Saikaew Beach at Sunrise

Here is a poem that I wrote last summer about one of my favorite beaches--Saikaew Beach on the island of Ko Samet in the Gulf of Thailand. Before I left for Ko Samet I was told by my friends in Thailand that the island was a dump compared to others that were further away from Bangkok.

Don't ever believe what people tell you. The island had the bluest water and the whitest, finest sand that I have ever experienced. Best of all, you could stay in a bungalow right on the beach for only about $10 a night (a bit more if you needed to have air conditioning and hot water...but who really needs that?) and eat fabulous Thai food right overlooking the water for only about $3 a meal. Now that is how to live, my partners in creativity!

One morning I woke up around 7am, as the sun was rising over the Gulf of Thailand, and was inspired to write this simple poem:

The beach is loveliest
at this time of day
when the lazy morning sun
has just begun
to peek her sleepy head
over the dew covered cliffs
of Ko Samet,
basking the beach
in her warm maternal glow.
Millions of tiny sea crabs
burrowing beneath the sand,
have begun to transform
the beach with their
fantastic sand art—
more beautiful,
I think,
than any work
by Michelangelo or Raphael.
The warm surf
crashes gently on my feet,
burying my toes in
powdery white sand,
and I watch on
as a naked child
and scraggly beach mongrel
splash joyfully
in the passing waves,
as oblivious to me
as they are
to each other.
A lone peddler woman
carries morning fare
of rice and fish
precariously on
long bamboo sticks,
her darkened, withered face
aged beyond its years
by her life spent
laboring in the sun.
She offers me
a bit of breakfast
but I wave her on
not wanting to
disturb the sanctity
of this moment.

The beach is loveliest
at this time of day,
when the golden sun
shimmers playfully
on the emerald waters
and the palms trees
dance rhythmically
in the morning breeze.
I breathe in deeply
and stretch my arms
towards the open sky
hoping to capture
the magic of
sun and sand and surf
in my minds eye,
But I know full well
that all the things
I love most
about the beach at sunrise
cannot remain
the way I cherish them
for very long.
And there is some sadness
in this realization
but profound wisdom as well.

The beach is loveliest
at this time of day,
when the garish many
are not yet awake
to disturb
nature’s subtle revelries
with their crude cacophony.
And because I know
this moment of bliss
is but a fleeting thing,
I have resolved
to treasure it
for just as long
as it may last,
and not to pine
so very much
when my
dainty morning sun
becomes transformed—
as she inevitably must—
into a gaudy spectacle
of former herself.

Stray Parts...Claim at the Checkout Counter

We are parts of a whole, but the whole does not exist in reality. We are pieces of a gigantic puzzle that can never be put together in any intelligible form. We are toes and eyes and ears and snot - the sum total of our constituent elements. We are the stray idle thought that flows uninvited through out minds; we are overpowering emotions that arise when we least expect.

But we are not this person, at this time, or in this place. For person, place, and time are mere fictions of the mind designed to give identity to something that is in essence a no-thing.

Stick to the stray parts...you will find much more meaning there. The whole is much too much complex for mere mortals to fathom.

Angelinis

Have to write a poem about a significant relationship that I had with someone. I decided to reflect upon a minor relationship that I had in the distant past with a girl named, Angelinis. The relationship, as you can see, was purely platonic but was important to me at that time for some rather obscure reason. The fact that I can still see Angelinis' misty eyes all these years later says something about her impact upon me when I was a teenager.

Sadly, she did end up badly...a victim of the substance abuse that was endemic in New York during the late 70s and early 80s. And, yes, I did see her one day by Central Park about ten years ago. There was something about her that was very much the same as the innocent girl that I remember from Junior High, but I could see instantly that her life had taken a hard toll on her.

So the poem I wrote turned out to be a wistful, sad memory of a minor relationship from the distant past. I tried to write it in a more stream-of-consciousness style than I usually do to fit the character of the subject as well as the mood of the poem. Otherwise, this poem is very similar in style to most of the other ones that you will read in this blog, using free verse, short lines, and flowing stanzas.

When I was fifteen
I had this
really amazing thing
for an angel,
a real angel.
Okay, maybe
not a real angel,
but her name was
Angelinis.
And if ever
a name conveyed
the essence of a person
her’s did.
She had
eyes as blue
as misty sea water,
eyes
that could look
down deep into your
pitiful soul,
and when you gazed
into them
you beheld
the mysteries of the ages.
And when she smiled
at me with her
full, wide mouth
which she did often—
not because she
was into me or anything,
but just because
that’s the kind of
thing that angels
are known to do—
I would buckle
under the magic
of her sweet
seductive spell.
But I went on
to my own
white starch prison cell,
and she descended
with cruel inexorability
into the hazy realm
of methane soaked oblivion.
When I saw her
last on the street
of the windswept city,
not far from Central Park,
she looked
pail, fragile, disjointed,
like one who has had
her soul surgically removed.
She barely recognized me
at all;
but I recognized her
right away.
Angels don’t stop
being angels
just because
they need
to shoot a bit
of pixie juice
into their veins
now and then
to blot out the pain
of this tawdry existence….
That just makes them
all the more angelic.

Inspiration on the Bathroom Walls

I saw a series of really cool And Warhol prints on the wall of a restaurant bathroom in Asbury Park, N.J., and was incredibly inspired by them. They were just four rather boring portraits of Warhol, digitally pontilized with some of his inane sayings at the bottom (they are posted on the left sidebar of this blog). I thought that I would try to do something similar, stealing Warhol's basic concept. These are just a few of the images that I came up with, although I hope to keep adding more until I eventually have about 1o in total.

What I would like to do next is to use the power of repetition, just as Warhol did (1) to take a series of 100 shots of someone taken against a white wall with natural lighting, attempting to capture 100 different aspects of his or her personality, or (2) to do a series of 100 portraits of different people at Molloy like the ones of myself above with their own inane philosophical statements.

I admit that these are derivative, and not original, ideas. But who cares! Perhaps there are no truly original ideas anyway, so the very desire to try to achieve originality in art, music, literature, philosophy, or any other creative enterprise may very well be fool's quest. In the end, I think Warhol's insight about art is essentially correct: just crank out whatever interesting ideas you have and let others be the judge of their originality or basic worth.

.....................................

Continued Musings [September 18, 2008]

It struck me as I was thinking about the Warhol shots again that it is the form of presentation of these pieces that gives Warhol's "philosophical" statements a depth and gravity that they would not otherwise have.

When I did my own--admittedly inferior--version of these pieces, I intuitively recognized that, no matter what idiotic pronouncements I made on them, they would be treated seriously because the format that I was using rendered my own observations on life inherently profound. This is true even if the statement that I had chosen for one of these pieces was something as dumb as, "I like pizza." Given the visual context, that statement would be as lofty and inspiring as any made by Einstein or Schweitzer.

Perhaps in the kind of slick, superficial, advertisement-driven society in which we live, every one's observations on life deserve to be treated as seriously as that of the greatest philosopher or scientist. So here's the new "concept": 100 photos of 100 different people from all walks of life with their "profound" statements on life printed on the bottom, photoshopped to make them look like commercial art, and posted in a prominent location. The cleaning women treated as the intellectual equal of Plato...I like that!

