Postcards from Hell

 

February 21, 2014  (I was 69)

 

Postcards from Hell

You never know exactly where you are

A lot of mirrors and in each a different appearance

yet every one a recognizable reflection

 

Went to the portrait gallery

Nothing but mug shots

 

There is a distinction made between

those here for what they did

and those here for what they thought

but no difference is made by that distinction

 

We hear Oh go to Hell

is a favorite expression among the angels

 

Sometimes letters get through from above

mostly looking for drugs and alcohol

 

Finally saw some blue devils

They used to be Eskimos

 

Darwin used to be here

but he evolved

 

Things can get out if you can find the border

Thing is there are no definable borders

 

Screw up here

and you’re born again

  

Here we know

we all shared all guilt

a knowledge of which

those in heaven are ignorant

the unfit

 

from this week in 2012  (I was 68)

 

       the unfit                

They’d like to fit in

not be misfits or bad fits

but sure fits

wearing the shoe that fits

making no one fit to be tied

moving smooth with no fits and starts

If not physically fit nor a perfect fit

at least a comfortable fit

Fatigued from the effort

they fitfully sleep

Paineful Song

 

November 6, 1967  (I was 22)

 

         Paineful Song

Thomas Tyme and brother Tim

soled shoes and sold shoes

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED.

That man came to buy

the shoes sold soled and guaranteed,

but before he bought

he thought Tim ought

to wear one out ot see

that he would not

after he bought

need to ply the guarantee.

So Tim tried one

and Tom the other.

Their trials made no holes,

and from that day

their shingle did say

These are the Tymes

That try mens’ soles

more slogans from the bulletin board

 

Even more slogans from the bulletin board

–posted over my teaching years

 

I refuse to have a battle of wits

   with an unarmed person.

If it don’t make sense

   it’ll never make dollars

Children should be beaten once a day

   If you don’t know why, they do.

Hug your kids at home

   belt them in the car

The hand is quicker than the eye

   but only the nose runs

The first human to hurl a curse instead of a weapon

   founded civilization

Never fall for a tennis player

   to them love means nothing

Keep an open mind

   and people will fill it with garbage.

                       *

 

HALLOWEEN TREAT!   johnkallio.com

Go to AUDIO page, Listen to my rendition of

Aquainted With The Night  by Robert Frost 

She may run

 

October 19, 2015

 

She may run

when I can’t walk

She has fun

when she can talk

Though I may not be erected

she may be elected

I don’t know to what office

I’m leaking from an orifice

Asking why, I’d implore her

then probably vote for her

mathematicians

 

from this week in September, 1970  (I was 25)

 

mathematicians

one two three four

five all in a row

like a garden they grow

into numerical eternities

following their ancestors

arguing the point moot

as to whose grandfather

was the greatest square root

Video Game: Grandpa’s Walk in the Park

 

April 22, 2013  (I was 68)

 

      Video Game: Grandpa’s Walk in the Park

         Grandpa must make his way through the park

while encountering and evading dog crap, dogs off the leash

(annoying or vicious), young children on tricycles, skateboards,

scooters, teenaged nuisances, the oblivious, damaged

walkways, baby carriages and maintenance equipment, to

reach at last the tranquil path to the Enchanted Grotto and a

meditative perch (of many and varied from which to choose).

Once there each aware breath brightens foliage, increases

bird songs, the sound of water flowing, light fragrant breezes

and artistic inspirations in all genres.

         When overcome however, Grandpa must spend real time

back at a recovery area to slow down enough to once again

make the walk the goal.

The Cheap Joke and Expensive Humor

 

December 13, 1985  (I was 41)

 

The Cheap Joke and Expensive Humor

         The cheap joke is called gag, bit, fluff and other

snub capsulations to play upon its brevity, but also to

to hint at the ease, the convention, the banality.  It is

non-judgmentally coarse.  It is direct and overt.  It may

humiliate, arouse or both.  To those who like such things,

it works best when it is unexpected and inappropriate

(not like in church where such things are commonplace).

It goes over best with an audience that is stupid, drunk

or smugly patriotic (stupid and drunk).

         Expensive humor is called art.  It is based upon

perception and attitudes toward perception.  It is point

of view established and evolved.  It is stylistic approach

established and evolved.  It is patient insistence upon

laughter at last.  It is not over until the listener laughs,

and the listener does not know it is over until he laughs.

