Chrysanthemums

As technology advances - new words are coming into use.  
To make room for these new words in the Oxford English Dictionary - some words, the ones too silly to be in there, should be removed.



This, of course, is just my opinion.



Z. Corwin

Inside the Box

I cannot, within the span of this lifetime, complete all of the thinking I have left to do.  I am afraid I am going to run a bit over.  I hope that is all right.  

It isn’t that I have been slacking off or anything.  I mean, I’ve been thinking during the week and on weekends and holidays.  I am all the time thinking but there just isn’t adequate time - if you know what I mean.

         Even when I am reading books about what someone else has thought - I’m thinking, what were they thinking? And television, well of course I’m thinking while I am watching television.  Mostly I’m wondering how on Earth this garbage gets put on the tube. 

         Anyway - after having done the math on my expected life duration, minus that which has already passed, and then calculating that into my remaining questions - well there you have it.  I am over by at least eight point two years.

         Avoiding any puns about thinking inside the box, let’s consider for a moment that a person could, after having passed over, continue on with their thinking.   I would have to think that their new surroundings might influence their perspective just a bit.  Most likely their initial thoughts might run toward that machine, the one that told the doctors all brain activity had stopped.  Boy are they in for a surprise.

         But seriously, after we hang up this coat and wander down the all into the bright light, who’s to say we’re not still thinking about changing the furnace filter or hooking up the garden hose so we can wash the car?  I mean, we are not actually a very complex creature.  

We’ve existed on Earth for hundreds of years, given more land that we need and we’re still killing each other over boundaries.  One group processes our food through chemicals while another attempts to find a cure for why we are dying off. 

         One bunch of us munches down the rain forest while another studies the changing weather patterns.  And just when our library shelves are full of closed books we open Windows and read our filtered history and slanted news through computers - like penned up veal being fed probabilities and outcomes.

         I guess that if I were to just write off those last eight point two years and simply call it a day, whenever that day comes, I too could rest peacefully without all the stress and hubbub and just mentally focus on a flat line with a study hum in the background.   You know, just to give that machine something to think about.

zc

Only Use

a glass hammer

on rubber nails.

A Simple Country Poem

Little hope for city folk

who leave the robin's song unheard -

and scurry on their busy way

saddened by a hasty word -

No cricket's chirp nor bovine sent -

no moonlit nights

or gentle breeze -

can city time be so well spent -

without such Earthly harmonies?

Z. Corwin

Faculties

I sat quietly yesterday morning on one of the little padded benches at the mall.  It was our rendezvous point and I was first to arrive.  It wasn’t a minute later when two elderly men came walking up to the bench next to mine.  They appeared to be brothers.  One held a canvas book bag and a newspaper while the second explained to the first that he would be close by looking in and out of the near-by shops. 

As the first old man set his things on the bench he looked up at his brother, acknowledging the fact that his brother would not be sitting but wandering about.  Then again the wandering brother stated the exact same thing over again as if he had no idea that he had just said that. I looked at the man who was now sitting.  There was quiet desperation in his expression.  He flipped his newspaper open and drew it up close to his very substantial glasses.

I didn’t see him diving into the top story of the day, so much as I saw him trying hard to be anywhere else.  Wherever he was reading about I would guess he was mentally placing himself there, if only for a few minutes.   He kept looking at the article but I could tell he was listening and very much focused on where his brother was and how far away he was getting.  They were apparently taking care of each other in Life’s later years but the burden had obviously shifted and was now all one sided. 

As I gazed up at the ceiling and skylights I began to think about the architect who had designed the angles, arches and passageways for sunlight way up there, where most scurrying shoppers rarely look.  I wondered if, while sitting at his drafting board, or computer, he envisioned a couple of old men sitting - waiting for someone and looking up.   I wondered if he intentionally thought to entertain us with light and shadows while we waited.  

As much as I played with that thought I knew that I was simply avoiding what was really nibbling away at me.  What would become of me if something ever happened to Sally?  I was already a gray-haired old man sitting here on the bench at the mall.