A Short-lived, Tall-Tale Adventure in the Great Outdoors c. 1982

the sun always sets on the lower eastside at exactly 6:47pm and the timing of this magical event is so precise that the great black bear can set his $575.00 rolex by it. he walks into the punk bar on 6th street off avenue a to get a drink. martinti and rossi on the rocks with a twist of lemon is his favorite during the summertime, but they don’t offer such beverages in punk bars, so he has to settle for a corona with lime. it cools him down after a long, hot day in the big city scouting for locations for his next teen slasher film.

all he wants is to be left alone in the cool, dark bar and enjoy his beer in peace. but some people just have an itch for unnecessary confrontation.

fucking bears think they can just waltz in our bar any time they want and order girlie drinks, the skinhead at the other end of the bar sneers. just look at him in his sear-sucker suit…not a wrinkle on him…why don’t you go back to the forest where you came from?

the bear knows that he has to take decisive action or his virility would be called into question, and the consequences of that were simply too horrible to contemplate.

bartender, he says, in a voice that instantly commands attention. would you be so kind as to play this audio tape that I procured in a local emporium not more than one hour ago? I believe it will calm the nerves of my bald-headed friend here.

in an attempt to avoid antagonizing the bear any further, the bartender pops the tape into his stereo. everyone waits nervously, not knowing what to expect. then the music suddenly starts…

‘the summer wind
came strolling in
from across the sea
it lingered there
to touch your hair
and waltz with me.’

jesus, fucking christ, the skinhead shouts out in agony. not frank sinatra! my mother listens to frank sinatra!

he covers his ears and begins to weep. no one could tell what sort of hellish memories have been unearthed by the sounds of sinatra crooning to the velvety accompaniment of nelson riddle’s famed orchestra, but they must have been horrible indeed, for tears are soon cascading down the poor man’s face.

within 15 minutes the bar is emptied of all it’s regulars, and only the bear and the bartender remain.

thank you for ruining my fucking business with your shit music, the bartender says to the bear.

no trouble at all, my dear fellow, the bear replies congenially. paying his tab, he leaves the bar and heads back out into the dark wasteland of the east village.

the bar is still there on the corner of 6th street and avenue a, but no one knows what happened to the bear. some say he tired of city life and bought a little place in central new jersey off the palisades parkway with the earnings he made from his last slasher film; others that he died only a few years later in a horrible accident involving an under-aged tightrope walker and a very large tin of pickled herring.

an account of the incident has been turned into a bestseller by robert ludlum and is awaiting film-treatment by a major hollywood studio. it is said that the part of the bear will be played by brad pitt.

The Most Important Lesson of All

Transmitted by Dr. Don Cornelius in Nepal
Thursday, March 19, 2009

1. May I accept all that arises regardless of my wishes.
2. May I accept all that arises with equanimity.
3. I merit my karma. Happiness and unhappiness are a result of my actions, not of my wishes.

Everyone has to have a guru in his life. Mine just happens to be a 70 year old dude named Don, who used to teach Social Work at Molloy.

For ten years I did all I could to shock, provoke, and annoy Don, as is my custom with just about everyone I meet. Now, as anyone who knows me well will tell you, I have an amazing ability to piss people off. It's my special gift, actually. I do it without even really trying. But nothing I did or said ever fazed Don in the slightest. He would just look at me with complete equanimity and smile at me as though I was a silly, wayward seven year old.

Turns out that Don was a practicing Buddhist in the Vipassana tradition, and, unlike many so-called religious types actually tried to practice what he preached. Once when I was particularly agitated, he shared with me his secret for staying so damned peaceful all the time. "Just remember, Mike," he would tell me. "It is what it is."

It is what it is? I had no idea what the fuck that was supposed to mean. But I was intrigued by the success that Don had in dealing with life's adversities without ever becoming agitated or mean-spirited. His life was filled with no small share of suffering - like everyone's life, I suppose. But unlike most people, he used his pain to help him gain a greater perspective on the human condition and to rise above the ego-centered reactions that most of us have when faced with suffering.

Last spring when we were in Nepal together, a student protest completely stopped all traffic and we were stuck for hours in a shit-ass, god-forsaken, garbage strewn town in the middle of nowhere. The weather was about 95 degrees and the flies were picking voraciously at my flesh. After about two hours of pacing back and forth, getting dizzy from breathing in the fumes of the thousands of cars, trucks, and buses idling on the road, I was about ready to explode. Then I looked over and saw Don sitting on a rock, his eyes closed, in his typical meditative posture. I went over and asked him how he could stay so calm when we could be trapped in this hellish spot forever. That's when he shared the three teachings of the Buddha that he had made central to his own outlook on life:

May I accept all that arises regardless of my wishes.

May I accept all that arises with equanimity.

I merit my karma. Happiness and unhappiness are a result of my actions, not of my wishes.

He was putting these teaching into practice at the very moment when the rest of us were bitching and moaning about how unfair life was. For Don, life was neither fair nor unfair. It just was what it was. You could rage against the inevitable - in this case, the idiotic student protest that left us trapped in the middle of Nepal - or you could just learn to accept it and move on.

Hearing those words come out of Don's mouth and witnessing his Buddha-like tranquility even in such an inauspicious context, helped to calm me down tremendously. And just when I was becoming prepared to sit out the protest for another six hours, the traffic miraculously began moving again. That's the way life is, I guess. Good and bad, suffering and joy all mixed together. What Don taught me that day was that, although pain and adversity are an inevitable part of our human reality, suffering doesn't have to be. It's all a matter of perspective.

A Touch of Freakiness

Though most of you refuse to allow the inner freak to emerge in your writing, my freak has to come through every now and then just to keep things interesting. I dare any of you to try to top this in terms of raw unadulterated freakiosity:

Dear Francis:

Your persistent attempts to browbeat and intimidate me are doomed to fail. I have met the likes of your kind before, and your sombrero and handlebar mustache do not impress me. It’s a look that may have suited Pancho Villa well, but it’s a bit dated now…just like the old kidney you carry all the time in your suede side pouch.

What is that kidney for, I wonder? Are you keeping it just in case you need a spare one, or are you planning to dress it up for Halloween and take it along with you when you go trick-or-treating? Carting around a used kidney may be a cute trick, but I seriously doubt that it will get you any more tasty treats from the old ladies who live on your block. Try wearing a smart costume for a change!

I WILL NOT BOW DOWN TO YOU OR YOUR DAMNED KIDNEY!!! Perhaps if you had a liver or appendix in your bag, I would be moderately impressed. But in my humble estimation, the kidney is a piss-poor excuse for an organ. (What does the kidney do anyway? Nobody seems able to tell me.)

But I digress. Your insufferable harassment must cease forthwith. I have already contacted my lawyer, Mr. Cyrus Mandlebaum, Esq, and he assures me that your attempts to force me to join your newly established barbershop quartet are not only illegal but quite rude as well. When you asked me to join your Mariachi band last year, I agreed, but the line must be drawn somewhere…and having to sing tenor with a group of morbidly obese evangelicals is as good a place as any to make my stand.

Answer this one question, if you will: what part of me are you planning to snip off to get my voice high enough to meet the requirements of your vile quartet? I WILL NOT HAVE VITAL BODILY PARTS REMOVED WITHOUT ADEQUATE COMPENSATION! I have already lost a pinkie, two feet of large intestine, and a quarter of my spleen to satisfy your pathological desires, but there are some pieces of me that, quite frankly, I hope to make use of at a later date. By the way, I still miss my pinkie and haven’t been able to hold cocktails properly since you started wearing it on your key chain.

Perhaps I am being a tad obstreperous (Is this a real word?). If I must sing with you, make sure that you provide me with a nice bowler hat and a crush velvet shirt to wear beneath my favorite orange sport’s coat. And please don’t tell my mother about this. She still talks about the time you made me wear the ballerina costume in your all male version of the Nutcracker. She is a sickly woman and has yet to get over the death of her pet parakeet, Manuel. She loved that bird more than life itself and they were planning to get married just as soon as he saved enough money for his sex change operation.

