Not in the News Today

Come closer my children and I’ll confess
To an abstract tale of a curious mess
Down in a cellar the floor went bust
Unsavory relics arose from the dust

My estranged friend Julius lay silent in the bed that used to convert, hey presto, into Aunt Millie’s front porch. Weapons engineers had concealed a missile launcher inside a brownstone apartment block. The building facades swiveled out and up to reveal the big gun.

I pledge thee my allegiance
America the bold
For this is my country
To have and to hold

Land of my birth, grandest on earth, it was fun to sing and the choir director Mrs. Minstril didn’t care that the lyrics were blatant nonsense. Us boys belted it out with gusto.

Smoke bomber
Snake charmer
Electric rocking chair
Lost my luggage again

Leftovers on the grand piano
We argued over the proper light
To set at the foot of the stair
Too many old lamps to choose from

Your requirements, mathematical
Philosophical, were above all nonsensical
I pointedly proved it and you
Smiled

When I ran down the hill in the dark
I always forgot to watch out
For a maniac on a sprint from the bridge

Art room walls encrusted
With layers of paint and rust
Except for a corner as yet
Unexcavated

Like when you meet someone in the swimming pool whom you haven’t seen in years and you can’t remember his name. Later you come up for breath and there it is in thick black marker on someone else’s kickboard. Coincidence? Hardly.

Silver sickle moonrise
A greeting from a distant friend
Evaporates at dawn
Like a dream about a plunging bus

Tie your shoe on a fireplug
Paint morning sun on your wall
Smile so sweet for your boyfriend
And pause

We had this idea about the future, that the minor exigencies (money, food, shelter) would be readily available. The more pressing questions would be how best to use the dozens of purple crocuses blooming in a courtyard and why discovering them on a chilly and sunless stroll out of the office was so important.
We were wrong about the money.

You can ride your unicycle
To the scene of destruction
Gape at the cascading masonry
Take the tin can elevator
To the rooftop of your youth
And still be scared witless
By a crazed hornet in a plastic bag

We looked for the attic at the top of the stair
The one you remembered being there
But it was walled off now

A two-dimensional car, flat
On the floor, step on the gas
Doesn’t run anymore
Give it up, let it go
At least it taught you how to drive

Fatal Fall Café sits above an abyss
A teenage boy and his big sister discuss
Fate as they perch on the cusp
She foresees that he will go down
Riding a plunging bus

To hang my clothes in the back
Of the M1 local so I can change
During the day if necessary
To worry, what if the MTA
Changes buses on me

On the nature walk the tall
Man’s blue-black hair brushed
Perilously close to the beak
Of the blue macaw
A big borzoi, our guard from predators
Refused to attack a tiger on the prowl
Loped around with a silly long-snout smile

The boys packed a Buick Eighty-eight
With dynamite and garden slate
Put it in a tunnel in the woods
And forgot about it

We sat on the floor in the dark
Waited for an empty table
The slacker staff served
Sticky watermelon candy
From a Lucky Strikes pack

Said the clean-cut young detective
I saw you in your fancy anorak
Playing in the park
With your big whale balloon
But why should he suspect me
For the subway smoke bomber?

I saw the kid light the fuse
Shout about some Cynthia
And what’s wrong with society
Was that enough to incriminate me?

It was the end of the world all over again. Trucks and trailers filled the avenue, loaded with equipment for the parade.

I climbed the contraption in the penny arcade, an antique fortune-telling mill of whirring cogs and wheels that spit out script, and my shoe got caught in the gears, breaking the sole. I didn’t take it for an oracle. Better my shoe than my foot.

Like orange plastic cap toe ankle boots that didn’t really fit, I was on the move. Everything I owned was in two white canvas duffel bags. I stopped off to see the drama coach before I left town.

Tell me about two strange things you saw in the air, she said.

A little white cotton rag doll floated in the window and out again. Morning sun painted the limestone cornice. The warm light spread like a smile

When the signal was overwhelmed I couldn’t ignore the noise.

Deep red basement walls begrimed with black soot
The room empty except for pipes and wires and me
I heard music and dancing above on the street

A terra cotta bust, like some relic from Pompei
Scuttled crablike across the gritty floor
Empty eyes inquired why I was alone

I tried to say that all the action was upstairs
Which made me realize and decide
To bring the ancient thing outside

The head sank into a hole in the floor
I wrapped my fingers around its face
It held me fast, I was entombed

Blended from an old private formula in which experience and skill combined to produce a perfect mixture, a voice came from a black canvas tote. Inside I found broken glass, picnic trash and a boy with a bad gash on his scalp.

