Tim Schaefer's Blog, page 11

THE STRAIGHT POOP

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

If you got outta bed
this morning
you're an optimist
plain and simple
otherwise why would you?

I mean really
you're getting ready
to do your thing
goin' to work
goin' to play
goin' to get drunk 
and the sun is shining
and the birds are tweeting
( many of them have Twitter accounts)
and you just don't think about
how it can all turn to
shit
without a moment's notice
like the snap of your fingers

We live in denial
about the true nature of life
and the turning to shit factor
we just get up every day
and figure that everything
is gonna be fine
but then circumstances
beyond your control
and that's really the key
beyond your control
kick in 
and you stand there
shell-shocked
reassessing everything 
you poor pathetic 
asshole

What did I do wrong?

Well it was nothing
try to understand that it was
nothing
it's just your turn
in the barrel
and everybody gets his turn
cuz we're all here to learn

And that's really when 
it hits you
that you gotta be brave
that you gotta find meaning
when all the evidence points to
a universe as cold
as a witch's left tit  

And so you wrack your brain 
with the question...

What da fuck 
what da fuck
what da fuck
do I do now?

Don't worry Bunky...
you'll 
think 
of 
something

Climbing out of bed is the first step

GOD BLESS

3 a.m. on a Sunday
and I'm tradin' sleep for a poem

thinking 'bout all the folks
who will don their Sunday finery
to hang out in a pew
with you and you and you
and you
still don't get it
that your soul is immortal
and not in need of savin'

but sure
I get it
it's a sense of comm
unity
we gather together to ask 
the Lord's blessing

and even though I'm fallin' apart
in my decrepitude
I'm good to go with all of that
don't feel the need
cuz a coupla peeps singing loudly off key
on either side of me
isn't exactly what I call "inspirational"

having said all that
I'll admit I've prayed before
but it's always been 
a white-knuckled
get me out of this freakin' jam
kinda thing 
and by god 
somehow...
somehow...

so let me say that if you don't feel 
a connection
with something larger than
your own ego
whatever you wanna call it
then I have to wonder about ya
as in how did you miss it?
(ah--your head was buried in your phone!)

Goddamn...

my pen is running out of ink
so I guess I'll close for now
but it's been nice chatting with you
and if you don't mind 
I'd rather not ruin my reputation
so let's just keep all this
between you and me

God bless

THIS THING

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Sometimes
something is there
waiting for you

you don't know what it is
you have to see it
touch it
smell it

you have to find out
what it is
and what it's going to do
to you
or for you

you won't know that until you
see it
touch it
smell it

and even then you will likely
have only a clue

you have to
play with it
let it touch you back

gah damn
what is it?
how did I find it?

you didn't
it was just there
waiting for you
though you may have walked
by it a thousand times before
head buried in your phone
(read butt)
never realizing it was for you
just for you

or that this thing
you don't know what to make of
if you caress it
and nurture it
and let it grow
might just be able to show
you the way
 to a new beginning

IN PRAISE OF LONELINESS

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads



Easy come
easy go
I've watched the parade
march in and out my door
the flute players
and the drummers
the only thing they share
in common
is their transience

while I play the silent monolith
stoic
with eyes that must
not water

I see the couples
when I'm out and about
so many of them look
mismatched to me
but at least they've got something
(a roll of fat maybe)
to hang onto through the night

been in that comfortable rut
before
and a comfortable rut
is still a rut
with
ironically
less and less rutting
taking place
as time goes by

does it matter
which life you choose
when there's no way to win?

but

the one thing I've learned
and maybe I'm "lucky"
in that respect
is that pain
is the only way
to feel truly alive

BETWEEN THE LINES

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Hey
I dunno how to tell you this
but your poem sucks
and so do you

Ha ha
you know I'm kidding, right?
I'm a real kidder, ya know

Oh, and that souffle you made
the other night for the potluck
you BURNT it
and it tasted like shit!

Aw...go on...you know me...
it was DELICIOUS

And while we're at it
I've been meaning to mention that
YOU
have been outlasting your
DEODORANT
if you get what I mean

Ha ha
oh man
I'm such a kidder
a regular Don Rickles in cheap clothing

You know you always smell like a rose

Anyway
great to see you
and hey (whispering in ear)
don't let this get out but...

Your poem sucks
and so do you!
(ha ha)

GOODBYE IRMA (HELLO DOLLY)

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads
bummer
in da summer
and you think it's all been
engineered
in some form
or fashion
don't you?

while one faction (the "Evil Ones")
grows more intelligent
to the point where they can
manufacture a monster storm
and pinpoint it to destroy countless lives
as a form of population control
(or so you say)
and another side grows stupider
rarin' to drag us back to the middle ages
when the earth was flat
(but you still loved your cat)

you know what
I'll take all of your theories
with a jumbo shaker of salt...
still more inclined to believe that
MOTHER
holds dominion over a

chest thumping
war mongering
glorified ape

who'd like to think
he's that smart
and that powerful
but can't explain
(as he gazes
somewhat distractedly
out the corner of his eye)
why his world
is turning inexorably
to shit

NOW I AM YOURS

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

I squeezed a peach
at the market
to size up its suitability
and then began to move on to another
when I heard it say
STOP
you have taken liberties with me
and it was true
I had fondled it 
excessively

it said
now I am yours
take me home and eat me
and I thought
how callous one would be
to refuse a plea such as that
from just about...
anyone
I guess

so I put the peach in my bag
and took it home
and now I am waiting
for just the right moment
to consummate our  relationship

