Sunday, November 30, 2008
~BirdSong
I won’t warble.
Won’t trill.
Won’t cluck, chirrup or quack.
Won’t gesticulate wildly with arms aflutter
while I sing some intricate song
memorized for the purpose
of making you notice me.
I will not sit atop a fence post
with feathered plumage aplomb
and pipe for your aural delectation.
I will not do that.
And yet there are those of you
who feel you should.
Those who delight in their self-professed
ornithologic repertoire of
onomatopoeia peacockiness.
Ah, but what do these dancing cockatiels
really feel when late at night
the cloth drops down
over their chattering heads
and solitary confined refinement
truly sets in?
Do they tuck their beaks beneath tufted wing
and come to dream
of one small boy who resides in
a distant Russian village known as
Kirovsky?
They upon their lofty perch will
never speak his cryptic language,
but then again,
who can?
Who? Who?
Yes, of course… it’s Russian.
But who speaks Russian?
Who?
Who speaks Russian to him?
The answer: No one.
No one at all.
No one calls out to him by name for
There is no name he has ever answered to.
But this is not to say that
he has not been named.
Indeed, we now know of him as
‘The Bird Boy’.
Born in 2001,
he was raised by a mother
who never uttered his name.
There in Kirovsky, Russia,
locked away in a two room domain
he existed until the age of seven,
yet not once
did he hear the sound of a human voice.
But for that moment
when food was brought
and set down before him,
there was no interaction whatsoever.
And yet,
this is not to say that
he spent those seven years in total isolation.
No. He was not alone for
he shared those two rooms
with a multitude of cages.
Yes, and in those cages
the mother kept birds as pets.
All those birds and one small boy.
She was fond of the birds,
but apparently not fond of
every pet in the room.
In 2008, the mother of 31 years
had raised this boy to the age of seven.
It was here that a inquisitive social worker
discovered the aviary and its
one special inhabitant.
Imagine that first encounter.
Now perhaps you assume that
the Bird Boy was mute and
completely lacking in vocabulary,
but no.
He did attempt to converse.
Words? No.
Chirps. Yes.
This seven year old boy
communicated by way of chirping and
the fluttering movement of his hands.
There in the cage cluttered room,
he attempted to convey himself by way of
the only means of expression
he had ever known.
For just who were his true siblings
if not an assortment of parakeets and finches?
Signing away her corrupted right of parenthood,
the mother released the boy
into the care of the State.
A supple transition from caged aviary
to the cooped captivity
of an asylum.
And there now on quiet afternoons
when the Sun comes to wane through
pale curtain cloth,
I imagine that moment when
a certain birdsong erupts to echo
down the asylum’s long lithium hallways.
There to emit through barred window
and out across manicured lawn
to the distant waiting ears
of a sparrow
who tilts his head
ever so.
©08 Jack Hubbell
I won’t warble.
Won’t trill.
Won’t cluck, chirrup or quack.
Won’t gesticulate wildly with arms aflutter
while I sing some intricate song
memorized for the purpose
of making you notice me.
I will not sit atop a fence post
with feathered plumage aplomb
and pipe for your aural delectation.
I will not do that.
And yet there are those of you
who feel you should.
Those who delight in their self-professed
ornithologic repertoire of
onomatopoeia peacockiness.
Ah, but what do these dancing cockatiels
really feel when late at night
the cloth drops down
over their chattering heads
and solitary confined refinement
truly sets in?
Do they tuck their beaks beneath tufted wing
and come to dream
of one small boy who resides in
a distant Russian village known as
Kirovsky?
They upon their lofty perch will
never speak his cryptic language,
but then again,
who can?
Who? Who?
Yes, of course… it’s Russian.
But who speaks Russian?
Who?
Who speaks Russian to him?
The answer: No one.
No one at all.
No one calls out to him by name for
There is no name he has ever answered to.
But this is not to say that
he has not been named.
Indeed, we now know of him as
‘The Bird Boy’.
Born in 2001,
he was raised by a mother
who never uttered his name.
There in Kirovsky, Russia,
locked away in a two room domain
he existed until the age of seven,
yet not once
did he hear the sound of a human voice.
But for that moment
when food was brought
and set down before him,
there was no interaction whatsoever.
And yet,
this is not to say that
he spent those seven years in total isolation.
No. He was not alone for
he shared those two rooms
with a multitude of cages.
Yes, and in those cages
the mother kept birds as pets.
All those birds and one small boy.
She was fond of the birds,
but apparently not fond of
every pet in the room.
In 2008, the mother of 31 years
had raised this boy to the age of seven.
It was here that a inquisitive social worker
discovered the aviary and its
one special inhabitant.
Imagine that first encounter.
