The Clothesline

A childhood friend shared with me he'd bought roof-top solar panels.

My wife informed me that we'd bought a clothesline.

"They won't pay for themselves until someone else owns the house,"

he told me,

"but that's okay - it's the principle that matters."

"With 3 kids and 1 in cloth diapers,"

my wife told me,

"it'll more than pay for itself soon,

so we can put more down on the house's principal

and focus on other financial matters."

When I briefed my friend on how we were also using solar power,

he admitted his solar-panel-o-meter shifted 

from showing a surplus 

to relying on the grid

whenever he ran the dryer.

"With 2 kids in sports and 1 in Pampers,"

he shrugged,

"it's just too much work to dry all their clothes on a line."

I nodded knowingly.

I'm glad that the people I know

keep me apprised

of so many meanings of

and methods for

"going green,"

though I am reminded

by some of them

of a Rube Goldberg Machine

as I picture the manufacture

and installation of solar panels

to absorb the sun's energy

and convert it to electricity

in order to run a dryer

while the Amish

go direct from sun to clothes.

Perhaps it's us

who are amiss,

and they are

ahead of our time. 

Of course, the panels power

more than the dryer,

but will they end up

in the same place

as the Pampers?

And is that better or worse

than the coal burning somewhere

to power my washer?

These debates, pro- and con-,

about renewable energy

leave me feeling

hung out to dry,

particularly when both sides 

become more entrenched in their positions than 

the engine oil stain that won't come out of my high school drama sweatshirt,

and especially when my clothesline

wasn't accompanied by a government subsidy.

But 

as I watch my underwear

wafting in the wind with the cloth diapers,

waving at my neighbors walking by,

I feel my worries, 

with the water,

evaporate

into clouds

that I guess

will block the sun for both

the panels

and the clothesline,

as we all get swept along

together

with the Tide.

The First Last Supper

The blacksmith shops

and smelting pots

lie empty

at Zarapheth.

A widow

carries 2 sticks

across

the city gate.

The man of holiness

asks a little water

and a morsel of bread,

the last 

and first things 

of her crock.

Accepting his will,

she presses the oil

from every pour

into the meal

until there is no more.

With fire lit

in the stone hearth,

the dough is altared

and offered.

Take.

Eat.

Drink.

Remember me.

Commending her to heaven,

angels pass over

meal and oil

for the barrel and cruse

that never fail

to fill all her house

with 

the bread of life. 

Verda Farnes

 

My great grandmother

croons her cabbages, couched in

C-major sunshine.

Four diminutive

Wyoming elves lean on spades,

hide near, parched to hear.

Orange Crush

I think I’m patient.

53 minutes after

my pizza is due,

I know I am not.

The best I can do is chat

with fellow suff’rers:

older door dash chap,

mom and her seven-year-old,

mother of teen boys.

Complaining binds us;

a mutual enemy

forges fast allies. 

I’m hot and ready.

I'm supremely frustrated.

Extra most madddest.

Others come and go.

I begin to conspire

with my gollum self

about my precious

ring of powerf’lly scented

dough, sauce, cheese, toppings.

We plot and script out

the politest way to ask

to whine to someone,

to wheedle our way

to two free pizza coupons

or something greater.

The grandma cashier

who should be retired and

playing with grandkids

- she who I despise

as the company’s face but

mostly pity - comes.

Apologizes.

Offers a free 2-liter.

I choose Orange Crush

and gush gratitude

for being seen, understood

before I went and

embarrassed myself

with a public display of

hangry aggression.

Am I spineless then?

Not standing up for myself?

Confrontation shy?

Accepting this cold

soda pop as recompense

for an hour of life?

Gollum shrieks out, “Take

action, Precious… revenge! Give

a taste of your pain!”

I take the pizzas and give a wave. 

I’ve got my spine. I’ve

got my self-restraint. And I’ve

got my Orange Crush.

The Walmart Hearse

On a late night Skittles run,
I saw it
like a royal uber from the inner circle of the rainbow bridge:
a purple hearse in the Walmart parking lot,
as if Grimace and the Ghostbusters ganged up
to treat someone to the coolest last ride ever.

I wondered...
What did the drivers forget that spurred this errand -
Flowers?
Black Balloons?
Funeral Potatoes?
Surely they would know Walmart's coffins are only available online.

Also... 
If I were to die today, what color of hearse would I choose?
Were the drivers simply dead on their feet?
Were the checkout lanes really that slow?

Is this shrine to consumerism the location where someone wished to be buried
in their fleece 😀💖😎 pajama bottoms, too-tight tank top, and tie-dyed crocs,
somewhere between the Cheetos and $5 dvd bin 
just in case the Egyptian pharaohs were right about the afterlife
and you ought to stock up on essentials you may need in the Great Value beyond?

And, am I choosing a similar cemetery as I enter, exhausted, 
in my orange running shorts, Star Wars t-shirt, and grass-stained work shoes,
feeling my will to live wane as I wait in line,
expiring faster than the bologna slovenly restocked by some exanimate shopper 
behind the Equate foot cream?

It kills me how they open the lane to my left 
just as I place my items on the belt after waiting twenty minutes. 

#SaveMoneyLiveBetter

Ode to McDonald's Water

Few things can capture
the flavor of childhood
like McDonalds water -

that ubiquitous clear liquid
with a tinge of Hi-C bliss
at so many fairs and tournaments,
parties and meals.

You pick it up
in that cute little
McDonald's cup
you never see
at the restaurant
and gulp it down
in a swallow or two
and go back for more
til you drown.

I wonder how they make it:
Does some first-week employee
get the task of holding the water cooler
below that red-headed step child
of soda machine buttons:
the awkward white square lever
labeled "water"
though it's always more than just that
as Hi-C particulates simultaneously descend
through the shared nozzle?

Or do they put in water from any old spigot
and intentionally splash in a dash of the C,
that aqueous equivalent of their special sauce?

This afternoon, as I quaff again this quaint elixir,
I contemplate how I am transported
so effectively through time and space
to reunite with my younger self
and hypothesize this trifecta to credit:

One: The clear necessity of life flowing through the soda fountain of youth,

Two: The orange Hi-C, gold-ish as if from the philosopher's stone,

Three: The paperboard cup, which - if it had been presented to him as an option - surely would've been chosen by Indiana Jones as the humblest cup and thus equivalent to the Holy Grail.

Surely these are why I am transported
both to the past of my younger self
and to the future
when I will bestow this same potion
on my children and their awaiting friends
at some community soccer event
where we'll all be winners
because though we came in as 60% H₂0,
we'll leave 60% McHiC₂0.

The Pillow Sings a Siren Song

It's
odd I see
the pillow as a
white-capped wave
containing
one mermaid
singing a siren song
each morning
tempting me to stay in bed.

It's the
oddest sea
to be sailing on -
these nightly visions
with the only sail
my thin bedsheet,
catching all my drool
as I dumbly gaze out
at Circe's dreamlike world.

It's an
audit - see
how this daily test
investigates the solvency
of my will,
inspecting my obeisance

to each day's taxing
list of to-dos.

In this
ode I see us
as the crew,
hastily and vainly
stuffing feathers in our ears
as if to block the pillow's siren song,
only to find its sound
is coming from within.