Thursday, December 31, 2009

doing it





"do it, bill."
"i'm not sure i want to"
""you have to."
"i'm not ready yet."
"just do it, bill. it's required."
"but - "
"you have no choice."
"oh, all right."
"that's better."
bill did it.
"next!"

"what's your name?"
"bob."
"what's your number?"
"1-3373-7637-6598-6881"
"that's a prime number."
"so they tell me"
"you mean you can't tell yourself?"
"not really."
"not very bright, are you?"
"i guess."
"you guess? not really? not much for explicit statements, are you, bob?"
"if you say so."
"you're a pretty poor excuse for an excuse, did anyone ever tell you that?'
"not until you came along. you're a big meanie. "



"that's all well and good, bob, but are you ready to do it? are you ready to step up?"
"no."
"no? just no?"
"i was trying to be explicit."
"good one. score one for bob."
"thank you."
"back to square one. seriously, all joking aside, are you ready to do it?"
"not really. i would prefer not to."
"let there be no misunderstanding here. you are going to do it if we have to sit here all month. but if we have to do that, if we have to sit here for a month or a year, there will be some very annoyed people, only beginning with me. do you understand?"
"more or less."
"are you ready to do it?"
"yes."
"good."
bob did it.
"next!"



"what's your name?"
"buck."
"what's your number?"
"2-4595-3941-7845-3674."
"that's a pretty tedious number."
"whatever."
"i like your attitude, buck. are you ready to do it?"
"absolutely. put me in, coach."
"all right. did you hear that, stanley? buck is a hero. congratulations, buck, you're our first hero of the day."
"let's do it."
buck did it.
"next!"

"what's your name?"
"buddy."
"what's your number?"






Saturday, December 26, 2009

sometimes you can't go home again even though you never left





a friendly fish named frank
always stayed near the surface of the tank
the vast vistas of human faces
in his mind always stirred up traces
of an empire that long ago sank


if the comte de sade came back to earth
and saw the new cosmos giving birth
oceans of pornography
vampire novels from sea to sea
what would his dreams be worth?


an unknown prophet named slim
couldn't swim
he was thrown in the water
but old pharoan's daughter
just turned up her nose at him


blind potato murphy played the blues
he walked the hills of ireland in his alligator shoes
he drank poteen
dreamt of fair kathleen
and paid his union dues


bob, a humble barracuda
sought the path of the true buddha
a dinosaur banging a big brass gong
followed as he walked along
and quite destroyed his mood, ah


a sunfish named stagger lee
lived in the depths of the sea
a sea lion named bob (or was it billy?)
thought his paraphilological positions were silly
and never invited poor stack to tea


an electric eel named ed
wore a path to perdition on his head
he didn't know its approximate cause
so he kept it wrapped in gauze
and took another med


a platypus named roy
was no stranger to ecstatic joy
he could feel the earths heart beat
beneath his wary webbed feet
but his demeanor remained quite coy