It was the end of the world all over again, again.

Don’t transition until you’ve established your identity, said the boyishly bearded director to the actors in the experimental performance. The old man on stage said, I’m an old Jewish man but I don’t know who I am. The old woman on stage said, I’m his wife and I’m worried.

Alleviate these symptoms by taking these simple steps.

They transformed into painted horsemen in flapping robes and roiled around the arena like liquid plastic in a bravura demonstration of shape shifting with maximum speed and elasticity.

There’s always plenty to do for all ages. Learn about nature right in your own backyard. But civilization—seemingly embodied in what one poem calls the impulse to “master nature”—is, as usual, the problem.

During his first days at Yale he happily made friends with the pretty girls in the library. Still he was concerned about the odd skin condition on his shoulder blade—a rubbery, ribbon-like fungus similar to what he’d seen on trees and rocks while vacationing in Maine. Somehow it was growing through his clothes.

A turbaned rider dismounted and approached me, the display’s sole spectator. With a loaded paintbrush he ceremonially swiped my forehead cerulean.

In addition, due to ongoing switch and mechanical problems at the Broad Channel Station, please expect delays in service on the A and S trains at this time.

To run through the streets with such ease and speed you’re sure you’ve won the race, even though you’re competing with relay teams passing batons. At the finish line in the stadium you find you haven’t even finished third.

Cloudy with snow. Cold. High around 25F. Make no mistake, however. The flexibility of the platform makes it adaptable to more than just rectangular shapes. As long as a line of sight can be established, the link will work through clear windows, without the need to establish direct contact.

A cormorant caught a tremendous fish—
Well, bigger than it’s pterodactyl head.
I thought the black neck twisting out of the water,
The flapping brown fins held tight in the beak,
Were a particularly lively piece of New York harbor trash
Until I saw the bird’s gleaming eye
Register grim resolution
To shift its prey in the lock of its jaws
To hold it just right, rear back, open wide
And gulp the fish down in three big bites.
Then the bird meandered on the whitecapped water
Neither diving nor winging away.
The fish, of course, was going nowhere.

She said he was rude and insulting. He thought she was out of line herself, not to mention nuts, but he apologized anyway, loud enough for the whole table to hear. Like the yoga mat registration desk on the cruise ship, the officious clerk with his slips and receipts in dusty cubbyholes, sometimes you just had to put up with people.

Changing constants is even simpler. We will again setup the Digital Output 1. Click on Main. Display will read, “Changes have been made to system parameters. Save Changes? Yes, No.” Select Yes and enter. Changes are now complete.

To climb a castle wall
And wander ‘round a shopping mall
In someone else’s ugly sneakers
—Graham Kerr

On tour with a troupe of actors in a truck piled high with mattresses, I knocked on a door in a village, looking for a place to stay. A bespectacled intellectual gentleman offered up his home. Was he young or old and how did I know he was so smart? He was middle-aged and salt-and-pepper-grey and the house was full of scholarly books.

We’re sorry, we did not find any results for: theater
Did you mean: there

5. Take the ramp to I-75 N 0.4 mi
6. Keep left at the fork, follow signs for Dayton/I-75 N
and merge onto I-75 N 9.9 mi
7. Take exit 43 to merge onto I-675 N toward Columbus 26.2 mi

The man’s young son had coincidentally constructed a proscenium arch in a large studio room. Perfect for our play, except that I remembered I had never read it.

* 1 small potato, peeled and chopped
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 1 small leek, chopped (1 to 1 1/2 cups)
* 2 large carrots, finely chopped

Children waited and watched while I pored over a vintage hard-bound copy of the script, some flowery 19th century farce about a financial collapse that I could make neither head nor tail of.

We’re sorry, we did not find any results for: troupe
Did you mean: true

19. Slight right at RT-495 E (signs for Lincoln Tunnel)
Partial toll road Entering New York 4.4 mi
20. Slight left at Dyer Ave
(signs for 42 St/Hwy 9A/34 St/I-495 E) 0.3 mi

Boil the potato in 2 cups of water until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain, save the broth, and set the potato aside.

I apologized to our host that my enthusiasm for show business had exceeded my capabilities.

We’re sorry, we did not find any results for: drama
Did you mean: dream

In a blender or a bowl, blend or mash 2 cups of the soup with the milk until thick and silky smooth.
Return the blended soup to the soup pot, and stir.
Ladle into bowls and garnish.

