Hi and welcome to the Attic, I'm Frankenberry of said Blog Title and I write of just my everyday here, sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don't like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that's just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or short story-etic or something like that. If you're joining me here I thank you, but just mind your head and feet and keep an eye out for my little Bella and Cricket The Blind as well as the memories of Raspberry (Razzy), Mimi the Quirky, of Blink The Lil' Kit, Grayson the Mighty, Shoes the Big Orange, Shana-Girl, Benny Good Man Benny Brown, Merlin & Bob. Wouldn't want you step on them or anything … 'cause then I might just have to throw you down the stairs … damned humans.
Author: Stephen J Frankenberry
Just some guy in a Pirates hat, couple'o cats and this spot
Because there may not be much time before we are singled out and sent away as example of a lack of unity and non-fealty, or possibly be felled out of tall Russian windows I thought I would “So Then Sunday” this one while I can.
From back in December.
To R.E.M.’s “Don’t Go Back To Rockville”
Don’t Go Back To Trumpville
Looking at old hell a new time
Wonderin’ what we’ve done to be so cursed
In the possibility that
The Orange Devil could usher somethin’ worse
Only this time with an even darker promise
With vengeance in his blackened heart
.
He’ll persecute and prosecute
The order of which won’t matter when he’s done
Retribution will be his rally cry
To punish one and all
And any who don’t comply
And offer fealty on bended knee
With bowed heads kissed rings even fresh lipstick
.
Don’t go back to Trumpville Don’t go back to Trumpville Don’t go back to Trumpville And waste Democracy
.
At night he drinks himself to sleep
Of despot dreams jack booting in his head
He envies Xi and surely Vlad
Even Benito and now new Nazi Klan
Who find in him their great leader to follow
With violence waiting on a call
.
Don’t go back to Trumpville Don’t go back to Trumpville Don’t go back to Trumpville And waste our future years
.
Some though feel that there’s no need to worry
Head in sand they see no real ur-gency
But anyone who’s not head under ground knows the danger that is found
In another orange presidency
It’s not the way to protect our liberty
And our too weak now Democracy
.
Don’t go back to Trumpville Don’t go back to Trumpville Don’t go back to Trumpville And waste our future years
.
Don’t go back to Trumpville Don’t go back to Trumpville Don’t go back to Trumpville And waste Democracy
Example that I am old and often out of touch and just can’t keep up with the kids these days #356.
Email from a sales person from later in the day yesterday that I didn’t see until I first got in this morning asking if I could update one of her clients spots taking out the mention of a “Grand Opening” as the event had already happened.
“Can you cut that part out so I can resend to him tomorrow?” she wrote.
She ended the email with “TIA!”
First thought? Who the fuck is Tia?! Should I know her? Is she nice?
Second thought? Oh, goddammit, what does this one stand for now? I racked my brain, “Till I Am” or “Tomorrow Is Afoot”, “Today Is Ass” but got nothin’, well at least nothin’ useful (my brain can be quite small in the mornings).
Third thought? Is this some sort of a thank you maybe, like a ‘grazie’ or a ‘danke’ or a ‘merci’ that I am unaware of? Not worldly enough am I?
Next thought (I’m tired of counting now – three is generally my limit) Jesus, is this a NEW acronym?! … SIGH. I think I mentioned up top me being old and unable to keep up, especially in this apparently fast moving acronymed time that we live in right?
So, I asked my production boss, Randy, almost equally as old as I am but a little more hip to this sort of thing. He laughed a little laugh and said he knows what that one means.
“Well?!” I said
“Thanks In Advance”
Final thought? “Thanks in advance”?!?! Who the hell says “Thanks in advance?!” NOBODY!! NOT A SOUL!!! (well except for at least one it seems). That’s why my, albeit small in the morning brain couldn’t figure it out.
So, ground rules then people, alright? Your acronyms of expressions or sayings or whatever’s, your OMG’s or BTW’s or IDK’s or KMFDM’s or IMO’s or LOL’s (those that at least come explained with emoji’s) can ONLY be of stuff people actually say, on a regular basis in the regular world by regular folks Ok?
Just wanna BOP or SOP (Be On Page or Stay On Page – Bam!! Take that M’fers!!)
There’s plenty enough stuff out there to make me feel old and out of touch as it is, I don’t need you throwing me curveballs that aren’t my fault I couldn’t hit (fucking Bugs Bunny shit).