This insistence is the tension.  The story ends, the laugher

laughs, has to laugh; timing it is called.  It is the tumble

down wave that should have been predicted before it

knocked us silly up the beach.  And threatened to pull us

out to sea.

Two French students of philosophy

 

November 24, 1992  (I was 48)

 

         Two French students of philosophy, Jacques and René,

were on their way to the university to take an examination on the

principles of the Cartesian view of the mechanistic clockwork of life. 

They had studied long, and success in the test was essential to the

students’ academic advancement.

         Passing a brothel in route to the university, Jacques was

suddenly overtaken by libidinal desires.  He decided to forgo the

examination to satisfy this more basic passion. He urged friend René

to accompany him to the den of inequity. René demurred, and left for

the school while Jacques entered the “établissement de l’amour.”

         In the examination room, the professor inquired of René

regarding the absence of his fellow, Jacques.  René replied, “Alas,

Jacques is always one to put the whores before Descartes.”

The little kid was up to the old movie stunt

 

November 5, 2014  (I was 69)

 

The little kid was up to the old movie stunt

with a wad of gum on the end of a stick

prodded through a grating to retrieve

the elusive dime someone dropped below

The kid angled and poked but could not spear

a single cent or bottle cap

A big kid told him to forget the stick

He lifted the grate and jumped in

and out again with the dime

quick as that slammed the grate into place

Without hesitation he gave the dime

to the startled boy who looked in wonder

I already have a dime said the big kid

The little kid buys two of his favorite candies

Sees a kid littler than himself eyeing

Have one he says to the hesitant tyke

I have two

The reasons this did not happen are

The older kid is more likely to keep the dime

and may put the little kid into the grated hole

And even if the little kid did buy two candies

and the tyke did just appear

he’d keep both pieces

and might give the tyke the gum off the stick

The first version is more heartwarming

but the truth is funnier

Ollie and Stanley at the Studio

 

September 22, 2010  (I was 65)

 

                  Ollie and Stanley at the Studio

 

Ollie:  in disgust, Look at us; Stanley does so.  I can not get us a contract with the studio. 

Stanley:  I think you can, emphasizing the I.

Ollie: I could not even get in the door; Stanley stares blankly at Ollie’s girth.           I was speaking figuratively, emphasizing the figuratively.  I could not      get an appointment.

Stanley:  I think you could, emphasizing the you.

Ollie: I could not.  They see only agents.  We have no money for an         agent.

Stanley:  You could be our agent.

Ollie:  I am not an agent.  I do not have the experience.

Stanley: What are you?

Ollie:  pauses, I am an actor, emphasizing the actor.

Stanley:  Act like an agent.

Ollie:  How does an agent act?

Stanley:  Exactly the question an actor should ask. 

            Ollie smiles intrigued, drumming his finger tips on his chest.

 

Cut to a cleaned and polished Ollie as he is ushered into the office of a studio executive.  Stanley follows exhibiting quiet curiosity.  

 

Executive: reads Ollie’s business card, Oliver Olivier, Talent Agent. 

         Never heard of you, who do you represent?

Ollie:  Abroad, I represent a guild of noted thespians; to Hollywood, I     bring the team of Laurel and Hardy.

Executive:  Never heard of them; he indicates Stanley, And who is this?

Ollie:  The pair perform in all genres.  This is Stanley Laurel of said duo, also my partner.  I am Hardy. 

Executive:  I can see that.

Ollie:  I mean, I am Oliver Hardy.

Executive:  I thought your name was Oliver Olivier.

Ollie:  That’s my agensorial name, so to speak.

Executive:  What sort of act do you do?

Ollie:  Though we’ve played every endeavor of the theatre arts, I am      often typecast as a sophisticated gentleman of means, with     Stanley as my gentleman’s gentleman.  Stanley brushes off the        shoulders of Ollie’s jacket.  Mr. Laurel has played Watson to my      Holmes –though that seemed to create some audience        confusion.  In Chatacqua revue we did Socratic dialogues, highly     esoteric and highly regarded.

         Throughout, Stanley performs subtle expressions, bits of mime, all conveying support for Ollie.

