Should I Eat Potatoes While I Run?

Should I eat potatoes while I run?

Should I nibble on the sun?

Should I run, should I run

‘til pudding comes out my bum?

Leave potatoes on the shelf, on the shelf, on the shelf

Leave the sun to shine

And do not run, do not run

With any stuff coming out your bum.

Should I fill my boots with dirt?

Should my cauliflower hurt?

Should the dirt, should the dirt

Be rubbed right into my shirt?

Fill your boots with feet, with your feet, with some feet

And cauliflower hurts

If with it you are beat.

And that shirt? Also hurts.

Should I sing a silly song

As I’m dancing in my thong?

And is it wrong, is it wrong

To feel like I don’t belong?

Sing your silly song, silly song, silly song

But cover up the thong

Because it’s very, very wrong.

It’s clear you really don’t belong.

The Oaf

The Oaf went lumbering down the street
Spitting out two-by-fours.
He cursed the clouds and cursed the cold
That hindered his autumn chores.

The leaves they crunched beneath his feet
A littering he abhors.

No dragon to slay, no beast to best
Yet anxiety kills the Oaf.
He plunks away at a tiny desk
Sweating to earn his loaf.

The cold it seeps into his brain
The fingers to work are loth.

The knight has set, the sun has died
The Oaf cries a-standing there.
November chill it seeps in deep
Right through its thinning hair.

But demons laugh a laugh so deep
Chuckling, they do not care.

“Now go away, O demon Cold!”
He shouts to the sky so drear.
Demons laugh and demons fly
Whispering hatred in his ear.

The Oaf by demons deep beset
Scratches his shaggy rear.

Spoon River Today?

First of all, I had no idea Percy Grainger wrote a piece of music called “Spoon River,” dedicated to Edgar Lee Masters. Obviously, Masters’ anthology struck a chord with the famed composer.

I’ve written a few posts on my recent reading of Masters’ New Spoon River, so I won’t re-hash them here. I will go on to say that with Sinclair Lewis, Masters has done his part to preserve the times and seasons of the United States in the early 20^th century, probably moreso than F. Scott Fitzgerald, who portrayed the new United States that the people in Lewis’ and Masters’ novels were fleeing to.

I’m fascinated by this kind of slice-of-life writing, which was evidently very popular back then. Sinclair Lewis originally intended to write his famous novel Babbitt as 24 hours in the life of one George Babbitt of Zenith, but that went on to different ends. Also, there is Thornton Wilder’s Our Town that paints a pleasant if melancholy picture of small-town life in the same era.

What would we write today if we were writing slice of life? We’ve seen it all – but what could be done unique to the age? Maybe the telling of tales of a group of Facebook friends, or friends on some other social network? I’m afraid it’s been done. But something. Something.

I often wish Edgar Lee Masters had continued writing an anthology every decade, with others taking up the torch as he passed on and as time passed. What would the inhabitants of Spoon River be saying, say, in the 1960s, as Chicago enveloped them, and as time passed, and as the inner city and even some of the suburbs slipped into the control of the Mafia and crumbled into crime. Would the characters of the 1910s still have descendants there, or would they all have moved on? What would the new inhabitants of Spoon River say, not knowing the town’s history but feeling oddly connected to it or disconnected to it through their own eyes and through the lives of their contemporaries?

Marcus Jessup

They say long ago there was a village here

With green lawns and apple orchards

Where people rode in buggies

And sniped at their neighbors.

Spoon River, they called it

Surrounded by farms and farmers

Home to the banks and the general stores and the churches

All I see is asphalt

And concrete and crumbing red-brick buildings

Where are the orchards?

Where are the trees?

The sniping, I knew that well, killed as I was by a stray bullet

Someone fired from somewhere at someone else.

Where are the apple trees in Spoon River?

Passer-by, I lie underneath them.

Never having tasted their apples.

Or something like that. Sustained for three hundred or so pages.

It could be done. By someone who knows a Spoon River, subsumed by concrete and time.

Also, some industrious soul has put the entirety of the Spoon River Anthology online.

January Speaks

                        The wind is tired of biting

                                    its toothless, slurping broth.

                        The trees are tired of being bare

                                     and naked because of sloth.

