

I woke up this morning with nothing on my mind.

not junkyard nor God nor woman nor Pluto nor priest!

I’m starting the journey from scratch into the doldrums of a new day.

after my first cup I reevaluated my circumstance to find

nothing but the same blank space saturating the active space I rely on.

so I've chosen the early seafaring explorers to be my guides through

the great sea of nothingness laying before me.

but even this eventuality is not immune to serious problems. 

how many will fall from the edge of the Earth?

how will sea serpents respond to the hijacking of their waters?

might they entertain the thought to eat them?

more likely, the ships of the ancient mariners will drop

into the realm far below where sea serpents dwell.

how else could one explain the ways in which these mariners

navigated the violent waters when the Earth was as flat

as any circle drawn by the hand of man?

–– better to accept what I've done here, and call it a great success!

yes. of course. I need a dose of subterfuge, a little shenanigans

to shake things up, and besides, who but me and the sacred few

would know how to work the problem any better?

                    for this one

I haven’t spoken much about Rita LaCava, if at all.

I only have one instance to remember her by, but an important instance.

as grade-schoolers we were young enough to see through the normality

of our elders, into the abnormal activities our ages demanded of us.

so, when we gathered enough funds to purchase two strands of black

licorice at Chasidor Leo’s Variety on Bedford Street across from

the backstop, we headed out to the billboards next to the inebriated

Marconi Club, and behind the middle of the three giant billboards, we

chewed and sloshed the licorice strands around in our mouths rotated

by our slurping tongues, then giving our tongues the once-over,

sticking them out as far as our jaws would allow, to see across

the thick, dark landscapes the licorice had made, and we closed-in on ourselves,

zeroing-in on each other’s tongues piercing the atmosphere of the acrid,

port wine-stinking Marconi Club which smelled like our grandfathers, and there,

LaCava and me, exposing our tongues behind the middle billboard hawking

Parliament cigarettes, with a young woman in a blue business suit, puffing

the way to upward mobility puffing, puffing away...

                    shoulda-coulda /  in '63

I should have demanded a drawing completed by her hand alone

as a replacement for the one she destroyed done by my hand,

reached for a large eraser, pliable enough to rearrange

her tracks, yelled and screamed into her narrow face: "you bitch"!,

and shot her in the head right between the eyes––

with the exhaled paper wrap of a straw, then wished her away

into the cornfield of the twilight zone. 

or maybe...

I could have kept the drawing as it was

with my compressed charcoal marks and her

compressed charcoal marks, spray-fixed for longevity,

matted and framed to tell my story of woe,

to hang in its riven mess for the student exhibition

at the home gallery, and beneath my "drawing-to-last-a-lifetime",

placed a little paper plaque proclaiming:

“Composite Drawing by: William D and Joyce R” /  1963  /  NFS