So now, tell me, Mister Giraffe:
How come I never hear you laugh?
Are you too tall to hear the joke,
or are you just an uptight bloke?
Human humor is elation
vis-a-vis
circumvented expectation.
Since I never do misconstrue,
I never need let them know I knew.
Hey, there, Mr. Millipede.
Shall I judge you by word or deed?
If by word, you’re big, stinky liar.
I counted 200 feet, not one higher.
“1000 feet” is pure exaggeration.
I say with no intended defamation.
By deed, now, that’s a different story.
You deserve all the accolades and glory.
I trip and stumble on just my two feet.
With 200, I’d never make it across the street.
How can your tiny brain keep feet moving?
Does each step need pre-approving?
[National Poetry Month: Poem #13]
You’ll never see a guy
shake his fist at the sky
and let fly the impassioned cry,
“I just want to fix typewriters.”
Some dream of escaping life in the hoi polloi,
pretending to be a princess, wearing a tiara toy,
but no one applies for the post of “whipping boy.”
[To take the beatings for said mischievous princess.]
And should you flush your ring down the toilet bowl,
you’re on your own, bless your plague-fated soul,
cause you’ll not find a tosher to jump down the sewer hole.
[Unless your time machine is set for London, circa 1850.]
When I look back at the sea of me’s.
I grin with glee and I’m quite pleased,
feeling totally at ease…
Because they’re all happily obsolete.
[National Poetry Month: Poem #10]
“Punch that word into proper position,”
the angry god of grammar cried.
It started surgically.
Teams tapped in pry bars,
popped out words,
and spackled in a space or a substitution.
Then they found rot,
and it’s all wrecking balls and dynamite from here.
[National Poetry Month: Poem #6]
I rue the hearing of that tune
like a sandworm from planet Dune
it burrowed from ear to brain
where its bouncy pop egg was laid
but when the alien overlords arrive
fresh out of intergalactic drive
sitting parked up in our Thermosphere
we’ll offer them a welcome beer
they’ll think us weak in being kind
until we lodge that f@#%ing tune in their hive-mind
watching them gyrate in a spastic dance
their minds melted in a Zombie trance
like lemmings they’ll plummet from the ship
with that infernal tune on all eight lips
[National Poetry Month: Poem #5]
I read you like a person reads
his blender manual.
It’s a necessity–legally obligatory.
But meaningless because if a word falls
in a blender manual, does anyone read it?
No one cares until someone loses a thumb.
Words are nudged and danced
into perfect clarity in seven languages.
But it’s 100 pages for a three button machine.
“Frappe” must have a long and convoluted definition.
[Poem #2: National Poetry Month]
I called you on the telephone.
It turned out weren’t at home.
“How can this work, if you won’t pick up.”
I messaged, sipping coffee from my cup.
“I’m right here,” a voice did say.
A hallucination as clear as day.
This was no time to go insane.
Hitting redial, I tried her in vain.
No answer. I feared I’d become unstable.
“Hey, lunkhead, I’m right across the table.”
The voice matched by a pounding sound.
The angry poltergeist had me spellbound.
Then a splash of water hit my face.
Lashing out, angered at the disgrace.
“Oh, hey, how long have you been there?”
Rolling her eyes in a dumbfounded stare.
The laissez-faire and easy-going yoga community has spawned some phenomenally ridiculous mergers. I have “yoga” as a term on Google News, and almost every week I get fed a new example. I’m not saying every new approach to yoga is bad, but there’s one disturbing trend–i.e. the distraction yoga.
In the title, I refer to “hyphenated yogas,” but what I’m really ranting about is “distraction yogas.” A distraction yoga is one in which an element is brought into the practice so that one doesn’t have to keep one’s mind on one’s breath, alignment, and / or mental state. (Because who wants to think about that shit when one can be thinking “Wow, that kitten sure is cute.” or–believe it or not–“This beer has hoppy undertones.”)
Now before I get accused of hating puppies or beer, let me point out that nothing could be further from the truth. What I’m ranting against is the notion that you can marry any two good things and make a great thing. If you don’t believe me, please allow me to dip my nachos in your banana split. See, there are plenty of things that are awesome independently that make abominations when forced together.