Oh, why does life have to be so damnably complicated!!!????!!! I just got a fake rubber pinkie and now you expect me to loose another piece of my anatomy. It seems so unfair. Just be sure to send the replacement parts at your soonest possible convenience by certified mail. This time I will settle for nothing less than antique brass, so do refrain from your usual penny-pinching. Certain appendages simply do not look acceptable in latex or stainless steal.

I look forward to seeing you next week at the annual corporate golf outing!

Sincerely,

Mr. Ricky Ricabono

P.S., When we meet next week, don’t forget to bring the nail clippers you stole from me in Fresno. I haven’t been able to trim my toenails for two years now and it’s embarrassing when I wear my favorite pair of Birkenstocks at the opera.

The Lessons of Springtime

1. It Doesn't Pay to Be Pretty

The young children
in the neighborhood
invariably pass by
my budding
azalea bushes,
hardly noticing them at all.
But over the years
I have learned
the most important lesson
of springtime:
you must always appreciate
beautiful things
while you have them
and solemnly morn them
when they are gone,
for everything in this
ebb and flow universe
is a precious gift,
available only to those
with open eyes.

2. The Devil Has a Furry Tail

The godless squirrels
have dug up my
zoysia plugs
for the fifth time
this week.
I know that
squirrels are
hard-wired
by nature
to unearth their nuts
in the dew-dappled
month of May
when the ground has
sufficiently thawed,
and that my
poor front lawn
is nothing more than
collateral damage,
in the wonderful
pageant that is
springtime.
It still doesn’t make me
hate the little bastards
any less.

3. Nature is a Cosmic Snuff Fest

Spring rains
pour over the tiny seedlings
in my garden,
bending them almost
to the ground.
Some of the weaker
plants will perish
under the rain’s fury,
but the stronger ones
always manage
to survive…
Take this lesson
to heart,
my son:
nature despises
weak things.

4. If You're Useless, You Will Die

The weeds
in my garden
always get
pulled up
by their
little asses
and left to die
a hideous death
in the blistering heat
of the midday sun.
I suppose
someone should mourn
their untimely demise,
but no one seems
to give a damn.
They’re only weeds,
after all.

A Tippy Toe Poem

tippy toe

tippy toe

tip, tip, tippy-toe

tippy toe around the house

tippy toe quiet as a mouse

tra la li, tra la lo

tra la la tippy toe

tippy toe

tippy toe

tip, tip, tippy-toe

tippy toe all night long

tippy toe singing a little song:

tra la li, tra la lo

tra la la tippy toe

tippy toe

tippy toe

tip, tip, tippy toe

tippy toe till the break of day

tippy toe your cares away

tra la li, tra la lo

tra la la tippy toe

tippy toe!

TIPPY TOE!!!

TIP, TIP, TIPPY TOE!!!!!

ARMAGEDDON

Bottom-line corporate fashitical-ism
Vapid lollipop-licking pop psycholog-ism
Autocratic autodafetic criminal clericalism
Dumb-ass redneck reaction-ism
Pretentious pseudo-intellectual Upper-Eastside snob-ism
Cover up everything but the eyes islamoabsud-ism
Rightwing blowhard Limbaugh-loving conserva-tism
Throw the fucking baby out with the bathwater anti-abortionism
Shrill, uptight “this shit is all your fault” frantic femo-nism
Mamby-pamby post-60s liberal-ism
The next fad is really it technolo-gism
Edubabbling race-to-the-bottom educational bureaucra-tism
Poor excuse for jis’m jis-‘m

Does anybody read Tolstoy any more?
Does anybody chat with his dear auntie in Scranton any more?
Does anybody bowl with his moronic buddies after work any more?
Does anybody piss away his sorrows in the moonlight any more?
Does anybody cry for Wall Street any more?
Does anybody even know that Mory Zucherman is dead?
Does anybody even care that Mory Zucherman is dead?

Armageddon is coming, but he won’t be dressed in plaid.
Armageddon is coming, but he won’t be eating any canapés.
Armageddon is coming, but he won’t be bringing a date this time.
Armageddon is coming, but he’s not happy to be missing the Superbowl.
Armageddon is coming, but he’s changed his name to Norbert Dresner.
Armageddon is coming, but first he has to stop off to pick up his dry cleaning.

Mombo Italiano.
Joey Ramarez is a lousy cock-sucker.
You never know till you know.
I would hate you, if I didn’t love you so much.
She’s not fat, she’s generously proportioned.
Post-ejaculatory distress.
The good ones never win on “Dancing with the Stars.”
Are they real or are they fake?
They’ve gotta be fake.
Fetal alcohol syndrome.
Sara Palin is a real American icon.

Love Song

This is my first attempt at a love song. As you can see I am a pure romantic at heart.

Sweet Lorraine, Goddess of Sunshine

La, la, la, la, la, la, la;
la, la, la, la,
la, la, la, la, la, la, la.
Oh yea!

Chorus:
La, la, la, la, la, la, lo;
la, la, la, you and me.
La, la, la, la, la, la, la,
la, la, la, la, la, la, free.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la;
la, la, la, la,
la, la, la, la, la, la, la.
Come on.

Chorus:
La, la, la, la, la, la, lo;
la, la, la, you and me.
La, la, la, la, la, la, la.
la, la, la, la, la, la, free.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la;
la, la, la, la,
la, la, la, la, la, la, la.
till the cows come home.

Chorus:
La, la, la, la, la, la, lo;
la, la, la, you and me.
La, la, la, la, la, la, la,
la, la, la, la, la, la, free.

34 Montague Street

The second version of this piece, cleaned-up with the help of Damian Hey, master grammarian and prolific writer.

One night in late July,
when the weather was as stuffy
as the inside of a cocker spaniel’s mouth,
I got up from my sweat-drenched bed,
pulled on my shorts and white t-shirt,
and planted myself on the stoop
in front of my building at 34 Montague Street
with an ice-cold beer that I had
commandeered from my barren fridge.

Alone I sat on that sad stone stoop
with just that paltry beer to keep me company
musing about the great mysteries of the universe—
a solitary man clinging to his cold can of comfort,
contending with the brute realties
of the human condition
on a sleepless summer night.

It was at that moment,
on or about 1:15 in the morning,
that she appeared as though from nowhere,
her cotton dress clinging tightly to her
with such extraordinary intimacy
that the two seemed almost fused together.
She was absorbed in her own thoughts,
like one who had more than her share
of great human mysteries to solve,
and I knew at once by solemn appearance
that she too was a wayfarer in
an otherwise alien universe.

Determined to catch her eye,
I placed the can down on the step where I was sitting,
and the sharp kabang of aluminum against limestone
cause her to turn towards me suddenly,
the yellow glow from the streetlight
illuminating her like some kind of ethereal being.
And she smiled when she saw me sitting there alone,
sensing, I assume, as I had,
that we two were cosmic bedfellows.
Then, noticing the beer can next to me,
she said, in a voice that purred softly in the quiet of the night,
“Got another one for me, Joe?”

Well, my name’s Bill, not Joe,
but that really didn’t matter much at all
when fate had conspired with such grand eloquence
to bring her to me at this very moment.
And I really wish to god-almighty
that I had another can of beer to offer her,
‘cause there was nothing that I wanted more
than to feel that angel of the night
pressed close against me
on my apartment stoop.

“Sorry. Last one,” I said
with a voice that betrayed my deep-felt regret.
And looking intently, she smiled at me again—
a smile so wistful that it
damn near broke my heart….
She smiled at me and replied,
“That’s ok, Joe, probably better off, anyway.”
And wiping the dirty blond hair from her eyes,
she slowly continued on her journey,
till eventually she completely disappeared
into the darkness of Montague Street.

