Rain Rain Rain...

means worms worms worms. Tonight I took Whit out to the curb and we hunkered along through the dirt and grass with the flashlight, snatching up nightcrawlers for fishing. I did most of the plucking. But Whit finally got the hang of it after having many snap back into the dirt and disappear. It was a beautiful thing.

Dandelion Whine

It’s that time of year. Everything’s green. Birds are busy everywhere gathering dog fur for their nests. The dandelions have gone to seed. They look harmless, right? But I remember a day back in Madison, WI, when they weren’t so fluffy and cute. I had my son Whit at a local park and the grass was filled with them. He was probably about 4. I showed him how to blow the seeds into the air and when he grabbed a handful he somehow just shoved them into his eye and the seeds just stuck there—lots of them. Of course, the little hard ends with the seeds were very painful. He started screaming and clawing at his eye and I started my heart attack. I grabbed him up and tried brushing them out with my finger but he screamed more and fought me with his little flailing fists.

Running, I carried him back to the car hoping my wife Gwen had left (as she always does) a water bottle in the cup holder so I could flush his eye out. No such luck. So there, in the small cramped privacy of our car I cradled him in my arms, restraining his arms, and brought his face close to mine so I could suck the seeds out of his eye. It took a few minutes but finally he was ok.

On this day, I salute all father’s who’ve ever had to improvise and suck things out of their children’s eyes.

Nuts on the Tree

Wow, 38 to 40 today. Snow's melting. I decided to take Whitman (my son) into the Cuyahoga Falls Sand Run area and do some mountain/hill climbing. Always more fun in the snow.

Image this picture but with a lot more snow on the ground. So here is how it went. We climbed the first hill, then breathless and beat we sat and muched M&M's and surveyed the territories yonder below us. We even saw a few deer. Whit slid down the backside mostly on his rump and thought it was great fun. I walked down.

The second hill, extremely vertical near the top, was much harder to conquer. But we chugged up and made it finally. Coming down, Whit wanted me to go first a blaze the trail for him to slide down, which I did--on my ass. I slipped after two steps and in my slick snow pants zoomed right down the hill straight toward a sapling. Thinking fast I put my feet together to brace for the collison and oddly my legs split open when my feet hit and I racked my boys on the tree just like in the funniest videos show. That would be me, in the blue.

We had a great time.

Crack that Whit

Our son Whit has a little kid iPod or some gizzmo, and one of my joys as a father is hearing him sing along to songs in that loud voice we use when we listen with headphones on.

Lately, he has been listening to a mix I made him that includes Whip It. He replaces the word whip with Whit throughout the whole song. It's pretty funny. And I learned an important lesson: "When a problem comes along you must Whit it."

Weekend Pieces, Bits, Blobs

Really, it doesn't get any better than a mud fight on a hot day. Oink. Fun. Oink. My wife Tanya, diplomat that she is, said it was a tie. I think Whit won. Gots to get me some goggles of my own. BTW, if you have a mud fight, be sure to wear white. It makes it all look so much dirtier.

I laid in this little bit of fence a while back to pup-proof the backyard, and then (with great tenderness) transplanted some morning glories from the front yard. Yesterday, I woke to find this little sweetie. The first!

Take a closer look.

Up with Nerds

True, I got this second hand but I have seen it happen in other contexts. My son, Whit, went to a cartooning workshop at the public library today. One of his friends was there, another brainiac, and as the poor class instructor tried to get everyone to draw a quote "bug" and held up a picture of a spider, my son corrected him and explained that a bug in not a spider, a spider is an arachnid. My son's friend then raised his hand and gave a lengthy discourse on the anatomical and behavioral differences between spiders and bugs. Hands were clasping forheads and eyes were rolling in sockets according to Jeri, my wife.

What a dumbass, come on! Everyone knows spiders aren't bugs! What a freaking chuckle head. Just kidding. Can you imagine trying to give a presentation with these wonderful nerdlings in your audience?

