Mulching

Silence grows like the wild flowers-
No one waters or prunes daily-
How they thrive all the same,
Heedless.

Rainy days and at least
Hours' sun sufficiently breeds
Many such, that spread
In our farm seedless-
Useless,
Even
To grind as flour.
Prickly stems should be pulled early-
Palms exposed to the cold
Bleed less.

Bubbles

Blown into being by benevolence
Thin and reflective
Identical and unique
Delicate, so delicate
Universes
They contain everything
And may be nothing at all

Beats Me

Drum!

Drum!

Drum!

Drum!

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum...
Stiff
Tall
Rough


I'm a wooden drum...
Skin
Groove
Knot


I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)


I'm a wooden drum...
Made
By
You

I'm a wooden drum...
Sing
When
Hit

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum...
Hit
Hit
Hit
And
I
Make
Music (drum-drum)
I
Make
Music (drum-drum)
I
Make
Music (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum...
All
Can
Play


I'm a wooden drum...
Takes
A
While


I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum (drum-drum)

I'm a wooden drum...
Spea-
-king
Now

I'm a wooden drum...
Good
Things
Must

I'm a wooden drum...
Take
A
While

Drum!

Drum! (drum-drum)

Drum!

Drum! (drum-drum)

Drum!

Drum!

Drum!

Drum!!

Belt Loop

Nothing so shows the beauty nature bestowed
On a callipygian Venus upright posed
As an intergluteal cleft bent over exposed

Tim O'Thillery

Aging

As celebrity must

Shoot them down!
Fire!

The golems are ambling over the hill

ft! ft! ft! ft! ft!

Big Bang

They say the big bang brought us here
And we didn't get a piece of the action
Always late for email and Michael Jackson
Found two white socks under the dryer
Reapply and reply, my windshield found a flyer
Are you even my friend?
Big bang on Facebook and untag myself
Were you there? Shit must have been insane
Cosmic copulation. Hydrogen and hydroplane.
Top gear bursting out and galaxies
And all that gas and hailing taxis
I guess we really are close.
Bubbling to the surface and organic
Steamed dumplings and wontons
Perfect spoken French bon-bons
You're such a pervert, and it upsets you.
Dirty. Lifting off nature's dress--true.
Your building neighbors are brutes, all that noise.
But still we're all family see--
Don't forget about replacing your zinc after sex
Farmer's market has the best goddamn eggs
McDonalds soda, red and yellow fries
Excuse me I burped, and salt and bleach and dyes
Little bang in the mirror, I hit a squirrel.
Remember the kids in the playground
Getting kicked in the chest too
Candles used to be nice, orange and blue
Smoky drawing rooms and whipping boys
Mercedes Benz and removing your vibrating toys
Coffee bean smells, mitochondria in your cells.
Tiger's hole-in-one, and Berlin wall came down
Tell them John Doe gets whacked again
Poker face, chips and bombs in Spain
SARS and Michael Phelps' gold had me scared
Botox and menopause dating, weed shared
Vegetarians are running with their iPods.
We're playing music on stage under the stars
Jenny Craig and silver no calories in the can
Obama did it and didn't Strauss-Kahn
Isn't it nice out today, total Marxism
Scratch-and-sniff Pink Floyd album's prism
Gay pride, New York's towers.
Man in the moon killed Superman
And Radiohead and Yahoo blew up
Google swine flu and please speak up
And Africa has such wonderful animals
Wall street saints and criminals
The oil is there just dig.
Millenials are out looking for jobs
We did it in her roommate's bed, clean sheets.
Starbucks for free wifi and good eats
Forbes' richest one hundred
50 cent can buy you street cred'
Sammy and Sinatra, Bhangra and Oprah
Let's go take a road trip down south
Ecstasy at raves and Jim Crowe
Gosh darn traffic's moving too slow
Cutting down the giving tree
Walking on the bed of the sea
The big bang came and time was up.

A New Year's Tale

His ears were still ringing and he smelled like tobacco and other people's sweat.

Slowly, tiredly, and with what he thought was an easy and charming smile on his face, Rodspeed applied the brakes and peeled down the windows of his borrowed blue Toyota Corolla. He was surprised by how humid it still was at such a late hour and, to a lesser extent, the confessional stench of alcohol emanating from the two policemen in night coats that had signaled for him to stop.

"Let me have a look at your license", ordered the taller, lanky policeman who had the lined, tight face of an academic, save for dull, watery eyes. 

"Good evening officer. So sorry-I left it at home tonight, and this is my mother's car. Is there a fee or something that I can pay to make up for it this time?", Rodspeed replied hurriedly, affecting nervousness and an expression of utmost penitence. At the same time he fished in his front-right pocket for a few crumpled bills that he had presciently set aside a few hours ago. 

In the discreet manner of school children passing notes behind a teacher's back, the grand sum of six dollars was quickly exchanged through the open driver's-side portal-from the air-conditioned world of jeans and youth, to the humid world of night-duty and old uniforms. Along with this sum of money went a silent, meaningful look that flashed across both faces.

"Happy New Year, sir-have a good night!" said the suddenly cheerful and obsequiously respectful policeman while averting his eyes. At the same time his fellow officer-by all indications a novice-clumsily removed the red and white striped metal barrier that stretched across both lanes of the quiet suburban road. 

Rodspeed merely saluted in response, waited for the stray dog to finish crossing the road, shifted gears and drove off.  While reflecting on how maturely and naturally he conducted himself this time, he watched as he shrank the policemen's figures in his rear-view mirror. In tired thoughts he tried to imagine the familial situation of the thin policeman. 

He envisioned a family of three-perhaps, four-children, hungry, watching a nonsensical late night show with their mother on a microwave-sized television while a struggling, squeaky fan overhead spun about a rotating axis in a vain attempt to banish the suffocating heat and humidity typical of a rainy season night. Rodspeed also imagined a shiny, red truck-a gift from the policeman to his youngest son-made possible by his kind donation of six dollars.

Well, he really doesn't need a truck. What he needs is a new pair of shorts, and perhaps some green food every now and then, thought Rodspeed, dangerously on the verge of falling asleep behind the wheel. 

Rodspeed hit a pothole, jerked awake and noticed the silliness of his thoughts and how magnetized his eyelids had become. He gave himself a cautionary slap on the face and steadied his gaze as he made his way down the unlit, tree-lined roads of suburban Accra. He reminded himself to drink less next weekend. He also
wondered how the skinny policeman could possibly have managed to fail to remember his face each time. They had had no less than four of such encounters as they had that night.

"Blue balls are such sad balls....oh...shoot, I need to get petrol," he said aloud in the silence of his air-bagged world, as he drove past the dozen obese prostitutes signalling for him to stop.