“Better?” I thought ruefully to myself.
Better for whom? Better for her or better for me?
Perhaps it was better for the damned universe not to allow
two solitary creatures like ourselves
to find some single shred of cool consolation
on a blisteringly hot summer night.
“Yes, probably better, anyway,” I reassured myself,
not wanting to agonize over a possibility
that could now never be realized.
And so, draining the last drops of cheap brew
into my eternally parched mouth,
I crumpled the empty can in my hands and tossed it
spitefully onto the empty street.

I went back upstairs
around three or four, I guess,
but didn’t get much sleep at all.
How could I?
I lay there alone in my bed,
dreaming about that girl,
about her skimpy cotton dress,
and about the opportunity that was lost
for lack of one more stinking can of beer.

A few hours later, the sun finally rose
bringing with it yet another day
of endless preoccupations and distractions.
On the way home, I made it a point
to stop into the little grocery store
‘round the corner from my apartment,
and bought a few six-packs of Miller Beer
to store away…
just in case.
You never know, after all,
when some angel of the night
will suddenly appear at your doorstep,
looking to share some inexpensive swill,
while holding out the promise
of a few sweet sultry moments of magic
to help pass the lonely summer evening.

And, as every boy scout will tell you,
it always pays to be prepared.

Vanishing Point

.....Looking into the mirror one morning to begin his ritual ablutions—shaving his forehead and flossing his mind—he was startled to see the being he had always thought he was slowly beginning to fade from view in the mirror.
.....First the left nostril disappeared, then the dimple on his chin, and soon his entire right earlobe. Within minutes there was just an ominous black void where his bloodshot eyes had just been.
.....If things keep up like this, he thought to himself with some concern, soon there won’t be anything left of me that I can still call me. And then what will I be when there’s no longer any me left to see?
.....He lifted his hand to examine what remained of his face, but, much to his surprise, the hand itself had vanished, and his right arm was starting to disappear along with it.
.....He pondered for a moment: If I am but the thing that reflects itself in the mirror when I wash my dainty morning face, and that face no longer appears when I peer in the mirror, then who is looking at what and how? And who exactly am I when there is no longer even any I to spy in the mirror with my mind’s eye?
.....This could certainly pose some difficult metaphysical conundrums, he thought.
.....He hesitated to look down but when he did he was horrified to discover that even that was completely gone….vanished….disappeared. Zooks, he shouted, now I am no longer even a man! What will my girlfriend, Tanya, have to say about that, he wondered? I suppose the engagement’s off now, he sighed.
.....Nipples, left elbow, and all twelve toes disappeared in quick succession. Soon, all that remained when he looked into the mirror was his belly button—an inny to be exact.
.....“Well, I suppose that if I had to be left with just one piece of myself, my belly button is as good a part as any. I’ve gotten some very positive complements on that belly button over the years, he gushed to himself proudly.
.....But just as he was resigning himself to being nothing more than a mere belly button, even that soon disappeared.
.....Now there is no longer anything left of me to see in the mirror, he thought. With nothing better to do, he decided that he might as well use the time to wipe the streaks that had accumulated on the reflective surface as he was watching himself disappear from sight.
.....Cleaning the glass, the brute reality of his situation finally hit home. He reflected: If there is no me left to see and no eyes with which to see, then who is looking in the mirror at what once was me? And, if there is no me left to see, then with what hand can these streaks be wiped away from the mirror? And how can I—if there is no longer any I either in reality or mind’s eye—be thinking these thoughts about I, me, and mine?
.....But before he could figure out the answer to these riddles, the mirror itself disappeared, followed by his newly redecorated bathroom, then the house itself, and then the street upon which the house once stood. Soon every living thing on the planet simply vanished, followed eventually by the planet itself. Within a short time the entire universe itself simply ceased to exist any longer.
.....Now there’s not even a universe left, he sighed to himself—actually to what once was himself. But how can I still be here thinking when there is no thinker and nothing to think about? I suppose the only logical explanation is that I must be God, he concluded finally. And he felt extremely satisfied with that particular hypothesis.
.....It’s going to be pretty sweet being master of the whole damned universe, he thought to himself. But then the maddening reality suddenly hit him: I’m the Lord of the Universe, but there’s no universe to lord over and no Lord to do the lording.
.....So this is what hell is like for God, he cried to himself, wiping away the tears that didn’t exist.

You Never Know

When I was 20 years old my father got me a plum job acting as a security guard on the graveyard shift at 666 5^th Ave, one of Manhattan’s most exclusive office buildings. The job paid $10.00 an hour, which was an astronomical sum at the time. The work itself could hardly be called demanding: basically I sat at the security desk reading until someone buzzed the door to be let in. Then I would check his ID and, if he proved to be legitimate, would grant him access to the building. It was certainly nothing that my college educated brain couldn’t handle.

One evening, though, I had committed a serious security breach by failing to lock one of the side doors on 52^nd street, where I was stationed that evening. Normally, it wouldn’t have been a problem, because I had a perfect view of the door from where I was sitting. On this particular night however, I was more tired than usual and must have accidentally dozed off. When I awoke, I was dismayed to find a scraggly old bum-like fellow staring straight at me. I could smell the guy from my seat behind the desk and the odor that emanated from him was anything but floral. His clothes looked like something he picked out of a garbage bin, and his face was filthy with the kind of foul smutz that only a place like Manhattan is capable of producing. I don’t know what pissed me off more: the fact that this dreg of humanity was invading my turf or that I was so negligent in performing my duties that I had inadvertently given every psychopath in the area access to the sweetest piece of real estate on Manhattan Island. Whatever the reason, I was peeved and was not going to let some reject from the streets cause me to get into trouble with the higher ups.

The old bum stuck out his right hand, and in between his filthy index and middle fingers held a battered cigarette that he had either scrounged off someone or found on the street.

“Got a light, buddy?” he asked in a gravelly, gin-soaked voice.

“Sir,” I said, none too courteously. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave the premises immediately. This is private property, and you are not allowed in the building after hours.”

That would show him I meant business, I thought to myself. I certainly had mastered the art of perfect bureaucratese.

“I just need a match to light my cigarette, that’s all,” he went on, obviously not bright enough to catch the malevolent tone in my voice.

“Look sir,” I said, making no attempt now to be even remotely civil, “I’ve asked you to leave the premises, and if you fail to do so immediately, I will be forced to contact the authorities.”

The old fellow just looked at me intently and then took two steps closer to the security consol, so that our faces were now only a few feet apart. There was something decidedly eerie about his appearance, and I felt a slight shudder run down my back.

Still staring me straight in the face, he began to talk. Not just any ordinary kind of talk, mind you, but a flurry of strange sentences strung together from numerous languages, living and dead. Now, I’m certainly not a linguist by any means—I could barely get through high school Spanish and Latin—but even I could tell that this man’s mastery of German, French, and Italian was incredible. There were some other languages he threw in too that I was not as familiar with—possibly Polish and Greek—and a few strange guttural languages that seemed like they belonged to another world entirely.

I sat mesmerized as this strange fellow regaled me with his linguistical litany. Then, as suddenly as he began, he stopped.

“Be careful,” he said to me, now appearing much larger and more ominous than before. “You never know who it is that you’re speaking to.”

With that simple statement, I felt my guts collapse inside me. “You never know who it is that you’re speaking to.” It is quite literally true. Who was this man? And why was someone so obviously well educated going around trying to bum a light off dopey college students posing as security guards to earn some money during their summer break.

He turned to leave the building, but I knew that it would be wrong for things to end this way.