21. Turn left at W 42nd St (signs for Hwy 9A) 486 ft
22. Turn right at 10th Ave 0.1 mi
23. Turn right at W 44th St Destination will be on the left

It was then I discovered that my face was caked with mud, and had been since we left the wedding party in Massachusetts, and nobody had bothered to mention it.

Can anyone connect to everyone?
These days Shakespeare and Jesus even
Might commiserate in Starbucks
Boxed out by chicken soup and soda pop
But still get on with it.

Camptown ladies sing this song
Doo dah, doo dah
Johnny’s so long at the fair

They lay upon a village green
He and his new love
With everybody else in town
Before the film began.
You’re very funny, she said with a smile.
He licked a corner of her lips.
She touched her tongue to his.
When he wondered if his girlfriend saw
He knew everything was wrong.

For an arts festival the place was pretty seedy. The food was crap, the kids were out of control and everybody else was drunk. The only space we could find to put our sleeping bags was between the snack stand and the portable toilets.

Mom was hanging out at the racetrack. I took her back to see the Shakespeare but we got lost and ended up in a dumpy bar where some old codger made a pass at her.

The crows perched on the cross don’t mind
Nor the setting sun behind them
And us old men certainly don’t presume
To envision only pathogens
In the dust motes shimmering
In a golden ray of sunlight.

Bears and mountain cats came down in the snow
And froze into statues at the edge of the park.
We sliced the drifts with great precision
Sifting crystals for their sweetness.

You tear a square from the sheet, put it on your tongue and ask if they work the same as in the old days. You don’t want to get too disoriented in the airport or you’ll miss your flight to the Italian renaissance. Andiamo!

Laurel and Hardy, wearing tunics, tights and Rubber Soul haircuts, turn up at a villa in a bloated art deco SUV. You chuckle at the anachronistic wheels as they come to rest in the golden dust of the Tuscan driveway.

Here’s what the hippies hope to sell: an oversize antique faience teapot, a dirigible-shaped vessel that resembles their car.

A portly balding fellow in loose livery with a decorative gold key around his neck greets them at the door. “Very rare porcelain from the Orient,” says Oliver, offering the pot for inspection. Stanley smiles and chimes in, “Or East Hempstead.” Oliver winces and elbows him in the ribs.

The butler isn’t buying. What else have they got? A Portuguese papier-mâché globe with the latest cartography. No dice.

When next we see them they are jumping ship, suitcases in hand. Stan hopes his radio and electric guitar will survive the wet. An angry pirate captain watches them swim away.

When they reach the comfortably sandy shore, Stan asks, “Is this the end of the story?” “No,” says Ollie, “it’s only the beginning.”

Turn the corner in your checkered nightshirt
And a cop whistles you off the street.
The marathon runners are blasting by
In early morning darkness.
Were you sleepwalking?
A worrisome loss of self-control,
Not to mention unsafe.
Walk along the low bridge
On your way back up the hill.
It’s deserted, yet you hear voices.
You begin to suspect you aren’t awake
Since you haven’t worn that pajama in years.

What chapters would be on the test? The snotty kids in the skateboard park were cagey. It’s on the requirements for graduation, they said. Okay, I said, what period of history is it? Not the history, they said, the requirements.

The test is on the requirements? I asked. That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. Well, do you know what they are? they asked. No, I said, are they in the book? No, they said, because it’s the requirements, not the history.

I shrugged it off, or tried to. Maybe I had dropped the class anyway. Or did I? Not officially, so I’d have to go to summer school. I crossed the street on the pedestrian overpass and started to cry. Why was I such a fuckup?

Some teenage girls on their cellphones wouldn’t let me by. Their party clothes looked out of place under the grey sky on the rundown corner. It was the end of the world all over again.

I pulled back the drapes in the big hotel suite to see a bad sign: the letters were falling from the department store next door. The water would be turned off soon. Better shave while I can, I thought. Best to face the apocalypse well-groomed. Trees were down; so were the markets. Bob couldn’t pee in the bus station and his books wouldn’t fit in the overstuffed mailbox. The baby’s skin had the weirdest goosebumps I ever saw. I refused to get upset about it. She was probably just hungry.

I cleaned the crust from my perforated wingtips until I got down to the red brick underneath.

To pull crumpled straw fedoras
Dented crowns, bent brims
Out of mom’s closet, from under the couch
And never find my hat

To find a constellation of nickels and dimes
(No quarters, alas)
Scattered on a marble slab
At the lunch hour riverside

To see Jupiter and Diana,
Mighty lord, pale huntress
Drawn together in the evening blue
As we walk from the train