Rock and Hard Place
A ledge makes a sharp, cutting fulcrum
Unnatural to my center of gravity
Perched upon a destiny
Invites hindsight to laugh--giddy and cruel
All the life behind me
Leans me forward toward the sounds of traffic
All of the relief before me
Is only halfheartedly resistant
What's known, the past, is solid
With consequences etched in stone
What's not lies ahead, with lies
The future is a hard place
Is there a point
Not quite in free fall
Not quite in retreat
Where I can continue, laughing, too?
Yes Things and No Things
He admired her for her beauty. Yes, things were important to him, yet she was tired of being his sweet, young thing.
"What's wrong, my love?"
"Nothing."
"Really? Nothing?"
"No, nothing."
"Nothing at all?"
"I said nothing. Let me put on my makeup, OK?"
"We don't have to go, you know."
"No. You said you wanted to go. They'll all be there."
"I know you don't like them. We really don't have to go."
"I said I would, so I will."
"So everything's OK?"
"Yea."
"Nothing's wrong?"
"Are you starting again?"
"No, Nevermind. Nothing."
"Nothing? Really? That's what you think?"
"Something's wrong, isn't there?"
She didn't hear him, because she was no longer there. Of the things he still had, she was no thing.
Grand Tour: Voyager Returns
February 4
Flung centripetal
Kissing the god of the underworld
Forever frozen
In exotic outlying sublimations
May 4
En route to the hellscape
Of the goddess of love
That averages with Hades
Inspiring tepidity
July 4
'Til the kiss with Aphrodite
Begins and ends in gilded guilt
With a hot tongue betwixt
That can melt lead, defeating alchemy
October 4
Slingshot centrifugal
Eyeing verdancy
And an entire spectrum
From yellow to green
...and per annum
...red to orange
...and blue to the forevers of ultraviolet...
Simple Arithmetic
Fertilization, in vitro
Was our last chance
To reproduce sans libido
Or passion, or romance
Technology overshot
When we sono-confirmed
Five heartbeats, five argonauts
On their voyage to term
T'was ordered an injunction
Via abortive injections
For selective reduction
And elective selections
Three were obliging enough
To give access to their worlds
And terminate in a puff
Leaving two, now free to unfurl
"Why are we twins here;
Why were we the two who were born?
Why did we not disappear:
Because ours were the hardest to perform?"
"We are here, are we not?
Because we weren't easy to discard
But we no longer hear
The pulse of triplets onboard."
How do parents explain
Children who were put,
Then sent away again
And didn't make the cut?
____________
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Whether one is pro-life or pro-choice, the whole concept of "selective reduction" of a multiple-gestation is a philosophical mindbender.
The "Octomom" pretty much ended the practice of inserting many embryos to increase the odds of some surviving; especially since IVF technology had improved with better odds of all surviving.
Thus, allowing more than one or two embryos of a multiple gestation to proceed, after an overachievement in assisted reproduction (i.e., in vitro fertilization), was fraught with too many "taking"--and then surviving--until preterm labor or complications tragically doomed them all.
Yet, pro-choice mothers, with selective reduction, abort babies that they wanted at the outset. And pro-life mothers have to choose to renounce their philosophy (or religion!) in order to save the babies who would remain after the selective reduction.
Imagine the dilemma for all who think too hard on this issue: a couple with infertility, desperate to have a baby--to have a family--only to have to "deal" with babies they wanted.
Confused? Understandable.
But the thing that may be the most disturbing is that the choice of which babies to "reduce" (ironic semantics: how do you "reduce" a baby?) is made on which amniotic sac is the most accessible. That is, the most convenient fetal sac to get into with an injection of an abortive. The others, the hardest to get to, thus become the lucky ones. And terms like collateral damage come to mind.
I tried my best not to make this poem sound tongue-in-cheek, which rhyme (which I can't resist) often risks. But I did want some angst to fall out of it, especially when you have to explain to a child that they were just as likely to have been the unlucky ones as their theoretical brothers/sisters turned out to be. They will realize that it was just how they implanted in their mother's uterus--that made so crucial an existential call. And a capricious one, at that.
I've tried to reconcile the thinking on this, but I've come to the conclusion that it can't be done.
Because it's a paradox.
You and Me
"I was you in a previous life," Hunter said--casually, matter-of-factly, even incidentally as he stacked the Lego blocks. I blew it off, and we finished the Lego truck.
"Why do we have to build?" he asked.
"We don't," I answered. "But it's how we live. We keep making things better and bigger."
"Oh," he replied. Five-year-olds typically accept the first answer that is delivered in a serious tone of good faith.
I went to the kitchen to help with the dishes when she, just as casually, said, "Hunter said he was you in a previous life."
"I know," I said. "He told me that, too."
"You don't find that weird?"