“Just a minute sir,” I said. “I think there might be some matches in the drawer here.” The matches were exactly where I thought they would be and I gave them to him. He stuck one of them against the side on the matchbook and lit his cigarette with it.

“There’s hope for you yet, my friend,” he said as he took a long drag from his cigarette, the smoke from it creating an ethereal aura around him. “Just never forget what you’ve learned tonight.” With that he turned around and walked out of the building.

You never know who it is that you’re speaking to. For all I knew, this bedraggled old fellow could have been Jesus Christ himself, coming back for his final judgment. There was definitely something otherworldly about him, although if you asked me, either then or now, what exactly it was about him that made such an impression, I suppose I’d be hard-pressed to give you an answer.

All I know is that if Christ was planning to come back to judge the living and the dead, I seriously doubt that it would be in the form of Michelangelo’s Son of Man—so damned powerful and awe inspiring. No, my guess is that he would return to earth looking like one of the scorned and forgotten many—an HIV positive transvestite or a mentally ill cleaning woman or a Republican congressman. Or quite possibly he would come back looking like a nasty old homeless person trying to light a cigarette on a hot summer night.

And, when that happens, woe to those who fail to remember the sacred lesson I learned that evening: “Be careful. You never know who it is that you are speaking to.”

Violation in Aisle 11

.....She has stopped there, completely stopped...all three hundred and some odd pounds of her, blocking the frozen food aisle with her overstocked cart and her overbloated carcass. She is all that is standing between me and getting out of this damned supermarket in time for work.

....."Excuse me," I say in my most well-mannered, congenial voice.

.....No response from her.

....."Um, excuse me, miss," I say again, this time slightly louder. "I'm trying to get by. Would you mind moving your cart out of my way."

.....The woman finally turns around. I can see her squinty little eyes buried beneath a ton of gaudy mascara. She doesn't look happy.

....."What?" she asks.

.....I try again: "Could you please move you cart out of my way so that I can pass down the aisle. I'm running a bit late for work."

....."Humph," she snorts like a rhino expelling snot from its snout. I can actually feel the hot air coming out of her pudge nose. With all the dignity of a persecuted martyr, she grudgingly moves her cart a few inches to the side and then continues to explore the latest exciting offerings from Lean Cuisine, oblivious again to my existence.

.....The cart is still blocking my path, but I decide to make a game effort to forge on. The front of my cart pushes gently against hers, slowing moving it out of the way. Inch by inch her cart moves to the side. I'm beginning to think that I may actually be able to pass by unscathed, when the unthinkable happens: the cart brushes ever so slightly against the woman's left hip.

.....I have some vague idea of what's about to come, but I couldn't possibly have been prepared for the violent fury of it all.

.....The woman turns sharply around, her mouth twisted into a demonic grimace. Dropping the package of low fat Swedish meatballs in her hand to the ground, she clenches her fists in fury.

....."What is wrong with you?" she shouts, her voice echoing throughout the store. "Why do you keep harassing me? LEAVE ME ALONE!"

.....The sound of her piercing wail makes everyone in the store turn around at once. Then I hear a voice on the loudspeaker bark out, "Code Red in Aisle 11! Code Red in Aisle 11!" Before I can even move, the store manager comes running down the aisle, followed by three other workers, all carrying walkie-talkies.

....."What's the problem here?" the manager asks. "Is everything alright?"

....."Alright?" the woman screams, her hands now covering up her bosom. "Do you know...do you have any idea at all...what this man did to me just now?"

.....The manager, the store workers, and the customers in Aisle 11 are all standing perfectly still now, waiting to find out what sort of horrible offense I have committed.

....."Just tell us what he did, ma'am," the manager says. "We're here to help you."

....."He, he...." She stops, unable to continue.

....."Yes, ma'am? Go on. No one gonna hurt you in my store."

.....Hurt her, I think to myself. What the hell is he talking about?

.....She hangs her head as if in shame and then, with her voice quaking, she says, "He, he...violated me with the shopping cart."

.....Horrified gasps. Mothers cover up their children's ears. The men in the store clench their fists in rage.

....."He what!" the manager gasps, not completely believing what he had just heard.

....."I was standing here minding my own business when that animal violated my poor, innocent left hip with this shopping cart....right here in the frozen food section of your store."

....."Good God," the manager cries. "Not in the frozen food section! What has this world come to!"

....."Now wait just a minute!" I object. "All I was trying to do was get down the aisle."

....."Shut the hell up, you stinking degenerate," the manager says. "I've just about had all I can take of the likes of you. I'll be damned if you are going to turn this decent store into some kind of swinger's cruising area, violating the hips of innocent young women with shopping carts and other exotic paraphernalia."

....."Listen to me," I say, pleading with the mob that has begun to gather around me. "It was all an accident, an innocent mistake. I never meant to hurt anyone."

....."I bet it was a mistake," a stocky Italian fellow at the back of the crowd sneers. "Just look it him. He's got 'pervert' written all over his face. Probably got a thing for gals with big hips. I say we string him up right here in Aisle 11 just to teach a lesson to all the other fucking pervs looking to score a little supermarket action."

...."String the sick bastard up!" the crowd yells in unison.

....."Hold on, folks," the store manager says to the crowd. "We can't take the law into our own hands. Then we would be just as bad as this fellow."

....."But my left hip. I can feel it bruising up already," the woman says, tears running down her face. "Now I'll never be able to find a decent man to marry me. Who will have me after this? I'm damaged goods."

....."Now don't say that miss," says the store manager tenderly, grasping her pudgy hand. "You're still lovely, and any man would be damned happy to have a woman like you...even with your violated hip."

....."Do you mean it?" she asks, wiping the tears from her face.

....."Of course I do miss."

....."Well, I suppose that someday it will heal, and maybe I'll even be able to forget the shame I experienced because of what this disgusting man did to me. I know that it will take time, but I'm a strong woman."

.....The manager puts his arm around the woman's shoulder. "That's the right attitude miss. Whatdoyasay I take you home now and we'll let the authorities take care of this creep? If you feel up to it, maybe we can have a little dinner later on this evening. I've got a buy-one-get-one free coupon for Friendly's and I'm more than willing to share it with you."

....."Well I suppose that I will have to eat eventually," she says, "and nothing cheers me up quite so much as going out for a really fancy dinner."

.....They walk out of the store together hand in hand, and I can see them getting into the manager's rusty Honda Civic just as the police car pulls up in front of the store.

....."I hear we have a sexual predator in the store," the policeman says, his right hand reaching for the gun in his holster.

....."Here's right over here, officer," a store worker shouts, pointing me out to him.

....."You people did good work," the police officer says. "There no telling what a violent pervert like this might do to children or small animals."

....."Buddy," he says to me, as he puts the handcuffs on. "You're going to be paying for this hideous crime for a very, very long time."

.....The crowd disperses as I am led out of the store. They are content with how justice has been served. Now there will be one less violent criminal lurking in the frozen food section of the local supermarket, and a generously proportioned woman with a violated left hip and limited marital prospects will experience a night of sweet passion with a small, slightly balding store manager.

.....End of story.

there was a boy who smelled like cheese

Here is my completely vulgar version of "The Boy Who Smelled Like Cocoa." Same general theme, different smell, and completely different attitude.

there was
............a boy
............who smelt like
cheese—
.............not just
.....................any kind-a cheese,
........but a............fully ripened,
........highly aromatic
................................cheese,
........like some kind-a
.......................gorgonzola
.............fuckin' kind-a
......................................cheese.

he sat
........in the seat right next to me
on the
.........bx-55 going to pelham bay,
and I thought
.........the smell of him
.........would drive me
................completely bonkers,
because he smelt like,
......................well,
...........................cheese.