                        The sun is bored with sugared snow,

                                    and casting a pale cold light.

                        I’m not saying this to help you out,

                                    but only for doleful spite.

Richard Armour, May 22, 2012

Shake and shake the ketchup bottle
None’ll come, and then a lot’ll

Unless of course that bottle rigid
Is coated with a structured liquid

Which helps the ketchup or the mayo
Make a freshet of an arroyo

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NOTE: A blog/shout site I occasionally visit has been taken over by bot commenters, and the sysadmins there don't seem to want to do anything about it. That's fine for me, because, in reading the comments today, I was inspired to pull some of the comments and make free verse poetry out of them.

So understand these poems are all verbatim. I've added no words. Also understand the titles are the names the bots give themselves when they post. Also note the bots want you to go to this site where they sell, above all else, mannequin heads. Like this:

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Feeble Attempt at A Multimedia Project

"I’ve been miserable so long. Years of my life wasted. Been a long time coming here to meet you. A long time on a crooked road."

"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and live in a state of constant total amazement."

The sun does not set when you are a child
Oh, the sky goes dark and the sun descends
But that glow on the horizon,
Sun shining after the orb of it dips below the horizon
Never fades

The sun does not set
It shines on in the birthday candle
You lit in the house you made of bricks
For the teddy bears
Who live under the lilacs next to the chicken coop
That little candle you leave lit,
Glowing through the open window
Through the branches of the lilac
to the horizon to touch the light of the sun
that does not disappear.

The life of a child is a year of summer solstices
And Popsicles and eighty-degree weather
And dogs who don’t want to go in either when they hear
The mother calling
And cats who crap in the sandbox but you still play there
And with the cats
Who follow you to the ditches across the street as you look for pretty flowers
To dig up and plant in the bears’ garden
To grow in the garden
Where the sun never sets

The sun never sets
It shines on in the stars you see
As you lie on the blanket on the trampoline
After they let you sleep outside
In the sweet twilight where the spectacle of a thousand suns
That continue to shine on other houses made for other teddy bears
Under other lilac bushes
On planets you don’t see but you know they’re there
Because yours is there
With the sunlight clinging to the horizon
Like burrs stuck to your socks
And never lets go.

Maybe you see bats flying in the stars above
And you pray to God you’ll see a meteor
Or a satellite
And you see them both
One a tiny dot moving among the other dots
Moving toward the sun to reignite the splendor of the day
The other a streak a scratch on the record of the sky
Falling away from the setting sun to the opposite horizon
Pointing the way
For the sun to rise.

"I forgot how big . . ."

Shadow Behind

NOTE: Just a poem about a late evening walk. Have a nice day.

Proper night sounds:
Rain Bird sprinkler kicking
crickets telling the temperature
whispers of far away traffic
crunch of roadside gravel
mousy rustlings in the ditches
and vacant lots
Proper night smells:
hot dust and oil from the road
mixed with lofting lilac
purple stinkweed flower
mark skunklike the air
wet gravel
leftover smoke from charcoal briquettes
and something odd
watermelon mixed with auto exhaust
Proper night sights:
Cat's eyes
round in the flashlight
a good rock to kick
underneath
whitewashed moon and stars
Security light
obscure the heavens
warding off evil-doers from
Andromeda
and the Big Bear
Not even starlight
may shine through key-holes
Wet feet walk
lanky shadow behind

A Poem Fragment

Here's a bit of nonsense poetry I'm working on. Obviously, it needs work.

Outer space is most untidy
Filled with rocks and scuffed-up moons
Asteroids and comets flighty
Planets tilted like buffoons.

Maybe someday, God be willing
Some gigantic celestial Hoover
Will come a-sucking through the tailings
Of His own creative maneuver.

Happy Valentine's Day, to my Wife

The challenge here will be to avoid this little note devolving into clichés or, worse yet, movie lines.

But I do want to write a little something to tell you how much I love you. Robert Kirby, a humorist for the Salt Lake Tribune, says such notes need to include mention of how wretched the man would truly be if it were not for the woman in his life, and I have to agree that’s true. And it’s not because of all you do – and you do a lot for me, and for us, and even for the kids and even though we probably drive you nuts. I would be pretty wretched without you, even if you didn’t do anything – but that’s not license to slack off. If you’ve taught me anything it’s that husband and wife need to cooperate and work together in order to make life worth living.