ADDENDUM: As I was wrapping up this post, Whit came bounding down the hall past my office and he was making that "pew, pew, pew" sound that you might normally associate wtih pretend gunfire. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "Pretending I'm a light particle."

Funnier by the Minute

Aw shucks, they grow up so fast.

Seems like only yesterday my son Whit was making up jokes like:

when the tree fell over the bushes were silly.

This weekend, he made this up:

Q: What do you call a highway with no toll booths?

A: A freeway.
I love comedy.

Baaaaaad Tooth Fairy

Holy shit, I don't believe it. We actually forgot to put a little coinage under our son's pillow last night for his tooth. We are bad fairies.

I will be in Houston for the rest of the week and not posting again until next week.

Knock Knock. Who's There? Banana Wang

Okay, we have been devouring childrens' books now for 7 some years, and never, NEVER in all that time have I seen anything like this.

I give you the Banana Wang.



Can it even be an accident? The pic is from a joke book we picked up at a garage sale. Whit was reading it to me last night at bed time, and most of the jokes were terrible, but this, this was funny as hell.

Bugs in My Belfrey

Coming home from work last night, I found a Praying Mantis scaling our back door.

Me and my son Whit brought him in for close inspection and learned a few important mantis rules:

1.They get irony, as this one climbed atop the cover of the Silver Palet cookbook which has flowers all over it.

2.They are fast. Which makes photography hard.

3. They can leap quite well, so when they do pause and you get the camera poised they are (as this one did) likely to jump onto the camera.

I let him crawl upon my finger to carry him back outdoors and he quickly made it to my back.




A bit later I went jogging a found a freshly dead cicada, blew off the ants, and carried it home in my sweaty palm for Whit to examine. He consulted his bug book and informed me he thought it was a Dog Days cicada.

Kid Stuff

Growing up, I don't remember hearing a joke that was not oozing with poop, piss, barf, any body fluid you can imagine or bloated with the subject of sex, stereotypes, etc.

All these years later, I have settled on my favorite three jokes - the Trinity. All of them are extremely clean and in fact, I came across one in a children's book by Anthony Browne called The Shape Game.


Imagine me stepping up to the mic ...

So there are these two sausages in a frying pan, and as they begin to sizzle one sausage says, “Whew, it’s getting hot in here.”
The other sausage screams, “Oh my God! A talking sausage.”


And here is the second - much more fun to act out with a few choice gestures, but it goes like this.

A grasshopper comes bouncing into a bar and springs up onto a bar stool. The bartender is standing behind the bar wiping clean a glass and he grins and says to the grasshopper, "Heh, we got a drink named after you." And the grasshopper puzzles over this for a second then says, "Really, you got a drink named Lloyd."


Jokes, dirty jokes I guess, were a big part of conversation with my friends. I can't tell yet how much joke telling goes on with my son and his friends. I know he likes jokes, and he likes to make up his own - some are not bad. I like him to tell this one:

What did one hotdog say to the other?
Is that you Frank?

The World is Full of Fair Unfinished Things

After my son Rainer died – he was all of six weeks old – we hung the yellow and white knit cap he wore on the mirror of our dresser. He could not regulate his body temperature (among other things) so he needed a cap to help keep his head warm.

It sounds pitifully sentimental in hindsight, but throughout the day or night I would pick up the cap and breathe in the smell of his head and hair – that wonderful baby smell. You hold on however you can, eh?

Eventually the scent faded.

Here is a poem from a book-length collection of sonnets, Mimma Bella, by Eugene Lee Hamilton, on losing his child.

Lo, through the open window of the room
That was her nursery, a small bright spark
Comes wandering in, as falls the summer dark,
And with a measured flight explores the gloom.

As if it sought, among the things that loom
Vague in the dusk, for some familiar mark,
And like a light on some wee unseen bark,
It tacks in search of who knows what or whom.