“boy,”
.............I said,
“can’t you go
.......sit down

............somewhere else
....on this bus,
so I don’t have
..........t’smell............your cheesy
....................smell?”
but the boy
..............just looked at me
.........with a sad
............sort-a look
................. ‘n said,
“man,
.......you need some
..................beautiful stank
.....in yo life,
.......‘cause
.................you is jes too fuckin’ clean
.................fo this world.
.................you is so clean dat
.................even........yo........asshole
...........don’t stank
................da way
.....................it should."

at that
...........i shed a small tear
........................for myself
...................and all humanity
........................because I realized
he had
....cheesy righteousness in abundance
.............and i
.............had none
.............at all.
I tried to
.......to thank him
...............for his
...............ripe counsel,
but when I turned around
.........he was gone,
.........pooof,
...............disappeared right off
.........................the bx 55
...............bus to paradise.

And nothing remained
.........at all
.........of that.......small.........boy,
.............................(saintly sage of
.............................putrid profundity),
not even
........the slightest hint
....................of his cheesy aura.

Trouble Communicating

".......................................................!"
............, ".......................................................................???"
"................................!.............................................
".........................................and..................................!!!"
"..............................?..........................?...........................???"
................,".....................................every goddamn word!"

A charming and witty piece in which the poet, a man of obvious depth and tremendous perspicacity, attempts to distill the essence of human relationships through the use of profound dialogue, skillful observation, and penetrative insight, revealing—in a subtle and ingenious manner worthy of literary luminaries such as Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer—that the human condition is fundamentally absurd and true intimacy, whether between members of the same or opposite sex, completely illusionary.

he said,
she said,
‘nuff said.

Small Package

Street scene: They bump into each other on Broadway. Eyes meet. Pleasantries are exchanged. They fall in love almost instantly.
.....“I’ve waited my whole life for a girl like you,” the man says.
.....“I fell in love with you the minute I saw your blues eyes staring down at me,” she says.
.....“It’s just like some kind of fairy tale,” he replies.
.....“Like Cinderella and Prince Charming.”
.....“…or Brad and Angelina.”
.....“You don’t mind that I’m a little person?” she asks.
.....“Not at all,” he answers, holding her tiny hand in his. “I’ve always favored petite women.”
.....“Some men are turned off by my size,” she says with obvious embarrassment.
.....“That’s nonsense,” he says. “Wonderful things come in small packages.”
.....“I’m glad you feel that way,” she says.
.....“Listen,” he says with some hesitation, not wanting to appear too aggressive. ”I know this fabulous little bistro on 12th street. Would you consider having lunch there with me?”
.....“But we’re on 48th street,” she replies with alarm. “It’s such a long walk, and I have such small legs.”
.....“That’s no problem at all,” he says confidently. “Allow me…” Then he picks her up and puts her snugly in his shirt pocket.
.....“Comfy?” he asks.
.....“Extremely,” she replies, admiring his angular chin from her seat inside his pocket. “I just hope I’m not too heavy for you.”
.....“Heavy?” he says. “Why my cellphone is heavier than you are.”
.....“You’re so funny,” she giggles coyly. “What did I ever do to deserve a man like you?”
.....“No, I’m the lucky one,” he insists. “I’ve always wanted a pocket-sized girlfriend.”
.....“I also fit in glove compartments and handbags,” she adds with evident pride.
.....“This is going to be the perfect relationship,” he says as they stroll down Broadway. “Just think of how much I’m going to save on the price of movie admissions.”

It Happened on the E Train

Fat man on the E Train. The AC is not working and the car is sweltering. The inside temperature must be close to 90 degrees. Rivers of sweat pour down the man’s face; his suit is drenched with perspiration. It is so hot that he is having trouble breathing. “Two more stops to 52nd street and I’ll finally be off this infernal train,” he thinks to himself optimistically. But, for no apparent reason, the train suddenly stops in the tunnel between 23rd street and 34th street. The conductor assures the passengers that the train will be moving soon, but the car continues to remain motionless in the tunnel. With every minute they are sitting idle in the tunnel, the temperature in the train rises another degree. An hour goes by, and then another. Still no sign at all that the train will be moving any time soon. Gallons of fluid continue to pour from the man’s body, like a great waterfall. Finally the train begins to move. When the doors open at 34th street, all that remains of the man is his $1,200 Brooks Brother’s suit and his black patent leather loafers lying in a puddle on the floor of the train. Maintenance crews quickly mop up the water, and the suit and shoes are donated to a local charity providing free counseling sessions to maladjusted French poodles.

Twelve Set Pieces for Raising Interplanetary Conciousness

1. Do the mad moonlight mambo in the dead of night with the feral cats in fedoras hanging out by the pool tables. If they refuse your request to dance, threaten to take away their cigarettes and catnip.

2. Drink two gallons of Cherry-Berry Kool-Aid as quickly as you can and wait at least 30 minutes without going to the bathroom. Go to the corner and walk down the street backwards while urinating. See if you can do this the whole way down the block without pissing on your suede shoes. Note: This piece does not work well for women, unless they were born in Southern New Jersey.

3. Creature comforts must all be left behind on the journey for personal and planetary perfection. Tighten your loincloth for the quest and take only what can be carried comfortably in the space between your spleen and your kidney. For safety, keep your passport hidden at all times in one of the folds in your large intestine.

4. Rave, rave, then rave some more…like the mad, manic ones who rule the galaxy from afar. If you rave loudly enough the mother ship will suddenly appear to take you back to your homeworld.

5. Every minute of your life is a swift descent into the grave. You can forestall the inevitable demise, but only if you follow the methods of the great Himalayan sadus: Go to the sacred spot on the river where they burn the shrouded corpses, strip down, and spread the ashes of the dead all over your body. Then start walking due north until you come to the place at the foot of the sacred mountain where the holy ones dwell. Stand there perfectly still until the end of the Kali Yuga in approximately 10,000 years. You will be old and decrepit by that time, but your thighs will be absolutely amazing from standing in one place for so long.

6. To prevent gaseous emission from occurring during interplanetary trips—totally unpleasant for your fellow travelers—be sure to get plenty of sleep the night before you depart, eat a healthy lunch of mustard greens with wasabi and ginger no more than two hours before you get on the spacecraft, take 6mgs of Lotromitiozol every four hours to prevent air pockets from forming in your bowls, and be sure to keep yourself properly hydrated during the flight by continuously drinking either diet Dr. Pepper or Orange Squeeze……Or just take a shit instead.

7. Above all else, never, and I mean never, try to kiss the thin-lipped octopuses who sunbathe in the rocky coves on the fifth continent of the third planet in the fourth solar system (no matter how cute they might seem in their bathing suits!) They rarely are satisfied with just a kiss, and you will inevitably loose your self-respect and your reputation. If you find it impossible to say no to their charms, at least insist that they buy you a drink afterwards.

8. It has been said that seed should never be scattered on rocky ground, but this is a lie. I say, scatter yours far and wide wherever you can, and watch as the evil yellow weeds creep up from the cracks in the ground where they fell. Those weeds are strong, much stronger than the shoots that spring from wimpy mustard seeds. They eat mustard plants for breakfast and small children for lunch.

9. Pull the daisy out of your ass. It has already been fertilized, so it should grow fairly quickly in properly prepared soil.

10. On one of the stalls in the men’s restroom at the rest stop off Route 111 on Seti 9 someone wrote: “For a good time, call Schlomo Golberg at 001-000472-234-7707." But anyone who knows Schlomo will tell you he’s definitely not worth the money, even with his additional fifth appendage.

