#118

     How Do You Make Love?

"We know more about Saturn than ourselves, 
and more about the periodic chart than our own heart."
          --Anastasia Andrews

How do you make love
stay,
or go away?

How do you make love
heal, or tell if it's real,
well bred, or head 
over heels? 

How do you make love
from scratch,
make lovers
meet their match?

How do you make love
period, or 
apart?

How do you make love
with a periodic
chart?

How do you make love
with me?
Start.
Periodically.


#130

"I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I
cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar."
	~ Robert Brault ~.

Becoming Apparent

It is becoming apparent
that I am a parent,

and becoming a parent
is becoming to me,

apparently.  I am
becoming transparent.

You can see through me,
my future and my history,

running around at 2 foot 3,
"Jack, did you hear me?"

I am sound-proof, too,
"Dad, hold this.  Oooh!"

A bulletin board of human cork,
who suggested I take this fork

in the road of life?  
Must've been my wife.

#131

"...what many see we call a real thing, 
and what only one sees we call a dream."
	--C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

Shaken, Not Stirred

          1.

I like my memories
mixed like martinis:
shaken, not stirred, 
with just a touch of  
the truth.

          2.

Removing sand
from the playground
one hand-
ful at 
a time.


          3.

Picking up clods of mud
shaped perfectly like bricks of gold
bullion, fallen from the
treads of the caterpillar, 
digging the foundation 
of the house next door.

#135

"Whoever thinks much is not suitable as a party member: 
he soon thinks himself right through the party."
	--Nietzsche

Gentle Magenta

Gentle magenta
rhododendron bush,
did you see it push 
me out the window?
Not accidental,
man, I didn't jump.

Prettier than pink,
more risque than red. 
While trying to work,
man, it turned my head
from this blinking screen,
which will never mean

a millionth of a 
many-colored thing
to me, compared to
the manpower of 
gentle magenta,
mysterious flower,

paid my attention,
not by the hour.

*Note: A true story written in sylabbic verse, with 2.5 syllables per line.

#136

"The word boredom did not enter the language until the eighteenth century...
Boredom is the self being stuffed with itself." --Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book

The Chairman of the Bored

I am the Chairman of the Bored,
The top executive and lord
Over the realm of tedium.
I put the hum back in hum-drum.

I am the envoy of ennui,
None is more qualified than me
To bore a group of people stiff,
Bore them to tears and/or to death.

Long-drawn, wordy, and verbose,
I'm more mediocre than most.
Bland, insipid, tiring, flat,
Long-windedness is where I'm at.

So keep this little thought in mind,
When you're at work and wasting time:
I supervise your sluggish plight.
The patent and the copyright

To absolutely nothing at all
Is mine alone.  Bill Gates is small
Compared to me.  And anyone
Who's ever twiddled a single thumb

Owes me respect and royalties.
But he who would switch loyalties
Will be condemned to useful work,
And be demoted to a clerk

For the Secretary of the State
Of Consciousness, who'll captivate
You with this heretical view:
Boredom can be cured with things to do.

*Note:  No connection to the late Frank Sinatra is intended.  This is a revised version of an old poem some of the earlier Muse
readers may have already seen.