The student asked the teacher why everything was so cryptic, so much the riddle, why couldn’t he be more straightforward, forthcoming?
The teacher said nothing
They sat
Time passed, their season started to change, then changed again and again and again, nature and beasts followed growing and bleating, bucking and wilting, people as well, birthing and burying, peacing and warring, sometimes thinking bold new thoughts in the midst
Stars became from dust, glowed, warmed, exploded then back to dust with some even coming to be holes in the heavens
Those heavens? They were subject to the same passing of time, beliefs and disbeliefs, comforts and heresy’s to confound
The teacher stirred
“Every day unfurls as it must” he said “I can give you answers as we sit or you can be more witness, be of them, die with them. What would you prefer?”
There was prompt at dVerse poets earlier this week that asked to use the word “crab”. Now I completely blew by the 44 word call of a dVerse Quadrille but …
Crab
I am not a jazzy Crawdad, or a belly Catfish bottom feed or a Flounder floundering for hope or a Pike on a stick, or a Cod (or a cad, sounds close – I’ve been that) or a Sole spelled wrongly for what I have in mind, or a Salmon sidestep barreling swim hope around bears downstream.
I am no fish
I am not multiplied with magical wine and claimed anything more than I am.
I am a crab, I scurry hard shell and do crab sidestep instead, with purpose, wishing nothing more than to slide sideways forward away from you and hold onto what I can with a muscle armed looking claw.
Leave me to my beach and I will leave you to your better than crabs but know …
I will never be crab so much as to dig myself into sand.
No, I will that scurry out of a hole, before the tide and I will grab
So a new prompt at dVersepoets.com,It Begins to Dawn, says, to begin the post, “After our summer break, we’re beginning again, beginning afresh, like a new dawn perhaps” with a couple of examples of dawn, one as the start of a day or another with dawn as a verb.
It then offers up the prompt of writing in the style of the A L’Aora, a form created by Laura Lamarca (I learn something new all the time at dVerse).
Poetry style:
4 stanzas (or more)
8 lines per stanza
only lines 6 & 8 are to rhyme
no syllable count per line
And to:
write about the dawn, literally, metaphorically, objectively, personally … or write of the dawn as a verb.
Initially I was a little daunted by this, that’s a bit involved I thought, and was going to turn instead to the latest quadrille prompt instead, #203 “Feeling Crabby” even though the “window” had closed. I mean, crabby? I could surely do crabby, I could use the word “crab”, but then I just started to write to the “Dawn” prompt …
.
Day Broke Night Fell Day
It broke again the night
the dawn, this day
the same way it always does
with pious judgement filled
clarity of righteous spirit
better than thine
with joy in the shed shaming light
on sins of the dark from earliest of time
.
It fell again over dawn’s day
any day, this night
the same way it always does
with quiet purpose, no ill intent
to help rest the weary, romance the lovers
cover the honorable, storm the fields, focus the mind
but also, it seems
hide wrongs from the earliest of time
.
It broke again, again the day
the night, this dawn, out of fear
the same way it always does
after sun filled growth tears fall clouding in imposter storm dark
not for feeding the land, nourishing the creatures
no, only to darken the light
so that dawn broke again then the next
with more righteous intent and zealous might
.
It fell again, once more, once more
over day and it’s qualms, this night
the same way it always does
hoping to quiet its fears
to dance instead in fashioned flamed dawn
to celebrate what day had brung
and what night too had brought
that maybe together bells could be rung and songs could be sung
.
They dawn and they fall
this day and this night
the same way they always do
neither be true, neither be false, neither be right nor be wrong
but day still is wary of songs not sung in the light
while night asks just not for blame
of day’s greatest fears
and that night does wary too day’s songs just the same
Hello! Welcome to Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge. Each week I will post an image I grab off the internet and challenge bloggers to write a flash fiction piece or a poem inspired by the image. There are no style or word limits.
The image depicts a cat lying in a field with flowers. We see the front half of the cat with its paws outstretched in the grass. Lying in the grass in front of its paws, we see what looks like a mirror and the cat is reflected in it.
If this week’s image inspires you and you wish to participate, please write your post and use the tag #FFFC. Please create a pingback to this post and/or manually add your link in the comments. I hope it will generate some great posts. Don’t forget to stop back and read/comment on the posts of others. Thank you for participating!💅🏻
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“Marty, is that you?”
