Snowglobe Senryu

"Not recommended
for under 8." Really? Who
else wants snowglobes?

Grandma

When Nina Simone moans, pigs in a blanket with hummus are being served, and my sweater doesn't itch, I know that it's Christmas day in the Phelps household. The only household on the block with a menorah in the window, and last night we still had carolers at our mezuzah-affixed door. My sister Caitlin smokes or breathes outside. She stands leaning into snow piles like albino butt cheeks. My stepmother--Nancy--worries about using coasters on a glass table. And Dad can't give two bananas for the reason today's important. He celebrates the tinseled tree, the stepfamily celebrates the menorah, and I celebrate the rare visit of my dear, dear Grandmother. Grandma Phelps, how good it is to see you.

Grandma is alone. But she doesn't mind. She can walk around with a cane and a banister and nothing else. She can dye her hair reddish on her own (though she chooses not to). She lives in a large home that has now emptied out via death and adulthood. She reads constantly, finding comfort and company in the grocery check-out pulp fiction she buys last minute. She cooks meat 'n' potato meals for herself, bathes herself with a handled loofa, dresses herself in clothes from 1962, plays Scrabble with herself, et cetera et cetera et cetera. 90-something and still independent. Go Grandma.

But Christmas gifts...Grandma doesn't know how to do Christmas gifts. And it's not that she's not materialistic or so overjoyed by the love and comfort of the Christmas spirit and our family getting together that she can't keep her mind on who might like what. It's more her senility, and the oblivion that her age has brought about.

"I hope you like it; I got one for each of the kids' kids." Grandma undulated to my anticipatory pizazz. She always refers to her offsprings' offspring in this indirect way, a subtle though nonetheless scathing distance that's all too evident. Sad emoticon.

I replied, "I'm sure we'll love it, Grandma!"
Bow off.
Wrapping paper tearing...
Wrapping paper off.
"Ooh--a Popcorn Tin. Thanks so much, Grandma. Caitlin and I will have this finished before the night's out!" Cheddar, Butter, and Toffee Loveliness in a spherical tin two feet high and one foot in diameter. How do we tell her this gift is thoughtless? That it's cheap? That it won't work? We both had braces.

Each year for the past six years, a new tin of popcorn. We have since learned to put them in the corner of our basement den and, anytime we have friends over, break it out for all who enjoy to enjoy. "Dude, this shite is stale. How old is it?"

One particularly memorable year I received a pair of socks, a small wooden box, and a toiletries kit. Pair of socks? Always handy; good job, Grandma. Wooden Box? Weird little elephant etching up top, but I can put condoms and mints in it; good job, Grandma. Toiletries kit? Always handy, again; good jo--...oh wait. A clear plastic bag with zebra stripes. Dove deodorant. Nail file. Hand lotion. Nail clippers that say "BOYS STINK."

"Are you sure this was for me and not for Caitlin, Grandma?"
"Yep!"
"..."
"Do you like it?!"
"--Of course! Why wouldn't...I?"


Before my parents divorced, my mother would tell my sister and I the horrors of her Christmas experience at the Phelps household in Fulton, NY. Grandpa would silently growl at her all night long, the rest of the family would banter trifles and trivia with her in order to ignore the distance that was their reality, and she received red gloves annually from Grandma.

"Thanks, Mom."
"Mrs. Phelps, dear."
"Sorry."

So Today. My stepgrandmother Nana received from her fellow wrinkleton in the room one of those Chicken Soup for The Soul books. This was specifically Chicken Soup for The Christmas Spirit. Nana is Jewish.
Mazel Tov!
Nancy received a bar of soap wrapped in an exfoliating techniwarmcolor Alpaka fur. Nancy gave the same bar to Grandma last year. "Regifting is okay," Nancy whispers in my ear with a sneer.
Caitlin received a small porcelain jewelry box with orchids etched on the top. It's god-awful ugly and she doesn't wear jewelry.
Dad received a book (thumbs up, Grandma) and a Hickory Farms sausage and cheesespread kit. He promptly looked at Nancy upon unveiling it, she gave him a pussywhip eye (whuh-psh!), and he handed it to me out of Grandma's sight. Yum. Thanks, Grandma, and Nancy's fascist grasp of Dad's diet.