"He's five. File it away with the unicorns he's obsessed with."
"I suppose," she said, "but, still, it's strange. How he knows things."
"Like what?"
"Like how you used to sell Cutco knives in college, before you met me."
"That is strange. Anything else?"
"Yea, plenty."
"Really?"
"How your mother was killed by a drunk driver; how you had a drug problem that got you fired from your first job. Things like that."
"Wow. Weird. He probably just heard us talking."
"I don't think so. I don't think he heard us talking about how I had to prop up my pelvis after sex because that's what the doctor said. And it worked, and we had him."
"Now you're scaring me."
"I think most parents have stories like this, don't they?" she asked.
"No. Not like this," I replied. I was scared.
Hunter was watching Paw Patrol in the other room. I called him into the kitchen, and he came running. We had forgotten his ice cream and he must have figured on that. My wife handed him his treat.
"Hunter," I said. "You were me?"
"Yea," he said.
"Before?"
"Before I was born, but now, too."
"You must mean someone from a long time ago," my wife clarified.
"No," he said, "from right now."
"I don't get it," I admitted. "How can that be? I'm here now, and you say you lived a previous life?"
"Yes, Daddy; I was you."
"How long were you me?"
"Till you died," he answered.
"When was that?" I asked.
"Not for a while," Hunter replied. "Not till September 5, 2042."
We were both dumbstruck.
"But don't worry, Daddy," he answered. You'll just be me. Bigger and better? It's how we live, right?"
Inadequate Prep
It was to be a routine colonoscopy, but I died.
A brightly lit, red-carpeted corridor lay ahead of me. Along the way were many doors. Curious, I opened one of them to see a tableau of a moment of my life which wasn't particularly praiseworthy. I shut it.
Summoning intestinal fortitude, I tried another door--again, it wasn't pretty. I became worried, being as I was dead. Someone obviously had rolled out red carpet for me, but what was behind the doors wasn't particularly welcoming.
Finally, I opened a door to a wonderful scene from my past. I was humble, magnanimous, altruistic, and generous. I was putting myself second or third or fourth. I looked good!
This encouraged me to open more, a passing-in-review of sorts. Relieved, I found more doors opened to exemplary life-scenes than shameful ones. That's fair, isn't it? Everyone's life has good and bad.
Everyone learns along the way.
Learning--mine was validated by more good visions presenting than bad. Yes, I had learned! I still opened a few doors to stinkers, but the scale was tipping my way.
I came to the end, where, I saw in "the light," dead relatives--mother, father, others. They were smiling and welcoming, but behind them a grim man stared at me.
I pushed my way through to confront him.
"Sir?"
"Yes," he responded. "I'm here reporting to you."
"About?"
"About your soul." I swallowed hard. "You see," he continued, "not all of yourself will see Paradise. There are parts of you that will go...elsewhere."
"Elsewhere?"
"That doesn't concern your good parts. We don't take the good with the bad here. Hope that's acceptable."
Thinking here was instantaneous: I won't be separated--dissected! The bad had made me the good person I am. They're a part of me, too.
"All or none," I answered. "I must be true to myself."
"Fine," he said, with finality.
I awoke in the Recovery Room.
"I'm afraid we weren't able to complete your colonoscopy," the gastroenterologist apologized. "Too much debris--feces--on your colon walls."
My epiphany: You can't see good tissue through crap; alternatively, the good through the bad.
"Your purge failed," he went on. "I'm afraid your bowel prep was inadequate. We'll reschedule you again and this time order a 2-day prep."
Another prep, my ass!
My epiphany matured: It's not "you are what you eat"; it's "you are what you keep."
Pins and Screws and Eyes of Needles — Oh, My!
Under general anesthesia, the urologist pressed Peter Harper's testicles along his inguinal canals until they reached the final bottlenecks of swollen inguinal rings.
“It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven,” he said under his breath. Peter Harper was indeed very rich.
“What?” asked the anesthesiologist.
“Eye of the needle,” he repeated, pressing gloved thumbs on each bulge. He forced Harper's gonads, squeezing them forward until wringing them through, bruised, into their familiar resting places.
“Those are surely gonna be sore for a while,” the urologist said, transferring care to the orthopedic surgeon who prepared plaster of Paris to immobilize Harper's pelvic ring. He hoped the six separate fractures and disarticulated femur head would heal with the help of a dozen titanium pins and screws.
No one had informed them just how Harper had sustained these injuries, by now requiring six units of blood. Car accident vs being impaled by falling onto something were the leading guesses.
After the orthopedic surgeon shaped the plaster girdle, strategically windowed for bodily functions, ice packs were placed to reduce the swelling of his genitals protruding through the cutaway holes.
