I don’t know what didactic means

I read the word somewhere,
somewhere in a crowd of words
    on a page
like students crowding in a hallway
    between classes,
some wearing backpacks like semicolons.

But what does it mean?

Is it a type of penguin
    waiting in line for its turn
        to slide down the glacier and
            dive into the water and
                swim for fish?
Is it a kind of rock
    that you’d find next to a stream
        and put in your pocket to bring home
        because its color is really neat?
Is it a time in ancient history when
    dinosaurs roamed the earth
        and roared instead of speaking in sentences?
Is it a type of cloud
    that’s puffy and thick,
        which I see on bright summer days
            and aren’t full of lightning and rain?

On this beautiful day, free of dinosaurs and penguins,
    I sit on a rock and listen to
        the stream mumble by,
            mumbling all the possibilities of the word
didactic.

Ripples in ‘Tom Lake’

I was listening to the audio version
of Ann Pachett’s
Tom Lake, 
narrated by Meryl Streep,
who did a lovely job
with the story

but when Ms. Streep
said “fuck,”
ripples from 
the word
sent a 
mild shock to my brain

but that’s foolish of me

because Ms. Streep
could curse a blue streak
out of frustration
or 
just for the fun of it 
when
no microphones and cameras
are staring at her

after all,
she’s human,
just like everyone else.

Phony Foam Phone

Get that phony foam phone
away from me,
since I gotta call
Frank in Philadelphia,
on a real phone.
We’re supposed to go
fishing on Phil’s farm.
Where’s my cell phone?
I put it here a minute ago.
You didn’t sell it, did you?
Frankly, I don’t know what the heck
you’re doing with that goofy
phony foam phone anyway.

Let’s Get Snooty About Wine

I suppose the wine glasses
are like sleeping bats,
hanging upside down
on the rack

and I suppose the red wine
in our glasses could resemble blood

and I suppose we could
pretend we’re vampires

but I hate the idea of drinking blood,
even if I didn’t pierce
a tender neck to get it

so I’d rather listen
to him wax poetic
about how
this vineyard’s terroir is spectacular,
this merlot’s weather was ideal,
the grapes were picked at night,
and the guano in the soil
adds a certain je ne sais quoi.

The Mamas and the Dadas

fit wheat barrier approve
influence hospital electronics

Tristan Tzara’s steps to create a Dada poem:
cut each word from a newspaper article,
put the words in a hat,
shake the hat,
pick out word-papers, and
write each word in the order
you removed them from the hat.

landowner stab lobby
hurl mistreat graphic

A modern way to do it:
use a random word generator website.

south pawn moment
honest drawer peak experience

Tzara’s method limits you
to words in the article (which you choose).
The modern method limits you
to words chosen by the people
who built the website.

hike motivation slip range
smoke oak entry

Although each method will
put together words that
you would not have usually put together
into delightfully unexpected and absurd put-togethers,
and you will birth poems
different from your other poems.

shape bee scratch offensive
ministry accept series

Although some readers
may frown at your nonsensical poem
and stop reading after the second line.

theory thread beautiful
consensus new reactor

Although other readers may continue reading to the end,
like riding a hobby horse to the
Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich,
sipping coffee or kirsch,
and appreciating life’s absurdities,
like standing in Swiss bar
while California dreamin’ a little dream
of sun and beach and endless waves,
but finding reality is a different thing,
like all that sun exposure
could lead to sunburn and skin cancer.

Storytelling to Avoid Murder

Scheherazade spun tales every night
to the vengeful king
for more than two and half years:

telling the beginning half
of the first story on the first night,
then repeating the pattern:

telling the end half of one story,
followed by the beginning half
of the next story,

stopping to dangle (figuratively)
a shiny story chain
before the king’s eyes.

Let’s back up:
The king had vowed to kill
unmarried women in his land,
after his queen had cheated on him,
and he killed her.
In continued brutality,
he repeated the pattern:

wedding a virgin each day,
spending the night with her,
ordering her to be murdered the next day.

