yonder pile of fetid mud,
so tender to the touch
contains the thatch remains
I must tend to very much.
I have no time for politics
no lengthy words or speech
my life is tied up with the mud
not in the words I’d preach.
Though I stand against the wicked sky
and stand against the rain
the filth remains my trusted friend
the place I will remain.
For I am just a man with plow
with furrowed face and ground
keeping busy on the landlord's land
‘ere he come and mow me down.
what we don’t speak of
found inside our hearts
down in certain corners
it hides whenever we start-
thinking of the day,
thinking of the night,
soon we feel it passing
just another pang tonight…
if we had more choices
if we had a second time
if we had more knowledge
would we face the door aright?
opening to our moments
opening to our regrets
but finding pages empty
those memories one forgets
and passing through all seasons
and passing through all lines
there among the stories
the tender times that rhyme…
we have scrawled such a story
acquainted with such a life
if we had more knowledge
would we face the door aright?
beating at the window
knocking on the walls
ignoring pains and process
ignoring breaks and falls
flying moths are dying
winter comes tonight
where the heat is waning
will there be another fight?
if we had more choices
if we had a second time
if we had more knowledge
would we face the door aright?
the night is not so black
not so dark
not so hidden
that we cannot see
the alleyways of the soul.
buried in the trash of these
the stench of these
the color of these
Red cries from within
the walls high and divided
muting the message and the pain.
and another steps in-
the solution is plain.
the culprit of all our problems
soon sitting at the bottom
below in a hole in the ground
and someone says, “it will be forever,”
and no one rises to test it
and no one rises to declare
the hole may be a hole
but no one seems to care.
and so we labor, so many in the blind
like scattered cats scattered wide,
troubled alleyways of the soul
confused by the refuse in the hole.
what will change to bring change
what will endure with the loss of sight
what will you do with the hole
that stands on the edge of night.
there is that crusty ledge-
with swordplay above
the sidewalk below
or the fire escape
with nowhere to go-
you think that you have me,
but I will not stay-
my heart is not touched
by your game of decay.
my mind is on Heaven
I stand to declare
while yours is on Hell
and baggage-filled care.
you call into question
the right and the pure
while your heart is rotten
with no earthly cure.
beware spreading rumors
beware spreading hate...
touch not God’s anointed
lest you be those now Late.
The first time isn’t easy. You have to lean slightly to one side, shake a little bit, then look down and make sure you’re dry. And when you’ve finished, you must analyze the warm plastic cup and make sure you’ve filled it at least to the line. Next, you place the beaker-like container into a secret compartment where an unseen hand will reach in and extract the happy fluid…when you’re gone. You hope. And next time, you follow the same pattern, and maybe then you remain dry. The problem is…how do you practice peeing in a cup?
I was once a child…back in olden times. Thrown into an adult setting, white-coated people everywhere, I was given a speciman container and given confusing instructions about “catching the stream.” I walked into the restroom, took down my shorts, took one look at the huge-butted comode, another at the speciman “jar” and thought “you’ve got to be kidding. what am I supposed to do- again?” I pulled up my shorts and pants, went outside the door and tried to get a nurse’s attention. “What do I do again?” Do you know how silly it is to look up at Mattilda-the-Hun on steroids and ask “Do I pee into the poddie first or do I pee in the cup first?” I never quite understood her adult response, so I went back into the restroom feeling embarrassed and ready to pee in my shorts if I didn’t start playing fireman fast! Well, I tried to hold the bottle out and hit it a few times, and my hand, but I managed to fill the thing up past the line and almost overflowing. I washed my hands, pulled up my shorts and pants and went out the door to find the nurse. “I’m done.” She went in and pulled the cup from the back of the comode and marched past with a prize-winning jar of yellow stuff. One nurse moved out of the way in surprise- or was it envy?- and then I found my way back to the waiting room. Wow, peeing properly in a cup was a tiring experience…
But today, I have conquered the stream-method, I have mastered the moment-long spray in the cup. It is no longer me who is embarrassed about stream-catching, but rather the new young recruits to the pee-pee lab.
I asked the cute blonde what amount of euphoria convinced her to become a urine analysis expert. She said it was “just a job” and smiled, as if she was trying to think of frisky puppies or cute lop-eared bunnies. She had on one of those not-so-serious looking health care outfits with Eeyore and Pooh dancing across her…but what really stopped me was her vacuously happy smile. I imagined her going home to her husband…
“How was your day, honey?”
“Oh, the same as usual. Until this old guy came in.”
“Old guy?”
“Yeah, he was at least 35.”
“That’s old.”
“I know…”
But I don’t believe she likely told him about our ensuing conversation after I returned from the restroom…
“I was wondering…has anyone ever asked you how to practice for the urine speciman test?”
I say this because she looked at me like I was from the Bolivian Navy. It struck her, like a Time Rift.
“Like…I hadn’t thought of that!”
“Well, maybe you should…because, not everyone is as practiced as I am!”
It was a horrible day at work, but at least I am not a Beijing washroom attendant. The latter, Chinese serfs with dubious fringe benefits, have been given a new directive- no more than two flies per stall. These are ironic rules for the potty police, who are already understaffed and overworked, considering that more people line up to give an offering at a porcelain protrusion in a Beijing restroom than cue up for a “Pin the Tail on the Zuckerberg” game at a “Stock Implosion Party.” Counting flies is serious business, and a whole lot of money should be thrown at the problem so that the communist government can justify a five-year plan.
But how…how…does one obey such a directive, considering five year plans may not include all the utilities for the plan in the first year or more? Do attendants get fly swatters, portable fly-paper houses, or big-fat bug zappers? Or, do they mount this offensive while straddling white plumbing equipment? It seems to me that a policy requiring stall inspection would necessitate occupiers counting total fly populations while vacating their bowels, unless they were vacating the said stall areas to allow washroom attendants to do systematic checks.
Which leads me to the next logical question: if there is now a two fly policy, what was the former policy? In a country where babies are regulated, where ghost cities lie in wait for future generations, and where “reality” is manipulated by the government, the regulation of flies in a metropolitan smog jungle restroom might actually seem logical. So, what was the former count? Surely there was a system in place that allowed for a particular number of flies per stall. I believe that number was chosen by a party leader who read a Fortune cookie prediction containing the lucky number. This makes perfect sense because these are the same people who have regulated the installation of strangely worded signs in fractured English throughout China as a part of the “Communist Party Comic Relief Program” for all English-speaking tourists. It’s just a shame that they have to have a spy program so ubiquitous. It’s no wonder they are trying to eliminate the image of the Chinese “fly on the wall…”