11. When you get back home, and your mother asks you where you’ve been for the past three months, just tell her that you were on an interplanetary mission to explore strange new life on a planet called Earth in a distant solar system called the Milky Way. When your mother slaps you across your fifth cheek with her left dorsal fin for lying to her, tell her instead that you were out on a continual bender with the boys and were unconscious most of the time so you couldn’t call her. This should appease her and may spare you from getting your schnitzula beaten raw with her clitemzola minkscoffy.

12. When you see him, tell Pauley Ragutso that he still owes me $12.50 for the beer I got him last week. If he refuses to give you the money, tie him up in a sack with George W. Bush, and beat the sack vigorously at least 17 times with a tire iron. This will accomplish absolutely nothing but is great exercise for the shoulders and upper back.

Killing Robert Frost

Creative Writing Project Based on Robert Frost's "Stopping in the Woods on a Snowy Evening"

Submitted by: Billy Slotnick [7th Grade]

___________

"Whose woods are THESE

I think I know.

His house is by the village
.............................though (rhymes
..........with snnnnoooow
.............and woe,
.....................but also toe) [Very clever use of rhyme!!!]

He will not see me

STOPPING SHOPPING here

to wacth [note typo!]
his woods fill up with
.........................snow" (also rhymes with
BLOW (ya know?) !!!!!!!!!
..........................!!!!!!!!!!! >>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What sorta SHIT [avoid profanity!]

..............is this

ANY........................WAY

............................................????

Poetry should come from the

.............H

...............E

.................A

...................R

.....................T [very charming!]

or at least from

the little area

...............................between

your belly button

..................................and the

tip of yr -----> [Your what? Be explicit. Remember, poetry is all about detail.]

,not from yr gdamn head, [Use correct punctuation!]
.....................dumbass [Extremely offensive! Robert Frost is one of this country's greatest poets and a true American hero. How dare you besmirch his noble character in such a derogatory manner!]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

^^^^

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yr so-called posey
............................ain't worth
the price of a
.........diet coke

and that shit's

...poison anyway
just like yr
..................fucking writing
[Now you are insulting the Coca Cola Corporation - a fine American institution - as well as Mr. Frost. Shame on you! And, by the way, I myself am a fan of diet beverages, which I am forced to drink because of glandular problems!]

Frost,
you sorry old,
..........piece a,
..............................pot a,
................pile a
dried up

..........................................mildew, [Surprising imagery. very nice!]
drop the rhyme and meter
and just get on with
the D A M N

..............................point.

I get it

...........already...

The old bugger is

.........sad n lonely.

Well, so the fuck am I, [language!]

but you don't hear me

..................bitching bout it.

Die,

,,,,,,,,Robert Frost,

............. DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[If you were listening during class instead of doodling, you would realize that Mr. Frost died some time ago, although he lives on in the magnificent works of poetry which he has so generously bequeathed us.]

POETRY SUCKS!

METAL RULES! [A dubious proposition to be sure!]

__________________________

Billy, let's chat about this after school. Your poetry shows definite improvement since the beginning of the year, but I still think that you are bottling up your feelings too much. Remember, poetry is about catharsis. Let the lovely child inside of yourself come though in your writing. Why not try writing your next poem about flowers, a luscious verdant valley in springtime, or perhaps the sweet pangs of innocent first love? You might enjoy it!!!

- Mrs. Feldstein

Planet Killer

It just wasn’t right. In fact it would never be right again. The sky was blackened even though it was the middle of the day. The bodies of the fallen were lying on the streets in various stages of decay. The smell was unbearable.
.....All around him was death, destruction and utter devastation. The world he knew had disappeared, almost as though it had never really existed. Love, commitment, the small pleasures of family life….these all belonged to a past that was becoming a fading memory.

.....It was all blackness and despair.
.....But what made it even worse was the reality that he was the one who had caused all the misery around him. He was the destroyer. He was the cancer that doomed the planet.
.....It wasn’t supposed to be this way. All he ever wanted was to live a decent life, to fit in, to be a good American. Just like everyone else.
.....Those lying on the ground rotting were really the lucky ones. They didn’t have to see the fruits of the evil that he had released from the dark nether regions. He did.
.....He really couldn’t escape from the reality of the situation, no matter how hard he tried. Even if he put a bullet into his head, he would still be haunted forever—haunted by the realization that this tragedy could have turned out differently if he had just thought things through a bit more.
.....“If I had just not gone to McDonald's that day,” he thought to himself, “then none of this would have happened.” But the lure of the Big Mac Value meal ($4.99 including large fries and a soft drink) had gotten the best of him. Not only did he have the value meal, but he felt compelled to top it off with a McFlurry for dessert. “That’s what probably really did the planet in,” he speculated to himself. But in reality, any single part of that meal—the hamburger with the goopy sauce and wilted lettuce, the golden fries that tasted like no natural potatoes he ever tasted before, the supersized soda in the reusable “High School Musical” cup, or the sweet, delicious McFlurry with its irresistible toppings—any of these could have been the culprit.
.....He gorged himself that day until his belly felt ready to explode. It was then the strange sensation hit him all of a sudden and without any warning. He made it to the bathroom just in time and thought that his troubles were behind him. But he was wrong about that—tragically wrong. For out of his bowels that day sprang the hideous creature brought to life by the dark, secret experiments of the McDonald’s Corporation® (please note that neither the McDonalds Corporation nor any of its affiliates bears any responsibility for acts of planetary devastation caused by the consumption of its food products). That creature entered the sewer system and joined up with its fiendish friends who had escaped from the intestines of other value meal fans and linked up together to form

A MONSTROUS AND DIABOLICAL ENTITY

THAT ENDED ALL LIFE ON EARTH

AS WE KNOW IT

...all life, that is, except that of the one man who had caused all this to happen in the first place. A man who ironically appeared to be resistant to the nasty pathogen that turned everyone else on the planet into those stinking heaps of genetically modified protein-like substance that were now rotting in the midday heat.
.....“If only I had thought things through,” he repeated to himself, “if only I had resisted the urge to fill my belly with cheap, unwholesome food, then quite possibly we’d all have been spared this. I suppose I could have had a bean burrito instead. As far as I know, there are no horrible, genetically fabricated monsters lurking in that kind of food.”
.....But it was too late for bean burritos now. Or tofu stirfrys. Or veggy lasagna. Or any heart-healthy, ecologically sustainable fare. He had to have McDonald's and now the entire world was doomed to a slow agonizing death and all human achievements were wiped out in the twinkling of an eye.
.....“Well,” he thought to himself, “if the world had to end anyway, I’m glad that I had the Big Mac and not just a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.”

Redemption

The women in the office keep telling me that I’m not sentimental enough. So to prove them wrong, I thought I’d try writing something romantic for a change.