 

Executive:  Why should I contract you.  Your story is the same as every   potential waiter in town.

Ollie:  We work cheap.

Stanley:  He works cheap; I work for nothing.  Ollie smacks Stanley with his          hat. 

Ollie:  I thought we agreed that you’d shut up and leave the agenting to          me.  Stanley is forlorn.

Stanley:  But Ollie, you are not telling Mr. Executive the most important thing.  to the Executive:  Ollie is seriously funny.  In any role he    plays, emphasizing the any.  Ollie turns crimson.  He is irate and    attempts to shove Stanley behind him.

Ollie:  I have never played a clown, never the buffoon, naught the joker.          I do not say funny things.

Stanley:  calmly, No, you say things funny.

Ollie:  Stanley, you irritate me in places I cannot discuss.

Executive:  I get the idea.  You’re hired.  I want twelve of those bits,       fifteen minutes each, in the next three months.  Standard        contract will be in the mail.  Miss Pool will show you out.  Next      please.

Outside the studio gate:

Stanley:  And you said you didn’t know how to be an agent. 

Ollie:  I don’t know how to be an agent.  That, was acting.

 

-I began a series of pieces using Laurel and Hardy as

representations of right brain and left brain perception.

Not an original idea, I got it from Colin Wilson’s study,

Frankenstein’s Castle.  More appear in other posts.

-from The Litanies of Mistrust

 

September 21, 2008  (I was 63)

 

         -from The Litanies of Mistrust

Never trust:

         Hansel to follow the crumbs home

         a dinner invitation from Mother Hubbard

         the Sprats to serve a salad

         a cow’s worth of beans

         Bo Peep to tend your sheep

         a ba-ba-black sheep to give you a ba-ba-bag of wool

         a little piggy who has none

         Johnny Flynn heading to the well with a sack

Never trust:

         the swan within your ugliness

         Mary to be more than contrary

         Pete’s wife to come out of her shell

         a puss in boots

         a woman with a whip who lives in a shoe

         a spider to scare every muffet away

         Eency Weency to stay out of your spout

Never trust:

         Jack Horner to keep his fingers out of the pie

         Charming Billy not to try the young thing’s mother

         Rapunzel to let down her hair

         Boy Blue to wake up and blow

         Spoon not to run away with your dish

         a courting frog to be unarmed

         a monkey to pop your weasel

          nimble Jack to clear the fire plug

fine tuning

 

September 1, 1970  (I was 25)

 

         fine tuning

oh tellovision mellowvision

of soft images and fair

winging smoothly to me

across the turbulent air

what am I to learn from you

heat my heart and warm my tubes

let me create a dream that’s new

let it be an electric miracle

a stability both horizontal and vertical.

Overall

 

August 15, 2010  (I was 65)

 

Overall

I have no bitches about my britches

I go to Bermuda in my shorts

Capri in my pants

I deer hunt in my buckskins

prance with buffoons in pantaloons

I embrace a waist in hip huggers

spelunk for guano in dungarees

dodge the bull in toreadors and

prod for bivalves in my clam diggers

When smoking weeds in my tweeds

I may be lax in my slacks

but never loose in my tights

in my pedal pushers on my bike

Ever stretching in my sweat pants

and sweating in my stretch pants

It is commonly thought comedy comes

 

July 9, 2011  (I was 66). Used yr 3?

 

It is commonly thought comedy comes

from the pain of the comedian who converts

ache into the absurd premise of humor

It is not so commonly known the conversion comes

when the sonic hum of the situation

vibrates the comic who translates for us

the universal cosmic giggle

Emily Dickinson in Pleasanton

 

from this week in June 2013  (I was 68)

 

   Emily Dickinson in Pleasanton

I’m somebody.  Who are you?

Are you somebody too?

Could there be a pair of us?

Nobody told me so.

 

How dreary to be no one

how rural, like a lout

with a name unheard the livelong June.

The very idea makes me pout.

Oh exclamatory verse you failed to hide

 

May 19, 2020  (I was 75)

 

Oh exclamatory verse you failed to hide

a heart worn on a tattered sleeve

never a thing to be kept inside

so apparent it may yet deceive

 

With alas and gasp doth thee emote

I feel the rope around my throat

Sadly woe is me quote unquote

I'm breathless I guess this is all she wrote