Question of the Day

Since Internet advertisers know as much about my tastes and proclivities as does the National Security Agency, it makes little sense to me that the former cannot take no for an answer.

I guess there is always a possibility that I may indeed become a "national security risk," so the powers-that-be are probably wise to keep an eye on me.  On the other hand, I am never going to buy 99.9 percent of the products advertised on my computer--which begs the question: why do the advertisers bother?  Don't they know a losing proposition when they see one?  Has their research and marketing acumen simply gone awry?  How can they be so hopelessly inept, and just plain wrong?

Ladies and gentlemen, here is what I've purchased over the web since its invention:  books and a Bloggie camera.  I'm really not a candidate for much else, so please don't bother me anymore .

There.  I fixed that little problem, didn't I?

I'm kidding, of course.  I'm a demographic, not a person.  And who knows, I may soon need a direct link to diapers.

TS

Morning Coffee

Photo by RP Thomas

Morning Coffee

The morning coffee drinkers at Talent’s

Noble Coffee are experts in many fields.

Or they claim to be. Political thinkers on occasion,

these coffee friends are reluctant to yield the floor

When a debate is in session.  A door salesman named

Harry Reems—he changed his name after the porn

Star—is also an astrologer, a horn player and a

former friend of the “disgraced chef,” Paula Deen.

A retired biologist, Clay Hicks, calls himself a philologist

and plays with words night and day. He has joined

Dianetics, has written two self-published polemics, which

nobody has read, and keeps one friend in Noble Coffee—

Himself.  Coffee, a known diuretic that settles wrong

in the intestines of the naively political, makes Noble 

Coffee a fine enclave every morning.  A haven for coffee 
fiends who, despite everything, sometimes get along.

TS

Nevilles

Check out the percussion on this.


TS

Sketches of Spain

I've been listening to Miles for the past 40 minutes.

Damn, I wish I'd stayed with the horn.  Truth is you don't forget the horn if you've experienced the horn's essence.

And Miles was the essence.


TS

Calliste

Wow, those Ducks surged and beat the mean old highly-ranked Wildcats from Arizona tonight, assuring a March Madness bid.

Jason Calliste, a post-grad transfer from Detroit University led the way.

Don't know when the NCAA started allowing grad students to transfer to the U of their choice, but I like it. The guy can flat out shoot.

And he has that crazy pre-free throw routine, four times behind the back, kiss the wrist, touch the heart for Grandma, bounce twice...

It works!  Great game.


TS

Coffee Corner

Stated clearly, with authority, a good poem resonates in the soul.

Charles Deemer is the author of two books of poetry published by Round Bend Press Books.

In My Old Age, and A Majority of One.


TS

Clown Conference Over

The Conservative Political Activist Committee meeting ending today in Maryland.

The very idea makes me sad and weepy.



TS

from "Talent"

Photo by RP Thomas

The Wag, Ted

The wag, the same one you've heard about,

the best  and worst customer in Tex’s Tavern,

once said: “The best thing about Talent is that

it takes none to live here.  The land is enough,

the Rogue is rough and the freeway, should you feel

the need to go somewhere, is right over there.”

The wag was tight and nodded in the wrong direction.

But he went on anyway:  “The fields are green, though 

often brown, and the sheep are easy and fearless; the 

beer is warm and cheap at Tex’s Tavern, and Lizzie 

DeLay is reckless; but at bottom, wink, wink, a doll.”

The wag’s droll friend Rex Dern said, “Ted, it may be

Time to go.”  Lizzie, better at directions than the wag 

Ted, lifted her head and then a brow; toward the door

her red eyes did roll.  “Poor Ted, he’ll soon be dead,”

Tex announced one day as he counted his money.

“He’s bleeding me dry, and though he may look spry,

the booze will soon kill him—and if it doesn't, I will.”


TS

Work in Progress

Photo by RP Thomas

Starting the Bus

The Chevrolet kicked up dust

as Big Mike pulled up in front of

the house on Colver Road near Talent.

A few chips of caked rust fell from

the trunk as Mike pulled the cables out

of his toolbox.  Where’s Tex? he grumbled.

Tex had to leave, Lizzie said, something

had happened at the tavern; a fridge broke

down and Sam, that clown, couldn’t fix it.

I know Sam, Big Mike offered, and he can be

kind of dumb, but you don’t ever want to

sit with him at poker.  Lizzie blushed and

Picked up a brush that lay beside Mike’s

hammer; his head spun and he wanted to run

when Lizzie moved too close for comfort.

Soon nature took over and the sun shone bright.

Turning a wrench left with all his might, Mike

realized he’d best turn it right—small wonder.

Big Mike’s head felt light when the Harvester

started to hum.  Because a mechanic was Mike,

and not a bum—he adjusted the carburetor.

Leaving the Chevy with Lizzie, he drove away fast.

What in the hell had happened just then?  Big

Mike wondered, speeding safely away at last.

TS

Another

Photo by RP Thomas

Lust

Big Mike left Tex’s

that night the proud

owner of a ’58 Harvester bus,

but oblivious to the lust

that had swelled up in Lizzie.

She seemed dizzy and loud,

though he did like her drawl,

and the way she squeezed

lemons and swirled her straws,

and pawed his money with long

Fingers painted red at their tips,

and moved her hips when she

dipped at a table to deliver fish &

chips before moving on, laughing.