But the king kept Scheherazade alive,
one day after another
to hear how each story played out,
and he postponed beheading Scheherazade.

She wove one thousand stories
into a vibrant, intricate tapestry:

jinn, dreams, magicians, thieves,
a mechanical flying horse, ghouls,
magical carpets, a singing tree,
characters who tell their own stories,
and more beyond more.

Then Scheherazade told the king
she was done, no more stories,
and she must’ve expected execution,
but wished to bid farewell
to her three sons first.

(so storytelling wasn’t the only
activity in the bedchamber,
yet she still focused
on storytelling during pregnancy
and childbirth)

By now, the king was in love
with Scheherazade:

he spared her life
and kept her as his wife and queen,
then they spun a new story together.

Top painting: Scheherazade by Édouard Frédéric Wilhelm Richter
Bottom painting: Scheherazade and the sultan by Sani al Mulk
Source for both: Wikimedia Commons

Balaclava? Baklava?

I confuse the words
balaclava and baklava,
so I have
a deep-seated worry
about witnessing
the robbery of a
bakery or Greek restaurant,
because
if the police officers
ask me
if the robber
wore a baklava
while he or she
stole the balaclava,
I won’t know how to answer.

Oh Truths!

From the thicket of a crossword puzzle,
my daughter asked me
did I know a candy bar’s name
with an exclamation point?
I didn’t, so I checked the internet.

In a bold yellow wrapper
with red and black lettering:
Oh Henry!

Its Wikipedia page
gives various stories
about the candy bar’s beginning:
Did Wilson McCutchan of Canada create it?
Or Thomas Henry of Kansas?
Or George Williamson of Chicago?

A note that George Williamson
liked the stories by O. Henry,
who died just before
the earliest dates (1910s)
in the candy bar’s origin stories.

O. Henry was a pen name
for William Sydney Porter,
and on his Wikipedia page,
various stories about the O.:
Was it Olivier, as Porter himself said?
Or Orrin, named after a prison guard?
Or Ossian, named after a pharmacist?

All this leads me to wonder if
The Truth!
is less like
A Fact Chiseled In Stone
and more like
a group of people sitting around a table
drinking beer/wine/cocktail/coffee/tea/milk,
each person’s answer
as different as their beverage choice,
each making a different exclamation point.

***

Portrait of William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), taken by W.M. Vanderweyde in 1909, is from Wikimedia Commons. Oh Henry! picture by Evan-Amos is from Wikipedia and is used here for a non-commercial purpose.

Winter Monotony

Sure, of course:
sledding and
snowball fights and
building snowmen and
gazing out the window
at the falling snow
as your family sips hot cocoa
by the crackling fireplace…

These are enjoyable pastimes.

I’m not here to argue that point with you.

But please hear the view from my side.

When you live inside a snow globe,
those pastimes can get as monotonous
as white noise on the radio,
and you find yourself
wishing for climate change.

Paint on O’Keefe Book

There’s paint on pages 86 and 87 of the
Georgia O’Keefe book from the library.
(full disclosure: it wasn’t me)
A previous borrower was moved by the paintings of
Purple Petunia (1927) and Poppy (1927) and Oriental Poppies (1928).

I’m guessing the petunia was the causalist,
due to the purple pink blue dots
on the canvas of the page’s margins.
(because both poppies instead burn with reds and oranges)

This splattering of pink purple blue splots
was swiped to the
left in an attempt to clean them off.
I like the paint dots and wipes
because they add
something to the book.
(falling stars)

The splots transform these pages
from representations of the master’s three artworks
to
their inspiring someone else’s lively splattering of paint.

I hope Georgia would approve.

***

The Alfred Stieglitz portrait of O’Keefe (1918) is from Wikimedia Commons, and Oriental Poppies (1928) is from Wikiart.