“Bill? Or should I say “Snookems? (hehehe)”
“Shut up Marty, you just got lucky to have yours name you something cool”
“I know, Sly for Sylvester IS pretty cool, something about a cartoon cat”
“Yeah well, and don’t get me wrong, I love her to death, she’s my world, but I got adopted by a 10 year old girl”
“Well, how have you been Bill?”
“I’m good, Rachel, that’s the girl, she’s 12 now, has finally stopped dressing me in human clothes with hats, was never a fan of the hats, she takes me on walks on a leash though which is fantastic, sometimes she even lets me roam … You?”
“Good here too, Bobby, that’s my human, has the other human, coincidentally named Rachel by the way, buy me treats and we’re in pretty good shape, plenty of stuffed mice to knock around the apartment and look silly with”
“Ahhh, that’s great, glad to hear. But let me ask you, what’s with the mirror? You kind of look like me?”
“Oh, that’s because I am you Bill, just in another reality”
Haven’t posted one in a little while so was torn on a So Then Sunday for today. Something fairly recent or maybe something a bit older? I know that sounds ridiculous right? But well to end this silly quandary I thought I’d go back to the early parody days but something that is still pretty relevant, thus the reason for my jockeying. Some of the older things can be pretty particular time, event specific but there are some that can still work though, singing of the dangers of the Orange Devil is still pretty universal time-wise me thinks, time specifics be damned.
I mean he ain’t stop bein’ some devil.
So back to 2019 then and one of my many versions of a Beatles tune.
Baby General’s Golden Black Heart’s Band / Sky’s Orange When You’ve Got Blind Friends
It was two plus years ago today
That baby general came to have his say
In a propagandist fascist style
With his lies he’d go the extra mile
He’d hammer them unto the red
IQ’s regressing in his stead
Baby general’s golden black heart’s band
.
We’re baby general’s golden black heart’s band
We play you all ya need to know
Baby general’s golden black heart’s klan
The torches are only for show
.
Baby general’s cor-rupt
Baby general’s morally
Baby general’s bankrupt black heart’s band
.
There’s nothing to be seen here
Just back room in the know
There’s such important work be done
Now won’t you all just pray with us
We love it when you’re dumb
.
We don’t want you to be in the know
But we make you feel you’re in the show
Keep you happy swimming in the glow
Helps suck you in the undertow
Now let us to present to you
The sad and lonely Orange years
.
Baby general’s golden black heart’s band
.
Trump D’s victim’s tears…
.
What would you say if I sang you a lie
So obvious you can’t deny?
But you take it and then get to singin’ along
Cause re-ality it don’t apply
.
Oh, the sky’s purple when you’ve got blind friends
Mmm it’s any color when the truth gets bent
Mmm the sky’s orange is the new message sent
.
What would you say if I filled you with hate
Gave you an enemy you could detest
Locked them away less than human they’re caged
As you lend deaf ear to mankind’s rage
.
Oh, the sky’s black to go along with blue
Mmm your hu-manity now shares that hue
Mmm your sold souls invent a diff-er-ent view
.
Could you think you need saving?
That will surely come bust
Do you need to get praying?
But only to an orange need’s lust
.
Where will we be when sad histr’y holds true
(do you re-alize that there’s a cost?)
It’s measured in lives deemed be less than they be
Had to head into the “rack room” earlier today just to check on whether I could still hear the smallest of our radio stations in their little speaker. Thankfully that was all I had to do, a simple enough task which is good. You don’t want a ME in the rack room (the main engine room for all of our stations) for anything other than simple because if shit is for any reason even reasonably complicated there I could just possibly, though unintentionally, take everyone off the air or possibly knock out a power grid or possibly even initiate WWIII.
But maybe at least followed with, if so, an old school sitcom-like, where everyone turns to the camera …
“Oh … that Frankenberry!!!”
Anyway, after discovering that said little station was indeed coming through on its little station’s little speaker just fine I was then heading out of the rack room as quickly as possible before I brought down some satellites or something when I noticed the engineer’s stool at the engineer work bench. The rack room is also where the engineers have their spot (office and work bench) thus the reason I don’t go back there, I was actually probably violating some sort of FCC regulation by not being properly “degreed” or “accredited” or “smarter than you” enough’ed to be back there in the first place, and probably, according this regulation, I also didn’t have a big enough brain. I mean, engineers, and their big brains aren’t going to accidentally take the planet out of orbit right? They’re engineers … with bigger brains.
