Walking home on Holly-wood Blvd,
a stranger asked me if I had a light.
And even though
I had some iron pyrite,
a seeing glass, some sticks
& a flint on me,
it was easier just to say,
“Nope.”
Mondays
Early Monday morning
I discovered, to my dis-tress,
that, sometime during the
previous evening,
somebody
— I didn’t know who —
had stolen my car.
ii.
I immediately called the police
& filed a report.
The police-man they sent to my
apartment told me that
they would do their best,
but not to hold out too much hope.
iii.
On the following Monday,
the same police-man called me,
and in a hopeful voice, said that
they had located my vehicle,
but, he warned, it had been
stripped of everything.
iv.
“Oh, no!” I cried, but, really,
I had expected the worse.
So, I thanked him and said,
“OK, I’ll come by and pick it up —- ”
But the policeman interupted me & said,
“Don’t worry about it,
we’ll just mail it to you.”
v.
One week later,
I rec’d an envelope in the mail
from the police.
vi.
Inside the envelope was
my windshield wiper blade.
vii
Under-neath the blade
was a ticket.
I imagine the WWE organisation has a guy whose only job is to order more foldable tables.
That’s your name-o
I named my dog,
B-I-N-G-O,
so she would not only
learn her name,
but also how to
spell it
Never had the inclination
We tend to take a lot of things
for granted.
Take my watch, for example,
it takes for granted
that I can tell time
Notice of clarification
If it were to suddenly
come to light
that Grant wasn’t buried
in Grant’s tomb,
an awful lot of
riddle books
would have to send out
re-tractions
Incidentals
My apartment has a
table of contents, because
my apartment
does not have cabinets
Question of the day: Is the earth hollow or it is filled with stuff?
Happy New Y’ar!
I suppose I have always been lucky …
My family & friends say I that mis-remember a lot
of my past. And maybe that’s true — for some things.
But there are also places & people that I will never forget.
Such as growing up in a ginger-bread house,
or the Man with No Bones.
And, one thing in particular, my moms peculiar way
of setting the dinner table.
ii.
For as long as I can remember, my mother always set
the table with two sets of identical salt & pepper shakers.
Seems trivial, I know.
But we were only a family of four.
And it made little difference if only two or three of us
were eating that night. My mother would still place, on
the table, two sets of identical
salt & pepper shakers.
iii.
I recall one day having to stay home from school
due to a high fever.
My dad rolled in the TV set so I could watch
cartoons, and my mom brought in a tray
of my favorite foods: Spaghetti O’s & a side of
saltine crackers.
And on the tray … two sets of identical
salt & pepper shakers.
I think that may have been the first time I
questioned it. But only to myself.
Otherwise, I said nothing …
iv.
And the seasons passed, and the years went by
and we all got a little bit older and a little bit wiser.
And through it all there was but one constant,
and you may have all ready guessed it.
It was my mom setting the table with two sets
of identical salt & pepper shakers.
Still I said nothing …
v.
Until last week, when I went to visit my mother at
the Home of the Very Age-ed. She and I sat in her
small room & reminisced about family members who
had long ago passed on. And then, finally, after an hour or so
of light conversation, I gathered up the nerve
to ask her the question that had nagged me for so many years.
Why — Why did you always set the table with two sets of
identical salt & pepper shakers?
vi.
My mother closed her eyes as if in deep thought.
And a strange, other-worldy calmness seemed to
suddenly pour over her entire being.
vii.
Finally, she opened her eyes.
I leaned in close so as not to miss a word.
Said my mother,
“One set of the identical
salt & pepper shakers, my son … was poison!”
finis
for j.p.
Per the Trefological calendar, to-day, February the 1st, is officially the beginning of the new year.
So, from all of me to some of you, I want to wish you a happy new y’ar.
Your friend (in life)
the undersigned,
geo. raymond