We all plan to take care of each other as long as we can.  As we know, the holes within the fabric of today’s community are quite large and people slip through them on a daily basis.   Without the right, coherent response at the right time, people find themselves being shuffled off into agencies and programs, being handled and fed by charts and timetables.

The obvious challenge is to see how long we can hang onto our faculties.  Other internal systems may fail and send us on unexpected adventures but when the bulb starts to flicker we start that downward slide into grilled cheese and Jell-o at a 3 PM feeding.

Down at the entrance to the store I could see Sally making her way to our rendezvous point.  My spirits immediately picked up.  We would go home, enjoy lunch together, having what we wanted and when we wanted it.   

Later I would go down in the basement to my workbench.  I would gather some ½ inch Pine and build a sturdy box with heavy latches and trim.  I will use it to keep my faculties in.   

Perhaps with a metal plate on top indicating that they are all here.

   You know - just in case.

Momentary Items

Had I the time and talent I would learn to strum and old front porch guitar.  I would make up songs as I went along, entertaining anyone who happened to linger.  

If I had the resources I'd travel down south.  I would sit in local cafés just to listen to the slow, southern accents, feeling my own blood pressure and stress level calm down.  And I would have some pie.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I have this running list of things that fall under the category of, one of these days.   Over the years some of the items on this list have changed.  Even the ones that have held on the longest haven't always kept their original position.  

As my personal likes and dislikes change, my list makes priority adjustments.  The time of year also affects these items, for as July and August draw near my desire to head to southern states diminishes.

I have no inclinations towards space exploration, sailing, mountain climbing, or exploring religious philosophies.  The items on my list have always been the simple pleasures, like finding the perfect cookie, learning Italian or to photograph someone's face for a chance of capturing unsullied human expression.  Maybe simply sitting with friends and hearing about the things on their list.

As most of you know, the one thing that has never fallen from my list is to take a little time every day to play with words.  For me the written word holds all of the treasures found within human thought.  Its bounty extends beyond all margins, in soft, colorful strokes or can be as sharp as a single word expressed in a harsh, regrettable tone.  

Words, when arranged just right, can evolve into brilliant stage plays that pull us through rivers of emotions, even though we never once leave our chair.  Words, when sinisterly manipulated by advertisers can gnaw away at us, forcing us to remember their product.  

I believe there to be an agonizing plight in the Hearts of true poets.  It is a weight never lifted, a passion fueled by both love and rage.  It is perhaps their very soul slowly leaking through the tip of the pen, leaving behind what some would see as excess droplets of ink but are in fact small fragments of momentary items that once resided on the back pages of a list.

Blueberry.

Life at the Waiten Sea

          We are headed into the five Wednesdays of January.  It is a bleak, bone-chilling and dismal span of time, void of tinsel, grog and good cheer.  It is the stark reminder that Life goes on.

          A sea of humming computers, clacking keyboards, and the exchange of vacant pleasantries slowly fills each of these days until we find ourselves searching desperately for an escape hatch.  

           The daily paper fails us as it only peers into the dregs of humanity.  Television provides a barrage of blathering pitchmen interrupted by feeble one-liners and canned laughter.

  

          Throughout these vast stretches of boredom a few of us reach out, if only briefly and hold hands.  Not, of course in the physical sense but by means of letters, e-mails and phone calls.  We momentarily lock fingers with a few words, placing our own little stepping-stones across the calendar.  

           Others opt to join organizations or to live vicariously through the exploits of their children.  Some of us simply dive head first into diets and focus upon self-improvement.  

          In the past I have chosen to tell stories; fabricated adventures in fictional places such as Oak Valley and Putrid Sound.  I have dabbled with ideas involving sock puppets and magistrates and have sometimes blended reality with fiction that I might solicit responses from those too long quiet. 

          I am thinking that 2020 should not just be another stretch of empty Wednesdays.  We should grind it up and form it into a rich, usable work of art.  It should come alive with laughter and music and nonsensical chaos.  

         We should roll it out before us like a new carpet and run through it with bare feet - giving carpet shocks to everyone who thinks life is to be taken seriously. 

Zobostic Corwin