Across – WHARVED

Pinned

Jim Olivo left a note behind for me
many summer camps ago–pinned
to a pine–that reads:

“If you want the recipe for that turkey sandwich from mess hall, you’ll have to pry it from the clutches of none other than Neander The Articulate. Born with almost-exclusively neanderthal blood, his scrawniness prevented him from competing with his peers on a physical level, leaving him alone with his thoughts on a regular basis. Over the years, this ostracized fella developed a peculiarly sharp wit, mainly due to his constant observation of the individuals he would have considered his peers (if they would ever let him). Little by little he started sneaking tiny esoteric quips in edgewise–mainly in passing–that befuddled the muscly alphas and intrigued the blossoming females.”

It goes on like that
for a couple more pages.
I think Jim was working out
some kind of material on me,
because I couldn’t ever find
a turkey sandwich recipe
or a local neanderthal
for the life of me.
Maybe he was talking about
the camp across the lake.

Working the Counter

Grand ideology
rakes tempestuous porcupine failure
across the arena, unconcerned
with the aftermath involved.
Mammal tidings prevent intervention.

Audience opinion shattered,
an elevenfold androgen titan
laps the competition
for the price of a
testosterone meatball sundae,
a similar portion to what you’d get
at Arnie’s when Glen’s working
the counter. Tell him
Jimbo’s dog had puppies,
$1,500 a pop to a good home.

Collection

The day of I know not what but I always could figure it anyway if you asked me to, but not if you ask me in a way commensurate with the smiles you’re bound to receive when I let my mother’s antique movie penguin replica collection go into the record books as a swindler’s dream, very never-so-minded and genuinely enraptured by the Germanic trepidation we all seem to face on a daily basis.

Stronger than the average jurisdiction machine, I marvel at the time I shot penguins through dragon school as a favor to my mother, on account of her love for penguin scholarship “what with the range of predicaments exclusive to this underwhelming era that brings us nothing but worry.” Or she would say something in that vicinity, at least.

So today, just like any other day, we spill the courage of the middle class across our collective janitorial musings, content to soak up any modicum of civility that would be offered to us upon completion of a correspondence course (for a nominal charge, of course).

“Wild West”

Slammin’ the fit-o-deena–ground lengthwise across a bawdy expanse of thneeds
(which everybody needs)–we took our serenades elsewhere, confident in our knowledge of the occult (i.e. the back-stabbery and latent overall treachery that sorts itself out over the course of dozens of generations) and its ability to stall disbelief as one would when faced with a Mel Brooks-esque (or, to a lesser extent, Mel Blanc-ish) dilemma involving the safety of an entire town, where the hapless protagonist even agonizes over the insignificant-yet-unique blood splotch patterns on each and every last hitching post (with the hopes of creating a permanent photographical installment at the Getty and cementing his status as one of the pioneers of pre-modernized main street massacre legacy documentation that would span the seldom-understood and often-demonized “Wild West” (that is, if he has anything to say about it)).

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