And to honor your practice of providing bulleted lists of information as you do your grad school assignments, I’ll make a list of my own here, outlining how you make my life a lot less wretched than it would be otherwise (and I promise no Simpsons quotes):

• You’re never idle. Maybe you don’t regard that as a plus, but I know you’re always working to make our house a wonderful place to be, for me and for the kids.
• You’re smart. I love talking with you, getting teased by you and even (sometimes) being called on the carpet by you, because you’re right.
• Whatever you take on, you do well. I see that in how you prepare for Christmas, how you tackle your classes and your church callings, and how you tackle just about everything life throws at you.
• You put up with me and my shortcomings. And I really want to use a Simpsons quote here, but I promised I wouldn’t.
• You do more than put up with my shortcomings. You help me improve. Daily.
• You do more than put up with my shortcomings. You inspire me to challenge myself, and to become a better person.

That’s not all, of course, but I don’t want to prattle on.

I love you, my dear. That’s the long and short of it.

Sunday Limericks

Oh the things parents will do to cajole their children.

I wrote the following three painful limericks last Sunday in an attempt to get Liam over a big case of the grumps. It did work:

Liam has a scowl on his face
To his mood he's taken a mace
Wants to do something fun,
But the calendar says "Sun."
That scowl is just frozen in place.

Liam's trying real hard not to smile
His hands on his lips he doth pile.
He sits there and giggles.
Gives the bench a good wiggle.
A good mood he seeks to revile.

Now Liam is happy again
On his face a watermelon grin.
His eyes all a-sparkle
Face bright, not so darkle
The mood battle his Daddy did win.

I know. Niles Crane would be appalled.

A Writing Bit: Ourscielfurr

NOTE: Yet another bit of random writing from many moons ago. Trying -- and failing -- to emulate a saga here. Though this poem is less sagaish, I sure like it a lot better.

Come ye prophets, mages wise
porters of peeping stones
Oracle bearers, come hear the tale
of Second Ourscielfurr's bones

On green hump near the Willow
deep in aspen black glade
In a hut made of thatch branch and twig
reeds (1) delivered blue-furred babe

To a brown-hued corn farmer
Tugarraf, pink-furred mate
Blue larks burst forth singing, bells ringing
Friend Sun shone bright at the gate

Hail, hail tiny wee blue-fur!
Bears' great battles lead on
Peasants, warbears, prophets paid homage
To savior, black burlap wrapped

Aspens d'or, flowers bedecked
Silvergrass weaved and twined
Crown on the blue brow-festival light!
Fire Feast sprung up on the Hump

Starfire bright, pinhole light
Silvery crescent moon
Smiled on the hump glade, Ourson (2) stood guard
Yet sparrows clouded the wood

Firetorch lighting! Mourn, cry!
Gold ones! Black hoods! Red eyes!
Spears marched like raindrops, surrounding glade
Hellclouds grew thick in the sky

Silver moon dimmed by lightning
Hellclouds veiled Ourson's eyes
Feasters ran panic, brave warbears stood
dark blood slaughter struck the glade

Crows and sparrows fought and squawked
warbears groaned bleak and fell
Confusion Master, cries in the night
Hump opened dark gates of Hell

Cry of anguish, Voice of Death
screeched out from thatched hut
Ourson! Ourson! Family forsaken!
wee blue-fur lay streaked with blood

Treason! Treason came the cry
Rally warbears, hie! Hie!
Blue-fur, pink fur, brown fur, all lay dead
Wee Ourscielfurr babe is gone!

Birdcall ceased, clouds shuddered still
Pale Eye shone down on the Hump
Tugarraf, Cornear, blue-fur lay still
Wrapped up in each others' claws

To avenge dark sin treason
Prophet called to the sky
Ourson, Fair Ladies (3) hear ye this cry!
Of these dead, form ye thy skies!