And then there's me.
Shaving everyday me.
Living on his own me.
With a job that doesn't pay in tips me.

Mine was in a box. Outside of the box, I see Santa Claus looking up curiously with an index finger to his beard. In yellowed water. With yellowed pellets representative of snow. In a snow globe. A snow globe.
"Twist the bottom. Look at the bottom. See the turning--there y' go! Let's see what it plays!"
"Th-thanks, Grandma. I've never owned a snow globe before. I was beginning to think I never would."
Silly me....

The women of my life; Literati Replies

Aniko:

http://mycommasutra.blogspot.com/search/label/Rick

Lisa:

http://ifinfinity.blogspot.com/2008/12/poet-ii-tentao.html

http://ifinfinity.blogspot.com/2008/12/english-teacher.html

http://ifinfinity.blogspot.com/2008/07/anastasia-is-still-alive.html

What We'll Miss (The AfterHours Club)

For the children strolling
silent streets in silent nights
and riding in black
in black on bikes

for those whose initial
fear has subsided
and who'll learn what it
means to regret silence

for the rebelling theys and
professing yous believing
delusions ("We'd sneak out too
but it's much too cold to.")

for the dismal crescendoblue
sky with bats and flies
for the gallant exuberance
of youth and nights,

Leave your distortions at home,
"gather ye rosebuds while ye may."*
The streets at night are yours alone,
yours to conquer, to lust, to take.

*Robert Herrick's "To Virgins, To Make Much of Time."

A Situation

I told him not to say goodbye, after I told him
what had happened before.

Epigram

Time is weaved to provide
comfort to the saddened and
discontent to the undeserving fortunate.

I'm trying honesty....It's different, but I like it."

There are
so many ways to lie.

I suppose pillows and honesties always complement them.

_______It only took a nap and a consideration to
_______bring me to tell you.

15 Word Poem (Living in a Quad)

Why must they scream at this ungodly hour?
A drunkard youth disrupts my slumber now.

Philadelphia and Then Morning Classes

Here I sit, midmorning, the sunlight casting
white sails over my desert eyes by dusty windows.
My neck cracks like a Birch branch under the
weight of an overnight deep-freeze.

I still wish it happened.
I just wish it happened differently,

without this droning fatigue and a broken law or two;
I've too much to do to realize what I've done.

Just Arriving Home

I love watching you love your daughter the way that you can: explicitly.
I love watching you love your daughter the way that
_____________________________________ I would if it were alright that I loved her.
But it's not alright.
And so I'll
____watch___you love__________h_er
______________________and_______watch me love her: implicitly.

In a Mall Midmorning

I just saw an old couple waddle past. They were holding hands. Even with the arthritis, the liverspots, the hair, the hairlessness, the yellowing, the wrinkles...even with these, they're still in love. In love through it all, in spite of it all.
It made me smile to see them. Because I want that. I want a girl to ask to marry me and then I say yes and to fast-forward to this. To hold our hands in public. Waddling in sync. Waddling in love. To kiss her sagging cheek and wrap my scrawny arm around her paining back. All for the glory, the marvel, that it might bring to a kid watching us. The smile it'll bring to him.
When I hold hands, old and decrepit, with my decaying wife. Whom I love very much. Still. Still. Through it all.

Boy and Mom

an evening of stained shirts and strained voices
--waking unbearable--
your breath still makes the loudest noises.


She said "I'm in agony. Just believe and breathe."
So I inhaled and inspired.
She exhaled for me and closed her eyes to avoid seeing.

Sunny's

I've never been a Casanova. The opportunistic surges of urges I've endured since I was eight (when I discovered the sacred Penthouse found street side) have only made me shake hands--firmly and indefinitely--with hesitation and self-defeat. Getting pantsed in elementary school, wearing floods and a buzz-cut in middle school (Thanks a lot, Mom), and being the quintessential acnefied brace-face in high school all pointed to: loser. All pointed to: virgin. All pointed to: wait for college.