I know 'tis but a fire-fly; yet its flight,
So straight, so measured, round the empty bed,
Might be a little soul's that night sets free;

And as it nears, I feel my heart grow tight
With something like a superstitious dread,
And watch it breathless, lest it should be she.


I, too, would be breathless before the spark. Godamn those empty rooms.

Carl Douglas vs. Optimus Prime

Rush Hour 3 or 4 is coming to theaters soon and my son saw the trailer with me at Spiderman this weekend.
In one scene Chris Rock does a little dance and sings "Everybody was Kung Fu fighting!"

Then, for the remainder of the day, my son was puttering around singing that line over and over and over and over - in his squeaky voice and with great gusto. It drove me crazy and I almost broke down and gave him this Optimus Prime voice changer helmet I've had stashed thinking it would stop him from singing Kung Fu fighting, but then I imagined he would just say it with the helmet on which would be more freaky. Optimus Prime doing Chris Rock doing Carl Douglas.

P.S. Picked up our Transformers movie tickets - advanced sales. BLAM!



P.S.S. Did you know Carl Douglas has a Greatest Hits? That, too, is freaky.

Father's Day and Books No One Wrote

Father's morning, day, night.

My wife and son served me breakfast in bed this morning. Scrambled eggs, link sausages w/lemon wedges, jelly toast and coffee. Once I plopped out of bed, I read sonnets on the porch for a while, then wrestled with my son in the attic which is too hot to be in, played hall soccer (our name for kicking this inflatable back and forth in a narrow stretch of hallway) and then went to see Spiderman - 3 again. My wife has a pan of Blueberry Boy Bait cooling on the stove that we will all much on later this evening. I am happy all over, top to bottom.

Here is a shortened list of imaginary Titles of Rejected Children’s Books...from an anonymous source off the Internet. I culled the list down to my favorites. I think these made the rounds some time ago, but they might be new for some of you.

You are Different and That’s Bad

The Boy Who Died From Eating All His Vegetables

Fun four-letter Words to know and Share

Hammers, Screwdrivers and Scissors: An “I-Can-Do-It Book:

Kathy Was So Bad Her Mommy Stopped Loving Her

Curious George and the High-Voltage Fence

Some Kittens Can Fly

Grandpa Gets a Casket

Whining, Kicking and Crying to Get your Way

Things Rich Kids Have, But You Never Will

The Man in the Moon is Actually Satan

Your Nightmares Are Real

Where Would You Like to be Buried?

Why Can’t Mr. Fork and Ms. Electrical Outlet Be Friends?

Places Where Mommy and Daddy Hide Neat Things

Daddy Drinks Because You Cry

The Surprise at the Bottom of the Pool

If It Feels Good, Touch It!

You Can’t Help It If You’re Stupid

Patty Went Splat! (Don’t YOU Forget Your Seatbelt)

Bullies Deserve To Die

Mommy’s Got A New Baby To Love

Cernuda Tellier Anyone's Guess

A father son poem I have always liked.

Though, because my housekeeping is sloppy sometimes, I did not write down the poet. I think it is Luis Cernuda, or Jorge Tellier. Sorry.

The Never-Ending Tale
for my son

Sea and sky, indefatigable powers,
concur beneath the clearing light.
Only I, in the afternoon, am weary.

This intense blue imposes itself on all,
a blue arched toward its own calm,
just beginning to form
variations of the sea-spray.
Vague-bodied clouds
await the festival of twilight.
My eyes scan what they have always loved,
a vision even more seductive now,
fragile beneath the shadows
that lean across my gaze toward darkness.
If the years have given me their riches
yet they pile up their numbers
and the current that carries me
hurriedly toward my end
seems swifter.