Frankenberry on the other hand?
“Oh … that Frankenberry!!!”
Anyway twice.
On my way out of the rack room I noticed that the engineer’s stool had this wrapped around a leg of it. It was actually chained and padlocked to the leg of the work bench, and not some simple chain either, no, this was pretty heavy duty looking stuff.
My first thought was “Oh, wow, you kinky bastards!” but my next thought was “Jesus, one of these guys REEEEEEEAAAAALLLLLYYYY likes his work bench stool!”
The next time I saw one of these engineers, Tom (sightings are rare by the way, the habits and migratory patterns of engineers can be difficult to pinpoint or map) who is quite possibly the tallest engineer this side of the Mississippi, mentioned for no other reason than the dude is just really tall, I asked of the work bench stool and the heavy duty chain. He said one of the other engineers had done that in response to a morning show messing with him and stealing it as some sort of ongoing prank. This was how he put a stop to that the only problem being that it stayed this way because he forgot the combination to the padlock.
Well, the bigger brains are still bigger brains and I still should never have to step foot into the rack room, just me crossing the threshold earlier could have had dire consequences for our nation as a whole …
“COUNTRY’S ENTIRE INFRASTUCTURE COLLAPSES!!”
“Oh … that Frankenberry!!!”
… but at least I did realize that the engineers are human just like us, bigger brains or not. Though I hope in the future there isn’t a situation where Houston says …
“Ok, captain and engineer Tom you are a go for Mars … just enter your passcode and the system will take care of the rest …”
They have this habit of popping up every ten years or so, these zero’s, you could say that they add up but do they really? They are just zero’s right, only with a new number in front of them? I mean sure, that new number in front of them is an incremental thing, I can count, you can’t escape that but that back end is still a zero, just like all the others, a big zero right? (keep telling yourself that Steve). Now before you start and try to remind me that those numbers in front of the zero matter, like that is the important part of this story of zero’s, of these zero’s, know that I don’t feel them, for the most part.
Ok I’m just kidding myself, bold faced lying here as I feel them quite a lot, especially recently as my back has decided that my zero’s do add up and to quite a dollar. No, we don’t live in a place where Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness and affordable health care actually exists, the pharma’s and political players make sure of that, but you work around as best you can.
Life is a workaround … for pretty much everything actually.
But the zero’s? Just chalk another up.
I thought that this weekend though, a one where I will take an extra day that isn’t a holiday, to quietly celebrate my latest zero, on a Monday, I’d just go back to a few things I’ve written that haven’t quite been finished yet to see if I could put something of a final touch on them.
Ok, this is also a way for me to clean house a bit as the noggin can get a touch of the jumble especially with open ended stuff sittin’ on it..
Is His Name Rob?
As I was heading out of the station Friday night after my extra off clock time of me doing my song thing in my little studio I ran into one of the part timers/road crew guys, the main part timer/road crew guy actually (Rob, I think his name is – man I hate that I don’t know it right off top, but he is not part of my regular calling for repetition which isn’t an old thing mind you before you go there, it just is) as he was just finishing up a gig and getting ready to voice track.
He is a me from back when I first started this thing and I like him (I’ve held off telling him how this isn’t a very lucrative gig so as not to jade him) but he loves this as do I, did, still do, tuna fish or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and beefaroni just being staples you grow accustomed to. At least he’s still got Mom and Dad and rent covered (I wonder if his living room has space for a cot as long as Mom wouldn’t mind stepping around me).
He asked me what my plans were for the weekend and I told him of my usual and looking forward to nothing more than feeding the girls and furring around with them, humans be damned, and popping my headphones on to work my sound. I’m a pretty boring guy in this regard, I don’t need a “Friday night”, not that I don’t look forward to such, but my Fridays aren’t a one of stupid youth any longer, or even of plain plans with friends, they are much simpler these days, just that one night that leads to one more you still work for no matter the eventual boring outcome.
He nodded and I asked him of his same, what were his plans? He told me “Star Wars”. I perked an ear “really?” I said “how so?”. He said he was wanting to watch the movies as he had never seen them (Holy George Lucas Batman!! But more reason to like this guy) and I told him I was an almost life-long fan just minus my first 13 years being bereft of big screen imaginings of what I had only read of in books. I flashed to my days of Orson Scott Card, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournell (together or solo), Terry Brooks, Gene Wolfe, Isaac Asimov, Mary Stewart, MK Wren and a host of others who filled my nights with wonder.
