Eight-Ball

            I was outside making repairs to my cabin when I looked down and noticed a magic eight-ball lying in the Jade plants. I picked it up and shook it. It read, “So it shall be.”

            It occurred to me that my neighbor Carol asked me if I had seen her magic eight-ball. She said she tossed it down the hill from her balcony in a fit of rage. I guess she wasn’t satisfied with the eight-ball’s answers.

            That was months ago and the conversation was far from my mind when I stumbled upon it.

            I sat down with the eight-ball. It seemed to work okay. The blue magic water was still in place and the pyramid responses were showing themselves, albeit the answers were delayed and the pyramid was sticking a bit.

            I couldn’t help myself. I asked it a question. It was the most obvious of all questions.

            “Will I ever be wealthy?” I asked.

            I shook it and looked to the eight-ball for the answer. The answer hung up a bit. I jiggled the pyramid into place. It read, “Chances aren’t good.”

            The stupid thing was broken. Let’s try it again. I shook it up again. The answer stumbled into place. This time the answer read, “Don’t bet on it.”

            Ugh. Out of frustration I heaved the eight-ball back into the jade plants. It hit the plants and rolled down the hill. What does that broken down eight-ball know? I assured myself it was silly to give the eight-ball any kind of credibility. It’s broken! It’s no good! I’ll prove it wrong someday! For a fleeting moment my goal in life was to dispel the eight-ball, but when my anger subsided, and I calmed down, I began to think about it more rationally. As a poet, the eight-ball might be right.

My Morning Paper

            I woke up and sat down to read the paper, or the modern version online. I scrolled through the headlines. Debt Ceiling Chaos! Man Smashes Car into House! Drunkard Gets Life! Woman Lops Off Husbands Penis! I clicked on that one.  I guess it was morbid fascination. I can’t think of anything worse than having your penis lopped off, death is bad, but life without a penis is worse.

            “He deserved it,” she said.

            She must have really hated that penis.

            I had to run an errand and cash a check. I was driving to the bank listening to NPR, when a story came on about women and famine circumcision. My god has the world gone made? What is this the dark ages? Is pleasure that bad that you have to physically remove it from the face of the earth? I turned off the radio. I couldn’t listen anymore. Poor ladies. Sick men. Religious freaks more than likely destroying gods good work.

            I started to think, what’ s worse? Having your Johnson lopped off (Johnson a sixties term for package), or famine circumcision? Either way you’re screwed.

            

Baby Hawk

There’s a baby hawk sitting in a nearby tree. He’s squawking day and night. The sound is echoing through the hills. I can tell you one thing, he’s making the squirrels and gophers nervous. The bird is stressing everybody out, his parents, especially. It’s not like hawks have a corner market to go to, where they can buy squirrel jerky and sugar drinks. I like the sound of junior’s crying, but I’m not, nor will I ever be his dinner.

His poor parents have their work cut out for them. I suppose they can nab a pigeon whenever they want. Pigeons can’t be that difficult to catch. You don’t have to tell the kid it’s a pigeon, you can tell him, that it’s squab.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

            The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are in town. Normally, I wouldn’t give much attention to them, but for some odd reason with their arrival here in Los Angeles I began to think about their stay.

            I found myself checking the weather reports to see if the sun would shine agreeably on them. I didn’t want the weather to be too hot. Eighty-two degrees is comfortable, with a slight breeze blowing in from the ocean. Hospitable.

            It’s not like me to be concerned. It must be the Chamber of Commerce in me. My lady friend lives just a few blocks away from where the Duke and Duchess are staying. I can hear helicopters flying overhead from time to time. I couldn’t imagine being pestered with no reprieve.

            It would make me happy if they went to Malibu, to enjoy the weather, and frolic in the Pacific Ocean, to let their pallid skin see the sun.

            I happened to see a picture of the couple as they disembarked from their airplane. I must say I was disappointed with the Duke of Cambridge’s suit. The fabric looked like that of a simpleton.

At Her Best

      You’ll be happy to know that I arranged to have a copy-editor edit my blog. I’d like to apologize for the bad grammar, and the overlooked writing. I blame it on my public school education and my general disinterest in school when I was a child. The truth is, I can’t remember but one English class after the fourth grade. I know I took English, but the classes were so unremarkable they left no indelible impression on me. I remember taking a creative writing class in high school. That was big. It changed my life forever, but that's it. The copy-editor should kick in sometime next week.

      I knew I was taking a risk by posting to a blog without an editor, but I figured I’d do the best I could.

      I went out last night and ran into my friend John. We had a drink together and talked about music before going to his house to jam. We played songs we knew and songs we didn’t know, and songs we made up on the spot. It was fun. He had a real nice Taylor acoustic guitar that felt good in my hands. Guitars can make it easy on you, or they can  hold you back. It’s not much different than a relationship, but when the guitar talks, you definitely listen. You want her to talk. You’re disappointed when she doesn’t. It’s not exactly like a relationship, I suppose not even all that similar, but it can be romantic.

      I left John’s house at three in the morning. The streets were quiet. It was Los Angeles at her best.              

My Cabin Window

            It was nearly daylight, and the little vampire was running out of time. He had extracted blood from my elbow, and index finger, but he wanted more. He made the mistake of flying near my ear. The sound of his wings flapping near my head woke me up. I turned on a light and looked for the irritant. Why my blood? You don’t really need it, or do you?

            He was blending into the cedar wood walls. He was no place to be found. I’ll let the fishermen handle him, I thought. The fishermen had their webs cast and were in waiting. I gave a few spiders a pass and let them live peacefully in the higher elevations. Spiders hunt with nets and wait like fishermen. 

           I went back to bed and barricaded myself underneath my pillow and blanket. I heard the mosquito flying overhead. He was ambitious, but he couldn’t get to me. Frustrated, and short on time, he disappeared. I slept hard for hours, until I heard a blue jay squawking outside my cabin window.  

The Fifth of July

The fourth of July, and the bombs were blasting into the night here in Los Angeles. I heard firecrackers going off into morning. Just when I thought everybody was in bed, I’d hear an M-80 go off. It was past two in the morning, and somebody was out there getting their kicks. I admired them for it, they were living, and taking advantage of the once a year opportunity to light fireworks.

            The city sounded like a war zone. I climbed atop Kite Hill and watched from there. The Pasadena area was dead. I could see the fireworks from the Rose Bowl, but beyond that it was dark, and staid.

When I looked toward Los Angeles, the city was positively giddy, alive. The proletariat was going ape.

            Then the Wall Street money came into play. The borrowed money, the leveraged to the point of bankruptcy money, the Dodger stadium money. Their fireworks were sophisticated, organized, polished. The show came to an end, some twenty or thirty minutes later. The working man was still going at it. He hasn't stopped yet, and it's now the fifth of July.