It does not matter. The light counts,
ceaselessly recounts an adventure,
and does not end, does not end:
there is no conclusion.
The adventure of a sun and some men.
Extinguished finally,
lost as a sky closes over them.
The sky is immortal.
He is happy to whom it has fallen
to spend his ephemeral days—
like those of the yellowing leaves—
on this planet.
Am I more than a leaf
on a rustling tree?
A common destiny—
the only one?--unites us on the crust
of a planet always astir,
all of us caught up
in the motion that leads us
toward … is there perhaps no purpose?

The world which in me is waning
continues before me, intact
in its cool, fabulous air.

An open balcony,
a hidden shadow by the wall
along a street, in a summer doze,
streets, cities, fields, skies, infinite
lights … and man
with his terrible power,
and in the midst of the din,
among innumerable convulsive troubles,
the everyday miracle of an orchestra.

Memory cannot contain even one life.

Circles of friendships,
spirits who do not touch
history, or public,
woman, love, children,
our existence consummated fully
among good and evil.

In how many directions
does gratitude spill?
The compass rose unfolds.

Friends! The globe
flourishes with dialogues:
extraordinary flora
(mingling with the jungle
that is never destroyed)
among the diminutive histories
that preserve without dates
those supreme, most humble, instants.
The root of my being has kept them
to form the one I am. Richer,
full of breath, I give thanks.
Man among men,
sun among stars—
spinning round some consciousness?

I look back. Oblivion has blurred
so much of what I was!
Memory conceals its treasures.
How can one say good-bye,
a final good-bye, to the world?
And no one takes leave of himself,
except in the drama of suicide.
Being dead is nothing.
Dying is merely sad.
It will grieve me to leave you—
you who will go on here—
and to have no part in your life.
The tale does not end.
Only he who tells you the tale comes to an end.

Transformers

I thought I was supposed to relive my childhood through my son Whitman, but I am living his instead. I am totally hooked on Transformers. He has close to 40 of them now, maybe more. I do a mean MegaTron voice by the way when we play with the figures. For relaxation, transforming one is better than squeezing a stress ball. Looking forward to the movie with a little too much anticipation (for my age) I think. What the hell.

Haiku, Hinton & Chiao

As some of you know from my older posts, I lost my first son. He was born, lived six weeks, and died back in 1998. That said, I am forever looking for poems that take up the subject of loss, grief, especially re: children, for models for my own writing.

I have written about it finally, after many years. Mostly haiku, The brevity of the form, I believe, was about all I could sustain given the subject matter. (Thank you Issa.)

Here is a book (not haiku) that I really connected with, The Late Poems of Meng Chiao. It is translated by David Hinton (who’s body of work is beyond amazing), and below is an excerpt of my favorite poem from it: Apricots Died Young.

Apricots died young in blossoms still nipples. Frost cut them free, and their scattering made me mourn the child I had long ago, so I wrote this poem.

1
Don't fondle these pearls. O hands of ice,

fondle pearls and they're quick to fly.

And don't cut spring short, sudden frost.

Cut spring short and that blaze of beauty's lost.

Still nipples, tiny blossoms fall in tatters

tinged pure as a child's robes long ago.

I gather them, never filling my hands,

and at dusk, grief empty, return home.

3
It must be this same thread of tears

piercing the hearts of spring trees:

before blossoms opened anywhere,

flake after flake fell to the blade.

Spring's life never lasts, it's true,

but my lament over frost is already

impossibly deep. Instead of blossoms

bathing streams, tears bathe robes.

4
At our son's birth, the moon was dark,

and when he died, it began to shine.

Moon and child, they stole each other

away. O scarcely lived child of mine,

what's it like, blossom after blossom,

if not endless blue heavens in lament,

sweetness falling into earthen dust,

nothing left to bloom in other times?

8
Calamity infecting a child is natural:

blossoms mostly fail. Still, I gather

ruins of the heart, a spent old man

cradling love's debris in endless night.

What can be said once sound dies away?

And once hope's dead, song's useless.

Old and sick--no child, no grandchild,

I stand like bundled firewood, alone.