The urologist implanted the suprapubic catheter to rest his bladder until his penile urethra could pass anything more viscous than gas. Using the other access hole, the colon and rectal surgeon, having finished the colostomy, next identified the traumatic rectal-bladder fistula via proctoscope, sealing it with an endoscopic procto-ring.
After the suctioning saliva and other comatose secretions had been done, the nurse in the recovery room had time to wonder. Car accident?
Peter Harper attempted to speak.
“What?” his nurse asked. “You’re out of surgery and doing fine.” Harper spoke again. Once again she couldn’t understand. “Try again, Mr. Harper. Cough.” He coughed and groaned from the pain.
“Who was that woman?” he finally rasped.
“What woman?” the nurse asked. “Cough again.” He coughed again. He groaned again.
“That woman,” he repeated. “I have to find out who she is.” He coughed yet again. “She was fucking fantastic.”
"Easy there, lover-boy. You might unscrew your screws."
"That's really funny, he sputtered, then drifted off.
Happy Endings
Quisque was a storyteller always in search of a happy ending. He was a talented and educated raconteur, but everything he wrote he limited to exactly 125 words. He was a neurotic.
Like most writers.
Since everything he wrote was only 125 words, and since he was always in search of a happy ending, four of those words, at the minimum, had to include that happy ending, as such,
"...lived happily ever after."
Thus, even such a terse conclusion left only 121 words, max, to tell a tale with a beginning, middle, and end. Including a happy ending.
And if the ending were to be more complex than merely the "...lived happily ever after," that meant even fewer words that could be used to arrive there.
On this particular day, he wrote this opening, eating up, at the outset, four words:
Once upon a time...
[This reduced his opus to 117 words which, as it turned out, was divisible by 3. Thus, he could perfectly balance the beginning, middle, and end with 39 words each.]
THE BEGINNING
...there was a man whose biography was told in allotments of 39 words. His childhood, thus, he truncated as, Got birthed, learned to walk and talk, went to school, made mistakes, sometimes learned lessons. Sometimes, however, he did not. [39 words]
THE MIDDLE
Found a girl, made her happy, then got her pregnant, married her, made her unhappy, became a father, kept making her unhappy. Found another girl—a secret girl—a masseuse who made happy endings, but made her unhappy, too. [39 words]
THE ENDING
His wife learned and conspired with his masseuse lover to prepare a special massage table. Prone, his face sealed one hole in the table, his genitalia another. Two can wield cutlery faster than one. They became lovers and so… [39 words]
… lived happily ever after.
And so, Quisque was successful. Another perfect 125-word story, replete with a beginning, a middle, and a happy ending, and a moral, too, at that!
He was pleased, for it was the closest thing he would ever get to a happy ending again, without a face or genitalia.
Cold Calling: Truth in Advertising
"Hello. Is this Geraldo?"
"No, it's Gerard. Who's calling?"
"Hello, Gerald. Don't let the accent fool you; my name is, um, Eddie. I'm calling because you've been pre-approved for a low promotional interesting credit card."
"What's the interest, Eddie?
"Huh? Who?"
"Eddie--you!"
Thank you for that, Jerry. Yes. I'm Eddie. The interested rate is very exciting, because it's actually a minus interest rate. The more you charge, the less you have to pay. Sound of interest to you?"
"Sounds too good to be true."
"And too true, George. May I have your Social Security number?"
"Why do you need that?"
"Just a routine credit check."
"Why does my credit need to be checked if I'm going to get paid with minus interest for charging things?"
"Oh, you, know, all routine."
[CLICK]
"Hello, is this Mary?"
"Actually, my name is Mary-Anne."
"Thank you for that information, Marian. My name is, um, Freddy. Could I interest you in a lifetime supply for free gasoline?"
"I drive an EV, Freddy."
"Who? Oh, yes, I am Eddie."
"I thought it was Freddy."
"Yes--Freddy. Well then, would you be interesting in a lifetime supply of electricity? Please, just give me your Social Security number and I'll see if your number quantifies."
[CLICK]
"Hello, Dick."
"It's Richard."
"OK, Rick. My name is, um, well, it's Dick, too! How ya like that?"
"Dick, you called me. Tell me what you're calling for."
"Well, Ricky, I've been directed to notify you of an incredible offer you qualify for."
"I'm listening."
"I'm the conservative for a considerable amount of money, but I need someone to accept it into their bank account. We've got to move it for tax reasons."
"How much?"
"$30 million."
"Tell me more."
"Just give me your bank's routing and account numbers and your Social Security number and I can transfer the money right now."
"Right now?"
"Yes, while you're on the phone with me."
"OK, ready?"
The information was given.
"Please hold."
---
"Mr. Burubu!" Asmir shouted, "Mr. Dick's given me all the information we need!"
"That's great, Asmir!"
"OK, so what do I do now?"
"Make the transfer. That's what we promised."
"If only more people would believe me."