Fair Ladies wept, descended
took up blue and his kin
of their bones formed them Wee One, Big One
To the heavens made them kin

Watch and learn tiny young ones
O, remember ye old!
Wee One, Big One, with Cornear around
Heed tokens, shining stones

Heed ye prophets, mages wise
porters of peeping stones
Oracle bearers, remember the tale
of Second Ourscielfurr's bones

(1) Cattails
(2) Orion
(3) The Pleadies

Another Bit of Writing: Dropping Dreams

NOTE: Here's another bit of poetry from long ago. Need to keep up with it, but got other projects going right now . . .

You infuriate me, you
standing there on the lava rock
just staring at me and waiting for a handout.

You really ought to get a job and fend a bit more for yourself
after all, you’ve got a family to support
out there in the rocks and reeds.

Don’t stare at me, your
little beady eyes seem too complacent
for all the rotten things that happen

You seem to ignore it all, and let me tell you,
Mister,
you’d better watch out because it’ll catch up to you one of these days.

Don’t hiss, you swine
or cluck your beaky lips at me
you infuriate me, you
stand there so carefree.

The others don’t run when you come near despite your shortsightedness
but boy do they run when I come walking by.

Well, maybe I’m a bit jealous of you
you who despite your shortcomings are more in touch
with the reality humans once knew but have long forgotten

I yearn to join your club, yet I imagine with all my inconsistencies
I wouldn’t meet the social criteria let along the maximum height standard.

So waddle off, you
look like a toddler who’s due for a diaper change
Leave me here with my dreams scattered with your droppings on the asphalt.

I’ll go and join the warren of rabbits who live in the foothills.
You can keep your flighty ways and your waterbed
I’ll not have my dreams trampled on by
haughty geese.

Blurtin' Alice Otterloop

Copyrighted, of course, but used under Fair Use doctrine for commentary purposes.

She screams and waves her arms and then

with bugging eyes and hair aflame

She decries the puppy-laden foe

of bucket-headed mein:

“I'll overlook his bucketheadedness

if the puppy with drooping tongue I see,

unless of course, that bucket head

says something stupid to annoy me!”

Then while Mom scrubs at the dish

little Alice clamps her mouth and 'oop's

Mom rolls her eyes and mutters:

“It's just Blurtin' Alice Otterloop.”

Don't know why I wrote this little poem, but it was fun. I've enjoyed these past few Cul de Sac strips, given that as a kid and now I am a bucket head. I've been on the end of such blurted wrath.

Tonight's Nonsequitur: Debating Doughnuts

Debating Doughnuts

Well, don’t you think Q is a neat letter? It’s like an O with a handle. They’ve got to be pretty portable, those Q’s. I’ll bet if they grew on trees the little hook would stick to your coat like burrs or Velcro.

Why don’t they make doughnuts in the shape of a Q instead of an O? You’d get more doughnut and if they used the doughnut hole for the tail they wouldn’t have to sell those sad boxes filled with doughnut holes. You know. The boxes look like caskets with all these little sugar-coated bodies inside. And humans eat them.

I think someone tried to make doughnuts that looked like Q’s but they got too excited and invented the pretzel. Then they put huge chunks of rock salt on them. They still have the holes, which they turn into billiard balls.

Sometimes humans just go too far.

Through the Hole

NOTE: Here's a bit of poetry I wrote when I was a pup.

though the hole see the sky
past the green see the flat
yellowed field smooth patch and rippled kentucky blue

browned with cold freezer burnt
watch the road white ice black
sunning cat - fence sitting fatly - peering through

peering through swatches green
not be seen, dare reveal
hiding place: juniper canopy at corner house

through the hole see the sky
hop to branch prepare to fly
stretch the wings: small brown and drab but flying still

know the air hello the breeze
wan yellow sun bare leafless trees
winter now, but soon to come the smiling spring

latch to branch whistle song
as the cat pouts below
scan the field across the street for succulents

push the branch let it go
magic arms and fanning tail
no leap of faith as sparrow glides to field below

Bad Guy Things

NOTE: An old poem. I still think I could re-work this into a childrens' book. Anybody know a good illustrator?

Bad Guy Things

How’d you like to be the bad guy’s horse?