Driving to the wrecking yard

That night, Big Mike was lost.

O he was very aware of the cost

of doing business with Tex, he

knew that much at least, for his

beloved Chevy was gone; in its

Place was an old bus that had

ceased to run and a woman named

Lizzie who liked to cuss and have fun,

and wear red in a crossroads town;

It would all soon wear Big Mike down.

TS

Four More

Photo by RP Thomas

Gone

Big Mike, late of Talent, disappeared one day.

A mechanic by trade, a “gentle bear,” he was

Last seen at the edge of town by Lizzie DeLay,

Who said Mike looked somewhat out of place.

Lizzie lived out that way and knew his face,

Had once told the mechanic to go get "fugged."

He blocked out the sun when he walked past,

Lizzie embellished in her indomitable way.

Mike was headed, as far as she could tell, fast

For the mountains and the “vast, blue horizon.”

She said, if you wanted her opinion, 

He had gone away to stay—Lizzie shrugged.

  

Big Mike

Big Mike loved Rolo,

Lizzie DeLay and the

Smell of gasoline—in no

particular order.

He ran the wrecking yard

just off Pacific Highway

Outside of Talent,

though he wasn’t the boss.

He was too mean

for that beneath his

Quiet, “gentle” demeanor,

as Lizzie and a few

Others knew quite well.

He’s “bent,” Lizzie once said.

But then Lizzie, Tex’s bartender,

wasn’t known as a saint, either,

Dead-right as she often

was.  Thence

Something happened

as it usually will,

When love and gasoline

are mixed like cheap swill.

Junkyard Dog

Big Mike’s dog Rolo was

no friend of Lizzie DeLay,

and that was okay with Mike.

A good old Boxer who

barked and barked again

at the smallest slight,

Rolo was proof certain

that a man’s best

friend is a good old dog.

So when Rolo bit Lizzie

early in the game,

the day after that first night

In Tex’s Tavern, the whole

town heard about it and

played along.  A literary

Wag quoted Bukowski:

“Love is a dog from hell.”

Though somewhat easy it was

Good enough for a few rounds

in Tex’s Tavern, Talent’s

accidental breeding ground.

The wag stayed

drunk for a week, which was

not uncommon nor profound.

Tex’s Tavern

Had Lizzie DeLay been working

the night the wag took the stage

and made fun of her, she’d have

smacked him on his kisser.

But Tex was working his bar,

“to watch the front door,” and to

guarantee at least three “profit

nights;” Lizzie worked the other four.

Tex, a big-city boy, had always

said he wanted a place out West

in a crossroads town busy enough

to make a buck, but unknown

to strangers down on their luck.

Passing through Talent in an old

Harvester bus, Tex spotted the bar on

Main Street and cried out, “The hunt

is done!”  “Hon?” Lizzie fussed, for

she was unhappy and given to doubt.

In the bar’s dim light, Lizzie saw Big

Mike when he came to inquire about

the bus, but things started slow. As Tex

parlayed the bus for a Chevrolet, Lizzie

began to sway, and soon enough, glow.

from the Talent poems

TS

Tough Road

Oregon hosts Arizona State tonight with it's five-game winning streak and a March Madness berth on the line.

Oregon needs one of the final two against the Arizona schools to at least get a shot.  Win them both and the Ducks are likely in.  Lose them both and they're definitely out unless they win the PAC tourney, which is about as likely as me winning a Pulitzer.

TS

Beyond Detritus

I've started a cycle of poems about small-town life--a fiction that is tugging me in the direction of a narrative form.  Slice of life stuff.

This is pretty exciting, and I think I can keep it going from start to finish, which isn't always the case I've discovered.  I have a notebook of fragments, or detritus, that haunts me.  I made do with some of it once, collected in Dooley's book, People, Polemics & Pooh-Pah, and I'll likely attempt something like that again.

But man, it would be nice to finish a project again whole.  It's been a while since I've done that.

So the grind begins.


TS  

Value Plus

Well, that took too long--a month short of four years to finally achieve 100,171 page views here at Round Bend Press Detritus (formerly just RBP).

But it's okay, if I hadn't been doing this I'd have been doing something else to create trouble--that's just my nature.  Hell, I'd probably be in prison or dead by now.

You know, there are site analyzers out there who quote your value in dollar terms as a blogger.  I looked this one up a couple of months ago.

This blog is worth $87.50 according the experts.

That's capital, baby.  We're on a roll.


TS

Poem

Photo by RP Thomas

Old Fury

One exterior wall covered with license

plates from at least 27

states was the old woman’s idea—stolen

from a photo she’d seen in an old magazine.

Not a garage at all, but a bare and unsecured

portage of recycled planks, the structure

and the ‘57 Fury somehow gave the old woman

stature among her curious friends along Colver Road.

A vintage Plymouth with enormous fins,

the car was the same color as the woman’s fine,

flushed jowls when she drank her gin, and the

neighbors always wondered if it be by design—

The old man’s idea of a prank—for unlike his wife

he was much loathed in Talent and along Colver Road.

The car sat there day after day for years, undriven,

until the old woman died of cancer in ‘97. 

The old man, who died in ’88 and preferred his

Chevy pickup and his whiskey straight, never bothered to 

teach his wife how to drive, which explains why the 

Fury is so pristine and Colver Road is filled with such life.

TS