I'm supposed to list my obsessions. OK, fine:
- The ferry maintenance depot near my apartment.
- The human body personified as root vegetables – potatoes, turnips, rutabagas.
- I can’t remember Jack Shit, though I’ve met him often enough.
Mostly the last one – it's like trolls under the bridge have custody of my memory. Pay the fee in princess skin or thou shalt not pass. I look in my wallet, but no Ben Franklin. That look of his makes me think he feels sultry in his lingerie, hidden under his coat. I feel pretty too, Ben.
Maybe my missing to-do lists and kodak moments are lost in a time warp – if we rip the veneer of space away will we expose its mechanism, its springs and bomb wires? What if lost time is a pendulum swinging in the clock case with its balls cut off – fixed like a steer so it can't reproduce. Or memory baked into adobe bricks, daubed with mud, stacked into walls in reenactments of the Alamo, where we always lose.
Someone said it’s the journey, not the destination, blah blah blah. I feel miles itchy with distance under my skin, yet the tundra of my kneecaps and knuckles are insurmountable. The rocks quit, the mountains quit, even the pavement quits before it ends down the block. With light pollution the milky way is only a candy bar. Nowhere to go from here.
Just once, contemplate Powell in 1869 – shooting the fevered waters of the Colorado river in wooden boats. Make the shift from your first gear to fifth, fourteenth, infinity. From darkness to light to fugue to black holes that leave you breathless on a far shore.
For Shay’s Word Garden and The Sunday Muse
qbit 
Hmmm… the tundra of my kneecaps and knuckles… sends my brain in thousands of pinging directions. Freaky writing – I like it!
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LOL!
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This, I think, has to be one of your best. Digging deep into JRB and pulling out not just refined gold but the dross that we all carry. This poem is quirky, sure; but more importantly it’s human, vulnerable.
Oh, stop sweating, Randall! You’ll be fine.
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Ahahaha! Charley, yes. Ok. Deep breath.
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I’m ready for a shift into mellow gear on my way to infinity .. the Ben Franklin bit is too funny .. it’s disconcerting I actually require a ‘to do’ list some days. You never fail to delight.
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I LOVE shifting into mellow gear!!
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“Have you never been mellow?” –Olivia Newton-John
Randy Newman said of her song that “it’s like wanting to be dead.” Thanks, Rand. Nevertheless,, I too wish to shift unto mellow gear. Get in losers, we’re going to Bend to do mellow gear at Helen’s.
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To Infinity… and beyond! I’ve heard that someplace. I love the tearing away of the facade to see Time’s inner workings and whether or not it has been neutered like a steer. Abd Charon’s secret fetish. Your mind is a slightly bent wonderland, sir!
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Hahaha! Thanks. I noticed the “and beyond!” too after I posted. Oh well, might revise. Also might add “Where the Sidewalk Ends” in my strange assertions about mountains and pavement and such. All said, I am a bit chuffed with myself on the neutered time and fetish bits, LOL! Yep. Slightly bent mind indeed.
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I love the methodology here — as if you’re doing a Journaling exercise for your therapist.
“The Florida Keys are a coral cay archipelago …” Isn’t that a lovely flowing sentence? That’s the kind of key I immediately thought of when I read your title. It fits with your shore ending as well. Islands. The minds pockets and lockets.
I hope you have a sketchbook of your Veggie Tales art.
This is my very favorite: “Pay the fee in princess skin”
“What if lost time is a pendulum swinging in the clock case with its balls cut off …” That thought was absolutely brilliant. You need to keep publishing. You are extraordinary.
“I feel miles itchy” … I love this so much — especially because I love blues music.
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Ahahaha!! Glad you found your way to this. I put in the ferry and root vegetables for you.
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Ha. I assumed your November prompt themes were blending. I’ve seen this syndrome before. De usually does one at the end of the month combining all of the prompts!
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Yes, De’s skill at that is astounding. I don’t know how she does it. And also able to kick out so many great poems every day!
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You snuck up on me Qbit! Trolls under the bridge have custody of my memory too and I have me Jack Shit! LOL Actually one year for Halloween, I was a used car sales man named Jack Schmitt. I had a deck of cards in my pocket cause: “I had a deal for you”, I had a sock because: “I was going to sock it to ya” and I had a lemon cause: “you were going to get a lemon! I was runner up in the costume contest!!
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Ahahaha! That’s great!!
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yes! i love this! this is the stuff (hey, whats up with wordpress? i press a letter key once, and it adds 7 extra letters…?)
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