(I know it's going to be juicy)

all actions
no matter how trivial
we may perceive them to be
have meaning
all actions have a resonating effect

keep this in mind
and somewhere
sometime
a butterfly
may thank you

OPEN WINDOW

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads







From my book: DARWIN'S MOON

the carsrumble pastand from their open windowsyou hear cacklingor cussingor some kind of rap crapan angry young manshoutin' boutbitches and hoswith his finger up his noseI'm tired of hearingthe angry young manthrough your open windowdon't care if he's black or whiteI've been that guythe rallies and the marches righteous indignation like you wouldn't believestudents commandeering the dean's officeand getting dragged out by their heelsdo you know how that feels?there was HaldemanErlichmanand Deanand student bodieslying deadon the campus greenheyat least we stoodfor somethingbesides gangsta worshipall the angry young menwho don't know what they're mad aboutevery generation sees them come and goyou don't live in the ghettoand the only thingyou haveto complain aboutis your pantsare falling downand I'm tiredof hearing theangry young manrailingthrough your open windowyou think you've gotsomething to provebut in truth you've got nothing to losebut your youthso convincedthat you'll always be the malcontentbut I'll tell you whatit all comes to naughtand a house in the suburbsin the end

MILO, THE SHIT BIRD

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Oh SHIT, man!" said Jerry. "Something just went SPLAT on top o' my head."

Ben looked up. He heard the flutter of wings and a strange otherworldly cackle.

Jerry said, "What the hell was that, man?"

Ben stared at him, deadpan. "I think you've just been hit by Milo, The Shit Bird."

"Milo The Shit Bird...wha-?"

Ben fished around inside his lunch pail to find a paper napkin for  Jerry--the glob of excrement perched atop his buddy's hair growing more pungent by the moment. "He's legendary in this neighborhood. I know the people who used to own him. He's a Myna bird...they kept him in a cage most of the time, and he made it clear to them he wasn't happy with that arrangement. Then one day when they were cleaning his cage, he saw his path to freedom. Took off out the front door that had been left partially open. Ever since, folks around here have reported that they've been crapped on out of the blue--literally out of the blue--because he hovers over them and then it's bombs away, like he was the Enola Gay or something."

 "Geez," said Jerry, who was a poet. "That's kinda poetic justice. Taking it out on random people. He sees them as the oppressor."

"There's some inspiration for you, Jer," said Ben. "You could immortalize Milo, The Shit Bird in a poem."

"It is poetic when you think about it, man. We keep animals in cages. And because we think that's all right, we put people in cages too. Rather than, you know, trying to heal them."

"Sounds like you want to write about-"

"Man's inhumanity to man."

That's a deep subject, but if anybody can pull it off, you can."

Jerry had just about finished wiping the poo out of his hair when the two of them heard the flutter of wings again in the tree they were perched beneath under the noonday desert sun. And before Jerry could duck out of the way...

SPLAT!

Milo, The Shit Bird had struck again. This time the cackling they'd heard before was accompanied by: squawk...ASSHOLE...ASSHOLE...squawk !

"Jesus H. Christ!" Jerry cried. "Why'd he pick on me...TWICE?"

Ben had to stifle a laugh. "He knows your a poet, dude. He knows you're sympathetic to his plight. The only one who could put into words what many of the rest of us are thinking. Poets have started REVOLUTIONS, man!"

Jerry rubbed his stubbled chin, lost in contemplation. 

Ben glanced at his watch. "Guess we better be gettin' back to work, and find you some shampoo and a faucet to stick your head under."

"Geez," said Jerry. "That kinda puts into perspective what my real job is..."

 Ben closed up his lunch pail and gazed into the vast blue sky--the place where epiphanies that hit you like a water balloon chucked by some nasty middle school kids on a rooftop come from. He started off across the park. He turned back to see Jerry looking pensive and glassy-eyed. "You comin' man? he said. 

"Yeah...sure...I'll be along. I just got a lotta shit on my mind."

"Yes, my friend, I CAN SEE THAT!" 

"The world will know the saga of Milo, The Shit Bird!  First, an epic poem, then a children's book..."

Jerry was prancing around, shouting into the wind. Though just downwind of him was where you really didn't want to be. 

ZIGZAG

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

No tracks within a good
ten miles of here
but on a misty morn
that horn
is ridin' the breeze
cutting through my brain fog
it echoes
like the call of the wild
from back in the day

I shouldn't have switched on the TV 
cuz some Trumpster shill
is telling Martha Radditz 
who the "normal" Americans are
pretty sure Caitlyn isn't on his list

I traveled all this way 
doin' the transcontinental zigzag
just to end up in a world where
transgender crappers 
would be the hot button of the day 

you can be 
whatever you wanna be
on the inside
the outside's just a shell
that we tortoises use
to deflect the rain 

(and I don't know who I am
but life is for learnin')

so when I present the idea 
of trans-racial
I'm sayin' it's not a bridge too far
cuz we am what we am
and we are what we are

not the same as mixed blood
it means starting out identifying
as one ethnicity 
but waking up one day to realize
that in your heart 
you are something else

never knew why I always wanted
to jump out of this pale skin
til I ran into the lost ones (who
like the Indians Columbus encountered
were never lost to themselves and thus
had no need of being "discovered")
and found there was Cherokee blood
from grandma 

the most captivating woman 
at age 32
I've ever seen 
her eyes foretold me
foreshadowed the coming 
of the little bastard
and one by one the pieces
began to fall into place...

a half-bro
who is half Hispanic
all the time spent 
south of the border
and in the Caribbean 
where I saw a way of life 
that was impervious to sorrow
whenever a street band would play
and knew so strong in my gut
that it was a part of me
and always had been

how my paths zigzagged
and crisscrossed
like an etch-a-sketch sky
spinning round so fast sometimes
I met myself speeding in the other direction

I'm not what I appear to be 
bro
though you would never know

and now I'm reading Sherman Alexie
who says that Indians seldom travel
in a straight line

not even the Crows