Now perhaps you assume that
the Bird Boy was mute and
completely lacking in vocabulary,
but no.
He did attempt to converse.
Words? No.
Chirps. Yes.
This seven year old boy
communicated by way of chirping and
the fluttering movement of his hands.
There in the cage cluttered room,
he attempted to convey himself by way of
the only means of expression
he had ever known.
For just who were his true siblings
if not an assortment of parakeets and finches?
Signing away her corrupted right of parenthood,
the mother released the boy
into the care of the State.
A supple transition from caged aviary
to the cooped captivity
of an asylum.
And there now on quiet afternoons
when the Sun comes to wane through
pale curtain cloth,
I imagine that moment when
a certain birdsong erupts to echo
down the asylum’s long lithium hallways.
There to emit through barred window
and out across manicured lawn
to the distant waiting ears
of a sparrow
who tilts his head
ever so.
©08 Jack Hubbell
~Ball Buster
She possesses talent.
No doubt about it.
And number one on her list of she-can-do-ables
is that she can get it up.
Especially impressive for the fact I can’t… get it up.
But let’s face it. She
has had a lot of practice.
Listen now.
There’s sophisticated hydraulics involved.
A knowledge of leverage and
just where to insert before
the fluid goes to work for you.
She’s got that in her head
and you just can’t beat good head knowledge.
I figure the ability to do all this comes down to desire,
but let’s face it:
I simply did not want to be a forklift operator.
Oh, it’s not that I’m impotent.
No. Rather, it’s that… relative to me,
this one woman would appear to have
an over-abundance of testosterone
pumping through her veins.
Oh, and not that she’s void of estrogen.
Looks can be deceiving.
I mean yea, she’s wearing coveralls.
Big ol’ baggy coveralls,
and anyone can be androgynous in coveralls,
but there comes a time in the day when the heat rises
and she chooses to climb down from the forklift and
peel off her outer layer.
And it’s here I come to notice
that she comes complete with all those
bumps, crevices and undulations
that estrogen is wont to bestow on the female form.
Formulation eroto-elation,
she’s got hormones moaning whore horrific.
But in a good way.
She’s Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’
except she’s traded in the half shell
for a mother forkin’ lift.
And there I am, just on the verge of major chub
when she opens her mouth and begins to speak.
And there from that beautious orifice
spews the most melodic of verbal diarrhea.
Yes, she’s the epitome of visual ecstasy
with a nasty ol’ potty mouth.
Revulsion? Ah, hell no.
She’s still a hotty. Just a
‘don’t do her wrong, cuz she’ll stomp on yer nuts’ hotty.
So of course I have to ask,
“You um… uh… ya ever beat anybody up?”
And there in her siren eyes a sparkle appears
for I have indeed touched on a topic that truly excites her.
And for the next fifteen minutes,
she on the verge of hyperventilation, tells me in explicit detail,
the best ways to punch another girl in the face.
You know, like if I was a fellow woman of ill intent.
“Cause the best thing… Yea.
The best thing is when you bring your fist down on their noses.
Not just in the nose, see.
Down, you know. DOWN on their noses.”
Well okay then.
I’ll be sure to let Martha Stewart know.
February’s issue was supposed to be floral arrangement
but stop the press! For now it’s gonna be:
“How to put that chump ass bitch down,
and make her stay down.”
And from here, little Miss Suzy Homemaker
dives into a story about her time spent living in the projects.
How there in the realm of fe-mano es fe-mano
she’d risen to the top of the fight club heap
and was the reigning brassier bruiser.
Oh, and this being the case, it wasn’t long
before she got jumped in a dark hallway
by a rival bosom beater
and her two troglodyte henchwomen.
With a somewhat disturbed smile,
she tells me of how she was backed against a wall
by the brutal boobed brawlers
and with fists reigning in from left and right,
looks up to see the rival leader standing there
with a raised baseball bat.
And there between the thumping thud
of knuckles to noggin and ribcage,
she calmly states,
“If you hit me with that,
I will kill you.”
And apparently the way she says it—
you know, sorta ‘Hannibella Lectorina’
—so disarms the hefty hit squad
that they abruptly stop, pause,
blink their heavy eyelids
and then simply turn and walk away.
And with that, Miss Botticelli’s
‘Venus on a ‘fuck you up’ shell’,
strides forward, grabs the baseball bat and… um…
rearranges the other girls mascara.
And there… There at story’s end,
she looks up at me as if she’d just said,
“And so I made a strawberry cake.”
And I find myself thinking of sorrowful things.
For you see, she’s told me she’s married.
Which of course means that there’s a husband.
And that there are nights when he says to her,
“Honey. Let’s not go to bed angry.”