So I tried on patience and it seemed to fit, so long as I could bounce my legs in class and hide my cumrag at night. When college came, I was invigorated by the independence and irresponsibility that would soon take over. I had convinced myself then that all my New Year's Resolutions to talk to girls, talk to them confidently, make something happen, would amount to all I'd figured out prior to my arrival on campus. Thanks Jason Biggs.

I had heard urban legends of collegiate sex. Panties off, no sweat. Kiss on the cheek, at least a handjob. Kiss on the lips, piece of cake cunt fuck. Bite your ear? Her face'll be clown mouthed, spider eyed, with spit and cum drizzled in no time. But I wasn't ready for all this yet. I'd leave it up to Ron Jeremy and Frats to immediately corrupt the innocence I once recognized in my female peers. These experiences slapped down the reality of my own premature ejaculation, if not a solid limp-dick incident.

Instead, I merged into the collegiate female territory. Each step quiet and precise, regimented and documented.

1. Pre-shower downwind, post-Axe bodyspray, "waft away, ladies." What man wouldn't want to smell like "Dark Temptation," "Recovery," or even the number "3?"

2. Girls like stronger guys (except for a few on Craigslist looking for their tenor Jack Skellingtons), therefore there were mornings spent wheezing through five push-ups (I was never particularly athletic). The high school hairy, wheyshake drinking smallballers rolled their eyes with perturbation while the mulletdyke coaches sighed at the overshot androgyny I so illustriuously exuded.
"C'mon Smith! A few more! Get that Testosterone pumping!"
"Ms. Humphrey, you've got more testosterone pumping than I do."
"What was that?"
"I said 'Lou gets bored testing on a throne jumping Xanadu!'"
"...You're a weird kid, Smith."

3. Nights dancing naked in front of a mirror to Ricky Martin (shut up).
"She bangs, yeah, she bangs!"
Yes she does, Ricky Martin, and so will I.

So the other night, I realized I wasn't twelve anymore, that my balls had dropped, and that a night downtown would do me good. That night was the night that the fuzzy VH1 Pickup Artist's tips and tricks of chivalry and gentlemanliness were gonna fall from my sleeves with majesty and grace.

"Hey."
"...Hi."
"You're fat."
"OMG I totally want you!!!!!1!"
"I know, right?!"

I went out to the one and only barslashdanceclub in town: Sunny's, 43 Water St. I remember the address just because I thought it was such an odd number to follow 35 Water St. This address belongs to the infamous Club 35, the only topless-only dry-bar strip club within a three town radius. Known well for its scantily clad Pillsbury doughboys and a patron in the back who wears a neckbeard and yips at the girls from time to time.
"Yip! Name's Elvis, sugar. What's yerrs?"

I met a girl named Thera. She couldn't believe I pronounced her name right the first time. "No one ever does," she said. I didn't either. I called "Karen?" But the pulsing music and alcoholgulping company were raucous inside, and I was having difficulty paying attention to the words slingshot from her glossy pink pout.

We managed to understand one another in that moment, however. With the heat of the major chords clogging our earseyesmouthnostrils and the sweet sweat scent sensed, we embraced our novice parentless autonomy in the mutual desire to go home unalone under a Friday 2 A.M.

I was shy and she was tipsy. She smiled at me and--God bless her--walked through perverts, cologne, and whores to initiate something. A rather strong first encounter, she took me by the neck with her cunt stuck out. I played passive ("Let the dolls come to you, man" said the fuzzy-hatted dude). She had gum to cover up the rum. She thought she knew what she was doing.

And she hadn't noticed the mustard stain on my jeans under the blacklight yet.

"Yip!"

She smiled and chewed, coming close to my ear to shoutwhisper "ooh!" and her rendition of the song's lyrics. I wondered who she was and who she had come with. She wondered what song this was and asked me what my name was again.
"Schtick?! Is that like a Jewish nickna--"
"No; Nick!"
"What?!"

We grinded no matter the tempo or mood of the playlist because we wanted that touch. I tried not to appear too white and to utilize those Ricky Martin rhythms I felt in my hips earlier (shut up). We wanted that overt sensuality without the embarrassment or shame of touching strangers known for less than an hour ( and within the confines of the reality that it would be an otherwise solitary solitaire night).

