Anthony Watkins's Blog, page 36

Better Abstract Ideas

I am always thinking

untrained and undisciplined

I specialize in thinking

about things

I know nothing about.

 

Long ago,

I thought it would be

a great idea

to bottle fresh water.

 

Then I thought of oval valves

to let more air into a motor,

when an engineer explained

why this was a bad idea,

I spent 5 years

designing rotary valves,

there seals were a problem.

 

Overlapping this time,

I designed

a Mid-Engine Front Wheel Drive

derivative of the Chevette,

 

until I managed

to get the ear

of a GM engineer

who explained

you need the weight

in front of the drive wheels,

I just liked

the low hood line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every few months,

I send my son

A new product idea

For the company

He works for

 

And then there is

the crypto-currency I designed

Which I am sure would be

bigger than bitcoin,

except I can’t write code.

 

Tonight, I thought

of “reverse Oreo’s”,

an extra salty Ritz cracker

with a creamy chocolate filling.

 

I would prefer dark chocolate

and more than

a hint of habanero, call it

“Hot Chocolate Sandwich”

 

I am so good at this,

never had any takers

 

but boy, if I did!

Bulldog for Jesus

 

Won’t you be

a bulldog for Jesus?

Be a bulldog

for Jesus sake,

bite them all on the butt

and tell them Jesus

made you do it

cause If you don’t

have a little light

you can’t let it shine

but you can

be a bulldog for Jesus

and bite them

on the behind

any ole time.

Spirit Airlines

 

Little old ladies

Who insist they

have our seats

Even when we have

boarding passes

seats assigned

Poor people fly too

And bring their

crying babies.

I was a crying baby once

But two hours at

thirty thousand feet

body parts touching

strangers ala sardines

Good spirits from

a pleasant interlude

with my son’s family

And the promise

of a safe arrival

makes it almost bearable

Pleasant underpaid staff

Do their best

With smiles and kind words

And still the babies cry

No head phones

No tv no internet

But in two hours release

Sooner if we crash

And still the babies scream

 

Houseboat Days

 

 

One of my rich uncles

owned property

uponthelake

in Alabama

his wife,

not my aunt,

was very particular

and though they only used

the place about five weeks,

and a couple weekends

besides, every year,

no one was allowed

to use the lake front house

when they weren’t there,

but one summer

my uncle had a houseboat,

a gift, I believe,

docked at his pier.

He let me stay there

a glorious quiet summer

of painting and writing,

(I was not very good either)

and an occasional drink

on the deck

and occasional friend

to share an occasional

drink on the deck

and more than

an occasional mosquito

to bite me

or me and my friend

when the sun went down.

Horseflies during the day

to keep me company

I was alone most of the time

but I was rarely long alone.

I can’t say I’d like to spend

the rest of my life like that

but I have never dreamt

of a more wonderful

summer either.

The above poem is a lie, inspired by the title of a John Ashbery collection, which I have not (yet) read. I had two rich uncles, but neither had a houseboat, and if they had, they would never have let me spend a summer on it!

 

This is a Chinese Poem

I am not Chinese,

I like Chinese food

or at least American

 

Pretending

 

I dont speak Chinese

or Mexican though I know

a few words in Spanish

 

Chinese

 

because this person

says so

and as everything is made up

 

why not?

 

And I like the little houses

and stick figures in the characters

I do not understand

Old Lincolns

at Burger King

no AC

power windows

don’t work

coat hanger antenna

rotted plastic bumper guards,

 

nobody saw this

at Ford Design

decades ago

they should have-

there were old Lincolns

at Burger King then.

 

Glory fades like

A dashboard

on a 10-year-old

luxury car.

Every day with the rug

First in Brooklyn

now in Lake Worth

She takes up the doormat

from her second floor

one bedroom condo

widowed and retired longer

than she was married or worked

she beats it on the railing

so the dirt falls to the hedge below

 

every day with the rug

it’s her reason for getting up

in the morning

to make sure nothing

comes in her house

from her dirty rug.

 

The neighbor below

tried to complain

eventually gave up

sold her condo

and moved away.

 

Brown Glass Bottle

Sometimes a smell,

or a sound

transports me

to another place and time,

like taking a bite

of the wafer

takes a Catholic to Calvary,

 

but this morning,

washing out a dish,

a bit of Palmolive bubble

flew up to my nose

and reminded me

of PineSol,

a smell I love.

 

Somehow,

the thought of PineSol

reminded, me not

of the slightly sticky

CLEAN smelling wood

floors of my youth,

 

but in a way

only the memories

of smells can do,

to little shabby trailer parks

along the Mississippi,

where we rented

furnished trailers

for 4-8 weeks each summer

while my father

tromped empty river beds

and cypress knee ringed former swamps,

wading tall grass of

Arkansas and Mississippi heat,

alone, earning

a week’s wages each day

to support his preaching

habit in the winter.

 

Poor Momma, tasked to entertain, “raise”

and generally keep tabs on two wild boys.

 

Whenever we parked the old Dodge pickup,

or the long green 4 door Belair

in front a run-down trailer,

while we “men-folk”

unloaded the car

and explored the surroundings,

Momma, mop-and-ragged

the entire trailer

with a bucket of warm water

and a couple of lids full of Lysol,

poured carefully from the brown glass bottle

with the yellow metal lid.

 

The smell lasted a few days

and made wherever we were

a safe facsimile of home.

 

 

This I remembered from a bit of green liquid soap

in a modern plastic bottle.

I’ll never know if those trailers

needed disinfecting,

nor how well the Lysol worked,

but it was a comfort to know

my momma made the place safe.

 

The Groomsman

Brushes her hair with a practiced gentleness

A hand firm enough to pull out the tangles

But skilled enough to not damage the hair

 

In his life there are children

And a sink that is always slow to drain

A toilet that leaks from the tank

 

But in the moment of his everyday

There is only her, and her beauty

His eye, his mind, his hand attend

 

Her master loves her for her beauty

The beauty he creates and accentuates

Yet her master loves him not, cares not

 

For his life, his children, his sink

The groomsman knows this

And loves her, for she is a dog.

 

How Miss O Petunia Became the God of Mesopotamia

Miss O Petunia

planted a

mess o’ petunias

in Mesopotamia

and called it

the Garden of Eden.

 

She looked at what

she had done and said,

“This is good.”

 

And everybody said,

“Oh my God!”

and she said,

“If you say so.”