Gettin’ whipped all the time
Faster, faster, you fool, you fool!
Not many oats
and definitely no carrots.
While he’s countin’ the treasure
or kissin’ the women
you’re out in the stable
with the propositioning donkeys and the drunk stable boy.

How’d you like to be the bad guy’s clothes?

Drab and black.
Smellin’ of smoky disappearin’ powder
among other things.
And always gettin’ caught in machinery
or the shark’s mouth when the baddie gets done in.

How would you like to be the bad guy’s sidekick?

Comic relief, sure that’s fun.
Sometimes you get the best lines.
And the little kids love you
because you’re the stupid one.
But you still get stuck with the baddie
and have to break rocks in prison
or share the eternity in the genie’s lamp
no matter how many laughs you got.

How would you like to be the bad guy?

Get the girl until the hero shows up.
Slink around in passages inside the castle walls.
Scare little children.
Do nasty bad guy things.
Have a moustache.
And probably never change your underwear.
And no matter how dastardly you’ve been
that goody-goody with the fairy godmother
or the helpful forest creatures
has the happily ever after ending
and leaves you to the wolves
with a sword sticking out of your back
or in the insane asylum wearing that funny jacket.

Stupid heroes.
Without us bad guys and our bad guy things,
you haven’t got the giant
you haven’t got the nasty tiger
you haven’t got the story.

You need us to prove you’re heroes
or you’d have never gotten out of that job
at the pig farm in the first place.

So as we bad guys are fond of saying:

Nyaah! Nyaah! Nyaah!

#amwriting Fragment, "Ourscielfurr"

NOTE: This is, as I recall, a poem I wrote many, many moons ago when, in a fit inspired by Richard Adams' "Shardik" I envisioned writing a great animal-based novel. Recognzing now my lack of talent for most things writing at the time (not that I've improved much since then) I'm a bit hesitant to present this now. But what the heck. I feel like the dwarf Gibbsson from Terry Pratchett's "Soul Music," ready to laugh at the guitars he made when he was just learning the trade.

Black be the coat, flat be thy snout
Trees and Rivers shall by thy friends
hoe in the claw, dung on the paw
Green Gift and Bounty no end

Brown be the coat, keen be thine eyes
Paws caress good willow and yew
Kin to the hawk, silently stalk
Fire Feasts and families renew

Pink be the fur, firm be thy claw
eye and snout both caress and scorn
soft yet afeared, loved yet revered
Ourscielfurr of thee may be born

Gold be the fur, high be thy brow
thee, heir and descendant of kings
firm be thy jaw, hard be thy law
'til Ourscielfurr's booming voice wings

Red be the hue, hot be thy blood
spear shines in the eyes of the dead
Hard be thy claw, teeth fill thy jaw
fill the dark forests with dread

Grey be the hue, deep be thine eyes
voice booms out of past o ye wise
clear is thy vue, Crow tell ye true
songe secret lights of the skies

White be the glow, brass be thy shield
run swift on the clawed winged feet
sword be of steel, traitors reveal
soldiers of Ourscielfurr's Keep

Blue be the glow, grace be thy name
fight bravely thy fate is made sure
lead and expound, blessings renowned
Blessed One, O Ourscielfurr

Luv Pome: Dead Boy Boat

NOTE: The only explanation I can offer for this poem, which I wrote more than 15 years ago, is that it stems from a game my brother Jeff used to play with Randy and I. We were the "dead" boys he threw on the boat -- the couch. Don't know why this was so entertaining. But here it is.

The Dead Boy Boat

Pick 'em up.
Toss 'em in.
In the Dead Boy Boat.
Little boys past their prime.
Little boys run out of time.
On the Dead Boy Boat.
Can't play checkers.
Can't go swimmin'.
Ain't no suffleboard.
You won't be grinnin'.
On the Dead Boy Boat.
Little boys.
Big ones, too.
Come from Illinios.
Or Kalamazoo.
Beanies. Yo-yos.
Teacher's notes.
Marbles. Frogs.
Caps and coats.
Those will be your souvenirs
from the Dead Boy Boat.
Got a Dead Boy?
Chuck him on!
The boat still floats
The Dead Boy Boat.
Ain't no flirtin'.
Wouldn't want the buffet.
On the Dead Boy Boat.