I then recounted my “where were you when” story of seeing Star Wars the first time.
I was with my family on a Cape Cod vacation that my Mom and Dad did their best to afford us every year back then, probably less years than I romanticize, and there was this movie debuting that was all me, a sci-fi fantasy adventure, like in all my books that I know Mom noted, though I’m sure that it was more for just the welcome break from the kids, Moms and Dads need vacations on vacations too, even if only for a couple of hours.
I was spellbound with my bucket of buttered popcorn and large Coke (that smell of the “Star Wars” popcorn has never left me, nor the taste of fountain Coke). I can never see a movie in a theatre without flashing back to Star Wars at the refreshments counter, “Yes, a bit of extra butter, thanks” and the anticipation that follows.
I was past spellbound, blown away, transfixed almost flummoxed and I didn’t even know what that word meant. Is that what this could be like? Though I would miss baseball and Sixpence the cat and even a few of my friends and family I was ready to sign up right then and there. “Take me with you, please”
Well, vacations end and you come back to your normal, your boring, but Star Wars had blown up in the meantime and I realized I had seen it before anyone else at school. I became a “thing”, godlike, as much godlike as might be claimed by a 13 year old kid. For a week.
Now over the years I have questioned my recollections of this story, did I really see it first before all of my friends? Was that the same week I swam out to the middle of the small back lake (behind the main swimming one divided by a long beach) to save some woman’s cooler cutting my knees on all the junk that idiots threw in that back lake like it was a municipal dump just under water? (disgusting humans) or the one where I stepped on rusty nail in the backyard of that vacation home, filling my sneaker with blood and wondering if I was going to die?
I’m sure I could do the Google and some investigating of Star Wars releases back then, when and where, but that would just take the joy out of my recollection. I had joyed myself to a cool story over the years that may or not have been completely true. Hell, not true shit is kind of an everyday now so …
Rob (if that is his name, dammit! gotta text Jimmy) asked me in what order he should watch the movies, should he start with the prequals and watch all in order or just go with the originals first?
I recounted my Cape Cod Star Wars story and my wondering if I had actually seen it first before all the rest and that my god-like status in the halls wasn’t just fiction and he said
“You know I’m from Cape Cod by the way?”
Hell, I’m having enough trouble with what to call you other than “dude”, “No I didn’t” I said
“Yeah, my Dad has a story just like that. How he remembers seeing it before anyone else, but he’s never been quite sure”
Ok, not only do I like this guy but I like his dad too and the bit of relief of memory.
“Really? Well definitely just start them as they were, the originals, the prequels aren’t quite on par but they’re still ok and you’ll like ‘em once you get to them after the originals, just to be in that world. It’s still Star Wars”
“Cool” he said
Very cool indeed
Two Pairs of Glasses
Been feeling my age a bit recently (okay that’s a given, given that I have another zero comin’ up an’ all, but it has been creeping a bit more quickly than the other 10’s, ominously so)
My ten to twenty were the days of Mom and Dad stories and lessons learned and taking them to heart and then thinking to rebel against them like any other kid, but for only like 30 seconds, just to realize that that was just dumb. I had their trust, they had my mine, they were genuine and caring unlike stories we didn’t want to know of parents who weren’t, trust I had earned, from helping with some older neighbors and their chores, a paper boy making sure the news got there during the week after school but more importantly on Saturday and Sunday mornings in time for that first coffee, to a grocery store stockboy earning a dollar in a white smock, tied at the back, that I wore proudly stained stocking milk and eggs and helping older shoppers on their way and to nights where we played “Union Bowl” in the Grand Union parking lot, under the lights, with a nerf football until the wee hours but always coming home safe and spent.
D&D nights would eventually be longer
Dad had the greatest of remembrance’s then at family get togethers in kitchens, always in kitchens, (where I listened on the outskirts – Stephen “shoo!” if found), he could grab an ear and fill it at any time, talking history, his thing, possibly the civil war or of our family. I knew a lot of them already but sometimes there would be a one new to me and I would be enthralled, as always, but even the recognized ones always came back to something I could learn before that eventual “Stephen, shoo!” and being shown the door to play with the cousins.