Mr. Morris Jellenick was the ultimate nobody—the kind of fellow who inspired contempt in others because of the utter pointlessness of his life.
.....Every morning for the past thirty years, his wife, Costanza, would remind him of just how insignificant he actually was. “If you were any less of a man,” she’d say to him, “you’d have breasts and a vagina”. Or, “I’d tell you to grow a pair of testicles, but they wouldn’t be any use to you anyway.”
.....And every morning, he would try to ignore her rants, focusing with studied intensity on the high fiber, low fat breakfast cereal he was forced to eat to keep his cholesterol levels down. “I’m just going to eat my breakfast quietly and, as it is written in the Good Book, turn the other cheek,” he’d say to himself. But every time Morris tried to turn the other cheek to his wife’s incessant abuse, she would slap him across the face with her meaty hand.
.....At his job, working as a quality control manager at the local bubble-wrap factory, Morris was subject to similar abuse. “Hey, Morris, “ his colleagues would joke, “what sort of sick stuff do you do those rolls of bubble-wrap you’re always foolin’ around with in the back office?…I hear there’s a lonely roll in the warehouse that keeps askin’ for your telephone number. Har, har, har….”
.....But Morris ignored their cruel barbs and offered his sufferings up to Christ. “If our savior could endure the cross,” Morris would remind himself, “then surely I can suffer this with equanimity.” And he would go on examining roll after roll of bubble-wrap for defects, reciting the rosary in his head to drown out the endless insults of his coworkers.
.....Every Saturday morning, Morris would go to confession at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows Church in Perth Amboy to confess his sins to Fr. Marchese, the local parish priest. The problem was that Morris didn’t have any really interesting sins to confess and this irritated Fr. Marchese considerably. One day, Fr. Marchese had more than his normal usual amount of scotch for breakfast, and was feeling particularly sadistic when Morris came into the confessional.
.....“Bless me father for I have sinned,” Morris began as usual. “It has been one week since my last confession.”
.....“Lemme guess,” Fr. Marchese slurred, barely able to hold his head up from all the booze he had consumed. “You weren’t as understanding as you could have been with your bitch of a wife and you bought yourself a cup of coffee at Starbucks instead of putting the money into the collection plate.”
.....“How did you know father?” Morris asked with amazement.
.....“Because, you pathetic piece of shit,” snapped Fr. Marchese, unable to control himself any longer, “you come in here every week, and every week you have the same goddamn idiotic sins to confess. And the sad part is that they’re not really sins at all. I know 70 year old Italian widows who have more sordid things to confess than you do!”
.....“What are you trying to say, Father?” Morris asked completely befuddled.
.....“What I’m trying to say,” said Fr. Marchese, doing all he could to prevent himself from sliding out of his chair and onto the floor, “is that I don’t want to see you again until you have something to confess that is going to provide me some legitimate titillation. You think it’s easy being a priest. This is all I have—well this and the occasional altar boy—and if I don’t get to hear something really juicy, then, goddamn it, you are going to be banned from the confessional.” With that Fr. Marchese slumped over in his chair and began snoring loudly. Confession was over for that particular day.
.....“Well I guess that if a holy man like Fr. Marchese thinks that it would aid my spiritual life to commit some flagrant act of sin, then I suppose I should consider it,” Morris postulated. “Men of God always know what’s best for members of their flock.”
.....When he got home after Church, Morris locked himself in the bathroom to avoid being disturbed by his wife and thought carefully about all the possible sins he could commit. There were a number of options that he though might satisfy Fr. Marchese’s need for titillation. He quickly ruled out murder, blackmail and larceny, because he was just not that kind of person, and eventually settled on adultery as a suitably offensive choice. But who to have an affair with? He married his wife right out of college and hadn’t had much experience with women before or since. Mrs. Castorini, one of his neighbors was a definite possibility, but he struck her off his list when he remembered that she was a heavy drinker and he normally passed out after one or two glasses of wine.
.....But thinking about Mrs. Castorini made him think about another member of her family who might be open to his advances: Zoey, yes, sweet Zoey. Zoey, that wild young creature, whom he had admired for years from across his picket fence as she lounged in the sun on his neighbor’s lawn. Sure, she was a bit young for him, but that just made it all the more enticing.
.....“It’s set then,” he said to himself. “I’ll have an adulterous affair so that I can have at least one decent sin to confess to Fr. Marchese, and it will be with Zoey.” She was young; she was fresh; she was cute; she was feisty. She was everything that he could possibly want in an illicit sexual partner—the complete opposite of his wife in almost every way.
.....The fact that Zoey was the Castorini’s pet Shih Tzu made the prospect even more intriguing. “When I got married, I settled for a woman who was beneath me. If I’m going to have an affair,” he though, “it might as well be someone classy, someone with proper breeding.” And Zoey was definitely a pure breed through and through.
.....He wasted no time making his advances, treating Zoey to gourmet packets of Alpo’s finest treats, and buying her extravagant gifts, like a new diamond studded collar and designer lavender-scented flea powder. Although she resisted at first because of their obvious age difference, Zoey eventually became as smitten by Morris as he was by her. She was even willing to defy Mr. And Mrs. Castorini, who were dubious about the long-term prospects for the relationship. “He’s a married man,” Mr. Castorini would remind her. “And a member of a different species besides,” his wife added. But nothing the Castorinis said could dampen the ardor that had developed between Morris and Zoey.
.....When Mrs. Jellenick found out about the affair, she was shocked that someone as bland as her husband could attract an obviously upscale type like Zoey. “How can I possibly get him back from her,” she wined to her friends. “She’s so sophisticated. Her coat always has such a fine sheen.”
.....“Don’t worry, hon,” her best friend, Magda, counseled. “He’ll get tired of her kind eventually. She may be cute, but I hear from the girls in the neighborhood that she can be a real bitch.”
.....The guys at work were similarly amazed that a devout fellow like Morris would be bold enough to flaunt his adulterous liaison in public, and tried as best they could to downplay Zoey’s considerable charms.
.....“Everyone keeps talking about how hot she is,” said Tony Saccamano in shipping with utter contempt. “But personally I think she’s a fucking dog.”
.....“If I was going to have an affair,” added Bill from accounting, "it sure as hell wouldn’t be with any Shih Tzu. I wouldn’t settle for anything less than a Yorkshire Terrier. Now, that’s real class.”
.....But as much as everyone kept trying to downplay Morris’ achievement in bagging a foxy young thing like Zoey, they really couldn’t help but notice the changes that had come over him as a result of his affair. Even Fr. Marchese was suitably impressed when Morris confessed his flagrante delicto to him during their next session in the confessional. “Well,” Fr. Marchese admitted grudgingly, “if you had to commit a sin, having an affair with an under-aged house pet is probably as good as any. I don’t remember any specific prohibitions against interspecies intimacy in either the Old or the New Testament, but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that this does qualify as a legitimate act of adultery. I’m giving you a 9/10 for the effort. Now say ten Hail Mary’s, five Our Father’s, and make sure to come back and see me next week to fill me in on any new developments.”
.....I wish that I could report that Morris and Zoey’s relationship remained as passionate as it was during the first few blissful weeks of their courtship. But Zoey, I’m afraid, was not by nature the monogamous type. One day, while Morris was out getting his morning newspaper, he accidentally spied her sniffing the crotch of a hunky neighborhood pit bull. And that was the end of their relationship.
.....Morris’ story did not turn out as badly as you might expect, however. Following the advice of Fr. Marchese, Morris started cruising the neighborhood in search of a new object for his affections. Although he had a few dates with a sultry iguana he met in a local pet store, he found kissing someone with such a long tongue surprisingly awkward. A blind date with a pot-bellied pig from the local petting zoo proved equally disappointing.
.....Then once day, when all hope seemed lost, Morris bumped into a pious little Chihuahua name Carmen during a novena he was attending at Church. Once they got beyond the language barrier and the obvious cultural differences, they discovered that they had an awful lot in common. Like Morris, Carmen had a special devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe and a sad history with prior relationships. She had dated a German shepherd, named Gert, off and on for many years, but her mother forced her to break off their engagement because he wasn’t Catholic.
.....Although she was a bit old by Morris’ standards—she had just turned eight in August—Carmen had the kind of maturity that someone like Zoey (for all her considerable charms) lacked. Besides, she made amazing churros. The two were married by Fr. Marchese on the Feast of the Circumcision and have been together ever since. You can often find them sitting hand-in-paw on the front porch together, lazily sipping tequila and lime, and, when the mood strikes them, howling at the moonlight in between decades of the rosary.