I would later experience similar occurrences, touch the backs and waists and necks and breasts of nameless girls. They were girls so incredulously vulnerable to my anonymous hands, fingers licking and palms pressing. My left and my right were my pioneers creating maps of seas of skin, complexions and smoothnesses expansive and varied. I could never grasp that comfort; where did the readiness to have their straps and strings snapped, their charcoal/mahogany/strawberry strands combed into a sexed-up disarray, come from?

She thought she was being cutesy and flirty when she'd bend forward dropping her head--snap!--and fling her moussed and fingercurled hair back while craning up and leaning back into me. When she came up for air and feminism, her delicate fingers grabbed my hair and neck, and I tried to muster a smile. My thoughts were telling me two opposing notions simultaneously at this critical junction in time (resulting in my mere mustering):

1. Right shoulder: He-Man: "HE-MAAAAN! MASTER...OF...THE UNIVERSE!!"

2. Left shoulder: Steve Urkel: "Ooooh, cheesedoodles! Don't blow your load yet, son!"

But she was petite and all that slithering and snapping ended up amounting to was a dick digging into her back and hair spouting from my mouth.

"Hey."
"Who are you?"
"You're stupid."
"What? I don't even know yo--"
"Shut up and let's suck mouths, female."
"Wha--! But-and I am not stupid!"
"Sh, jus' rub my Jamiroquai hat."
"What are you--"
"Slap my ass. Call me 'Sally.' C'mon, Sugartits."

When this shitty bar in this shitty town was closing at a shitty hour, I thought she could clean us up. I offered my place for a movie (maybe some shite she'd adore like "Must Love Dogs"). I had a shag in mind of course. But she came with friends. Both Barbies and barbacoas. They didn't know me, and that meant each smirk was met with a grimace. So with the same enthusiasm that cubicle colleagues retaliated against their bosses at company picnic tug-o-wars, her friends pullled her arms with zest and zeal.

She said her goodbyes, remembering my name as "Dick." Incorrect again--even in her bornagain sobriety--but I, like so many young men just looking for legs, did not care. "Close enough," I called out to her hips jiving away between her friends' legs furious. And it didn't matter either way. I went home sneering. She went home giggling and telling me to call her without having given me her number.

"Yip!"

My eyelids falling falling falling falling

Quick flashes of ah and silver
from the epilepsied seizureling
t.v. screen
remind me of the wallful
sun
(armovereyesbrightbright)
passing through the trees
when riding in the backseat.

And it's reglowing the fading embers of
my awareness that i'm in
side and in dark and in alone,

and not watching passing trees in
some sweet's backseat some warm
afternoon.

The Journalist (Climax)

Riding on fleeting summer passions
and minds and distances spectacular,

we happened upon our happenstance
aptitude to smile at one another

and hours of learning our otherselves:
pickuptruck vacations and midnight laughter.

"I like when you call me darling." at two a.m.
She woke me up, but I fell back smiling.

And the number of times that
I would call her darling would

dissipate from letmecountthewaysish
to onmyfingersandtoes to notatall

as her knowing me focused hesitantly on
my gratuitous deficits and subtle surplus.

That I am entirely literate, but that that
comes with an equally unabridged ego.

That I know who I am when I am alone,
but don't__when I'm with everyone else.

That I am covered in lust, but still
find time to bathe in romance.

So she wrote me to avoid me when I
became an asshole. Quick and cutting,

"Okay. You can go now." An 'Ineverwant-
toseeyouagain' schtick and kitsch. We'll see.

"I enjoy you."

We touched at our highschool pace,
aware of our hands and lips and how

we made sure that her door was open.
We didn't want to call it sex and we

didn't want to call ourselves friends,
so we took precautions to resist resisting

our resistances. "I'm not easy; I'm fast."
The cool coo lipped before a foggy dryice no.

And it took weeks to break the skin
of her hesitations. With a finger slipped

in and her smiling gasp; with my "I won't"
broken by my teeth on her writhing hip;

with our petting and pressing hardness and
wetness, but still saintly clothed and precious.

So she keeps her halo bright by denying what
I'm trying to caress, and I try when I shouldn't.