Mom was from another land, a magical one that had the Beatles and old Norman castles and stories I could relate to from my books and my albums. I had all of the books I could read, and every Beatles record I could lay my hands and ears on. I even got a chance twice to visit this magical place and my Mom’s family early in this 10 to 20 (and then just after my 10 to 20, post college) and play with little green beret army men or read Mary Stewart King Arthur books in one of these old Norman castles and pick up some Beatles fan mags among other treasured items.
Mom said the Beatles were great though she didn’t know any of them as I may have thought in my very early 10 to 20 or probably pre so, probably even telling kids in elementary school that my Mom was from England so she’s friends with the Beatles. I mean how could she NOT have known them being from such a small land I thought, but she convinced me to branch, the Alan Parsons Project for one and one of my favorite Mom stories where she unintentionally hung out with rock stars and introduced then to to another lifelong favorite band –
My 20 to 30 (well more the early part of that decade) were a blur of grad school after undergrad and roommates in houses doing the same thing as I, figuring the rent, teaching English One, dancing around drinking too much beer, watching Letterman or Sportscenter too late for any semblance of being able to get up lucid, sleeping under my desk for “Office hours” occasionally, though that was more from the grind of classes, being woken up with the knock on my cubicle reminder that someone’s paper was late, and mine was as well, and the pleads for an extension that I would always grant, not in a blasé way but because they were good kids, they cared of what they did (most of them) and I gave them the benefit of my own doubt.
There was also a girlfriend who shouldn’t have been a girlfriend, one who could have gotten me fired, a student, though only four years removed from me, still generations of perception, but a one I still think about to this day … never really found another to rate. I still remember the day she showed up in class wearing one of regular shirts (I didn’t change shit up a lot fashion-wise back then, still don’t). My god the abject fear and the out and out laughter in my head at that moment when I turned from the board to see her sitting up front directly in front of my desk.
And then there was getting started in commercial radio not too long after that.
30 to 40? Well, that involved meeting THAT girl. Getting married to THAT girl at my 32 just like Dad (Ok, one year off, 31 … let’s not quibble) for like five minutes and seeing future perfect for like just those five minutes. But things can end, sometimes rather quickly and in very unexpected circumstance. That really is my only take on thirty to forty other than being immersed in radio by then, the bastard that it is, still a bastard but one that makes me happy though definitely doesn’t put me in the black, never will. But it’s been an Ok grind.
50 to 60? Well, never really thought I’d get that far in remarking on such a thing, not in any bridge swan song kinda way mind you. 10 to 20, 20 to 30, 30 to 40? Even 40 to 50? Still young, relatively so.
But 50 to 60? Dude you’ve jumped the shark now I always thought would be the case when, if, I got that far. That was old land (an age my Dad always seemed to perpetually be) new territory and 60 to 70 was just up round the old bend. Now that is something entirely different. That makes my knees buckle, the ones already starting to give me pause.
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Well, I’m here now and mostly feeling it from issues with my back (though also with some breathing but I can’t blame age on that, just myself) ones that have pointed out that I’m apparently really fragile, with vertebrae in some sort of an en masse party of fractures, pretending to be made of paper mâché, healed or not healed (according the to the latest X-Rays and MRI’s and tap taps on my back from doc’s who tap tap with fingers that can apparently hear way more in doctor magic echo tap taps or something of the sort than I from my own impossible, I ain’t that limber, tap taps that are actually just more of a bent over holding my back with a palm looking like I could probably use a cane). Oh, and according to these myriad images, I have 7 fractures, 3 still working their way back and 4 healed that all together might hold that as some sort of badge of honor in their little masochistic en masse fracture party winning world.
7 might mean I’m at the top of the leader board though, right? Sounds like a lot.
“No Steve, ya knucklehead, this one is like Golf, the lower number the better”
“Ahhh, son of a bitch”
Well, after popping my back this most recent time (obviously there have been others dating back to when I was 18 and loading trucks in a big chain grocery store warehouse with my High School pal Dave) and not even having it be for something heroic for god’s sake, like lifting a car off a child in a traffic accident, falling out a tree trying to save a cat who could easily have come down on their own just given time, but there isn’t any old woman cat owner distressed drama thank you’s with a home baked pie in that, or grabbing three reems of paper, nay four, for the printer at work … no just turning a doorknob at the bottom of a flight of stairs and the reminding of an ongoing internal spine story (seriously, 7 isn’t winning?)
I came, then, to think of some of the other aspects of my “oldness”.
My glasses for one among others
.