I’ll include links as I go, lest you think I made this stuff up for hilarity’s sake.
5.) Beer Yoga: This is one of the most recent and intriguing distraction yogas. I’m not saying that one needs to follow a strict Vedic approach to life to practice yoga, but–come on–could you stop drinking for a couple hours to pretend your body is a temple (or at least that it’s not sitting in a trailer park with the windows busted out.) Unless “calf slaughter-yoga” catches on, it’s hard to imagine a less yoga-like practice than consuming intoxicants during the practice of yoga. By the way, there’s also a marijuana yoga, but I’ll lump these together as intoxicant yogas.
4.) Goat Yoga: This is one of many “animal yogas.” Like the others, the point is to have cute creatures around. How it’s supposed to help one’s yoga, I can’t fathom. Actually, I can fathom the suggested logic, probably something to do with calming and engendering feelings of compassion and well-being. But, ultimately it’s distraction by cuteness. Note: you can also do yoga with cats, dogs, horses, and probably river otters.
3.) Karaoke Yoga: Talk about distraction–nothing better than pounding music and reading a prompter to keep one’s mind off that ache in one’s hamstring.
2.) Rave Yoga / Club Yoga: This might be a cheat because it’s similar to the previous one on the list, and I’m trying to lump these together so as to not be too repetitive. However, it’s not exactly the same, and is the perfect example of a distraction yoga. (There’s also Harmonica yoga and other musical yogas, but I won’t double-dip anymore.)
1.) Tantrum Yoga: It wasn’t easy to determine whether I’d include this one or not. On the one hand, it’s not a distraction yoga in the sense that the others are. On the other hand, it takes the award for being least yoga like on the grounds that it’s not about dispassionately witnessing one’s emotional state but rather feeding one’s negative emotions. Note that I don’t group laughter yoga into the same class. I’m not sure whether laughter yoga is beneficial (or to what degree it’s a yoga), but I know that many people benefit from it because it bolsters positive emotional states.
Now, one may have noticed that there are many seemingly strange (hyphenated) yogas that I haven’t mentioned. I haven’t said a thing about surf board-yoga, stripper pole-yoga, or acro-yoga–and I specifically excluded Laughter Yoga from the wrath of my rant. That’s because this isn’t a rant about people being innovative or non-traditional, it’s about people missing the point of what yoga is supposed to be (i.e. a means to quiet the mind.) I don’t know whether I can see myself doing yoga on a surf board or a stripper pole, but I’m certain that one has to give it one’s full attention–it’s not about finding a distraction to make yoga more palatable to hipsters.
5.) Acknowledge that there is a universe in which his or her point is valid: However, tell your adversary that this is contingent upon theoretical physicists being correct that there are an infinite number of universes, each governed by a different set of laws–at least a some of which would have to be stupid. This is called the bubble-verse flummox.
4.) Challenge him or her to a duel: This will require that you carry a well-worn leather glove wherever you go. For it’s not so much the words that produce an effect as the slap across the cheek. You are going for decibels. You can’t pull this off with a cotton glove, a rusty metal gauntlet, or a stiff leather work-glove. You need the glove to have some weight and to be able to put some whip into it. This is called the Aaron Burr.
3.) Talk to your adversary as if that person were a beloved household pet. This will involve both head tousling and inquiries as to, “Who’s a good boy?” It’s called the canine gambit.
2.) Ask your adversary whether he or she is trying to seduce you. It doesn’t matter how mundane or technical the subject is (trade pacts, non-proliferation agreement, etc.), this one is almost guaranteed to shut down opposition. It’s called the Mrs. Robinson.
1.) Say, “The game is afoot!” and then just walk off. It’s very important that you don’t respond to any question about what this means or whether you’re insane. Furthermore, one must break off all contact with the adversary for several days there after. Stew time is necessary. I call this one, The Sherlock.
I know you feel my sex appeal
despite the lack of earnest squeals.
You should know, despite my glow,
the fans rarely stop to say, “Hello.”
Am I not a rockstar, superhero
because my visibility ranks near zero?
In this hour of superpowers
I think I’ll stop to sniff the flowers.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 