Dear eyes,
Please tell me you’re not trying to read this with your driving glasses.
Well, that would just be silly (fumbling for other glasses)
I’ll wait … moron
Hey! Did you just call me a moron?
No
Yes, you did, it’s right there … well, it’s a little fuzzy.
No, it’s NOT right there, I just thought it, plus you can’t read it anyway with your driving glasses. Fuzzy right? Are you really wearing your driving glasses right now?
What? Ok, that whole thing was a bit confusing but no, I’m not, I switched to my reading glasses.
Are you driving right now?
Yes
“Sigh” … ok, another time, I have something more important to talk to you about anyway.
More important than …
Hey! Driving glasses on the road dumbass, did you even see that truck!?
Sorry, you got me all distracted!
Ok let’s reset
.
Dear eyes,
And please tell me you’re wearing your reading glasses … and not driving.
Yep, I’m not, but ok, wait. I get your concern of me and this whole two pairs of glasses thing but can’t you just tell me things, like right now?
No
Why?
‘cause they are written down and you need to read them
But I’m driving
Oh, son of a bitch
.
Dear eyes,
What glasses are you wearing right now?
The blue ones
Which ones are those?
The ones some random woman in the parking lot of Stop N Shop said look good on me, said they bring out my eyes
Well, that’s pretty cool
I know, right? And I wasn’t even trying
Trying to what?
To look good
But you never try to do that
Bonus huh?
So, you’re wearing the blue ones?
And she was cute
What?
She was cute, the compliment lady
The compliment lady?
Yeah, the one that said I looked doable in my blue glasses
Really??? She said doable???
What, I can’t imagine things?
Was she alone?
Yes
You sure?
Ok, there might have been a kid
And …
Ok, we might have had to find a temporary day care spot for our tryst but …
“Sigh” again
.
Dear eyes,
Don’t care of your glasses the blue ones or not right now
The other ones are black by the way
What?
The other pair is black
The ones you use for driving?
Yes, those
Are you driving right now?
No
Ok
Hey, you told me I had to read this shit of yours right, so that’s what I’m doing, with my blue reading glasses. Plus, you told me it was important for some reason, though you can be quite annoying there, really insistent, but how important is this really? Oh, hold on, this is my exit, gotta pay attention
!!!??
.
Dear eyes,
Man, I am dumb as a box of rocks
Me too!
Shut up!
This Guy with Three Names
Not too long ago I came about this website of writers, poets, (dversepoets.com) who have reminded me of poetry. “You will never make a dollar with poetry” the adults said back in the day, whenever I would show them my latest works from when home from undergrad and grad, the ones who only equated creativity with a monetary end. No shit, like I didn’t know that already genius’s, but my college years introduced me to and taught me of poetry even to the point of wanting that to be my studies in graduate school never being able to really pay the rent with it notwithstanding.
But I never had the confidence that my stuff could stand up to others more accomplished in word than myself, especially not anything established though I would continue to try, even working some pieces that were pretty good. But falling out of that world eventually and then into the radio one I was living with no real current point of reference for such things I did let poetic work fall away, but I also didn’t do any homework which was my own fault. I would occasionally jump excitedly into something new as a thought struck me but then self doubt would set in and I’d be back to just post posts (as I refer to them), not bad post posts mind you over the years here in the Attic, I do have confidence in my ability as a writer, and I have written some very good ones, and still do, some very funny, some heart felt, some about cats, but just not those of anything poetic. (this is a post post by the way).
Anyway, finding this community at this websitehas reinvigorated me simply because of the community of it and the sharing nature of everyone involved, not just sharing their own works but of witnessing yours at the same time.
But I am also, within this, reminded of why I always loved poetry in the first place even after letting it fall to the wayside. It’s the economy of thought, of words, of having an impact in short spaces as powerful as those in longer ones.
And there is this guy, a new friend, with three names who astounds me, Paul Vincent Cannon, how cool a name is that by the way? Just sounds like a poet’s name right?
Frankenberry … eh, not so much. But he has some tremendous and powerful work at his site and he, along with so many of the others I have had the pleasure of discovering finally that have given me the bit of the confidence I lacked.
They’re here in Attic, some of my new stuff, if you take the time, but this is some Paul work here
Everything Is Not Okay
The greyed monotone talking head blankly stared through the camera of opportunity to blandly declare that everything was fine, yes fish stocks are depleted ice caps melting weather freaky micro plastics in your blood, but please don’t panic, everything is fine carry on carrying on until this message ceases massaging your fears and sense of small achievement because you use LEDs in your dining room.
//////////////////////////////////////////
The Tin Shaker
It's a grave situation
said the
undertaker to the priest
who smiled hallelujahs
as the golden were fleeced,
with cheap sacred hearts
at the end of their tether,
now lying dead
in the world of nether,
a vaudevillian delight
but don't get excited by
this faustian plight,
the merchant from Venice
will seek your pound,
he'll decimal too
as you fall to the ground
wondering,
how long was I blind?
//////////////////////////////////////////
Less To Say
I'm unsure
what needs to be said,
as time rolls on
I feel I know less of the less,
though eventually
the not knowing becomes
a knowing
less of saying,
then
how to move from quiet
to language without intruding
on my own sense of presence
in the moment,
how to frame succinctly,
sitting in the long silence
looking at nature
there's less to say
in an economy of awe.
I know huh? Wow!
And a recent one of mine that I really like, not an unfinished thought, but a one in full.
The captain called us all aboard at eyes shut wide
Déjà vu?
aboard captain, again
again
Ennui?
here sir, ready to break
Regret?
here, sigh
you’re late
sorry sir
Amalgam of youth?
(in unison) on deck
from where tonight?
(in unison in unison) a toss of year(s) sir
Fear? … Oh, stop … we’re just flying into dream
but …?
You can run, you can stall, you can trip, you can fall
quiet
from heavens through clouds
or from small atolls
aloud …
… but it’s always too real for us all
… you’ll still wake, I’ll almost promise you daylight’ll still call
Anger? No, I know you’re aboard
!!!!!
Artists in color?
ready to paint vibrant sir
Artists in black and white?
ready to paint an absence
Singers?
just off key sir, enough
Joy? You still in with this company?
always sir,
happy self sycophancy
.
The moon was more than willing to be yoked as an ox
or reined as a braided guilded horse
or bridled an ass
or even boated a hung foolish ship
but tethered on deck still,
of
all willing slaves of sleeping adventure, rowing
rowing
a ship of nonsense,
or import
all equal for transport,
all equal
to what might come
tonight on light seas, nay, oceans of drama dream
discovery …
.
The captain called us all aboard at eyes wide shut
again
Déjà vu?
here sir
again
//////////////////////////////////////////
End This Post Already
Gotcha.
There is waaaaay more in the way of unfinished thoughts but I’ll leave those for another time, I mean if you’ve read this far you’re a real trooper and I’ve already taken up and won’t ask of any more of your time.
Anyway, I have a new zero with a new incremental number in front of it and though I may be feeling those increments a bit more these days I still really haven’t jumped the shark just yet.
Hi and welcome to the Attic, I'm Frankenberry of said Blog Title and I write of just my everyday here, sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don't like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that's just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or short story-etic or something like that. If you're joining me here I thank you, but just mind your head and feet and keep an eye out for my little Bella and Cricket The Blind as well as the memories of Raspberry (Razzy), Mimi the Quirky, of Blink The Lil' Kit, Grayson the Mighty, Shoes the Big Orange, Shana-Girl, Benny Good Man Benny Brown, Merlin & Bob. Wouldn't want you step on them or anything ... 'cause then I might just have to throw you down the stairs ... damned humans.
Sundarbans,The sunderbans, Sundarban Tour, Sundarban Travel Guide, Mangrove Forest, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Royal Bengal Tiger, Tiger Sighting, Wildlife Photography, Bird Watching, Sundarban Safari, Houseboat Tour, Ecotourism, Adventure Travel, West Bengal Tourism, Bangladesh Tourism, People of Sundarbans, Local Culture, Bonbibi, Mowal, Honey Collector, Sundarban Legends, Mangrove Ecosystem, Conservation, Climate Change, Biodiversity, Sundari Tree, Sundarban Itinerary, Travel to Sundarbans, Kolkata to Sundarbans, Sundarban Boat Trip, Wildlife in Sundarbans, Saltwater Crocodile, Spotted Deer, Indian Python, King Cobra, Sundarban National Park, Sundarban Tiger Reserve, Bay of Bengal, River Cruise, Nature Photography, Forest Life.
A personal exploration of autism from a brother’s perspective, including family relationships, philosophy, neuroscience, mental health history and ethics
frankenberrysattic.com 