That there are nights when they DO go to bed angry.
And that on those dark nights,
he lies there next to her with his eyes wide open.
Waiting
for the slightest
twitch.
©08 Jack Hubbell
She possesses talent.
No doubt about it.
And number one on her list of she-can-do-ables
is that she can get it up.
Especially impressive for the fact I can’t… get it up.
But let’s face it. She
has had a lot of practice.
Listen now.
There’s sophisticated hydraulics involved.
A knowledge of leverage and
just where to insert before
the fluid goes to work for you.
She’s got that in her head
and you just can’t beat good head knowledge.
I figure the ability to do all this comes down to desire,
but let’s face it:
I simply did not want to be a forklift operator.
Oh, it’s not that I’m impotent.
No. Rather, it’s that… relative to me,
this one woman would appear to have
an over-abundance of testosterone
pumping through her veins.
Oh, and not that she’s void of estrogen.
Looks can be deceiving.
I mean yea, she’s wearing coveralls.
Big ol’ baggy coveralls,
and anyone can be androgynous in coveralls,
but there comes a time in the day when the heat rises
and she chooses to climb down from the forklift and
peel off her outer layer.
And it’s here I come to notice
that she comes complete with all those
bumps, crevices and undulations
that estrogen is wont to bestow on the female form.
Formulation eroto-elation,
she’s got hormones moaning whore horrific.
But in a good way.
She’s Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’
except she’s traded in the half shell
for a mother forkin’ lift.
And there I am, just on the verge of major chub
when she opens her mouth and begins to speak.
And there from that beautious orifice
spews the most melodic of verbal diarrhea.
Yes, she’s the epitome of visual ecstasy
with a nasty ol’ potty mouth.
Revulsion? Ah, hell no.
She’s still a hotty. Just a
‘don’t do her wrong, cuz she’ll stomp on yer nuts’ hotty.
So of course I have to ask,
“You um… uh… ya ever beat anybody up?”
And there in her siren eyes a sparkle appears
for I have indeed touched on a topic that truly excites her.
And for the next fifteen minutes,
she on the verge of hyperventilation, tells me in explicit detail,
the best ways to punch another girl in the face.
You know, like if I was a fellow woman of ill intent.
“Cause the best thing… Yea.
The best thing is when you bring your fist down on their noses.
Not just in the nose, see.
Down, you know. DOWN on their noses.”
Well okay then.
I’ll be sure to let Martha Stewart know.
February’s issue was supposed to be floral arrangement
but stop the press! For now it’s gonna be:
“How to put that chump ass bitch down,
and make her stay down.”
And from here, little Miss Suzy Homemaker
dives into a story about her time spent living in the projects.
How there in the realm of fe-mano es fe-mano
she’d risen to the top of the fight club heap
and was the reigning brassier bruiser.
Oh, and this being the case, it wasn’t long
before she got jumped in a dark hallway
by a rival bosom beater
and her two troglodyte henchwomen.
With a somewhat disturbed smile,
she tells me of how she was backed against a wall
by the brutal boobed brawlers
and with fists reigning in from left and right,
looks up to see the rival leader standing there
with a raised baseball bat.
And there between the thumping thud
of knuckles to noggin and ribcage,
she calmly states,
“If you hit me with that,
I will kill you.”
And apparently the way she says it—
you know, sorta ‘Hannibella Lectorina’
—so disarms the hefty hit squad
that they abruptly stop, pause,
blink their heavy eyelids
and then simply turn and walk away.
And with that, Miss Botticelli’s
‘Venus on a ‘fuck you up’ shell’,
strides forward, grabs the baseball bat and… um…
rearranges the other girls mascara.
And there… There at story’s end,
she looks up at me as if she’d just said,
“And so I made a strawberry cake.”
And I find myself thinking of sorrowful things.
For you see, she’s told me she’s married.
Which of course means that there’s a husband.
And that there are nights when he says to her,
“Honey. Let’s not go to bed angry.”
That there are nights when they DO go to bed angry.
And that on those dark nights,
he lies there next to her with his eyes wide open.
Waiting
for the slightest
twitch.
©08 Jack Hubbell
~Absent Halos
There was a time
when you could tell who was a deity
simply by whether or not
they had a halo.
From shimmering aureole
to just a hint of glowing nimbus,
there was simply no mistaking
you were in the presence
of divinity.
Ah but which particular divinity
sort of depended on what page
from what book you were using to
anchor your current metaphysical
alter-reality.
As halo haberdashery goes,
the deity on the far side of the room
might just be Ra or possibly Horus.
Could also be Apollo or better yet, Helios.
Any assortment of baby faced putti or
sword welding cherubim.
Might just be Louis the Fourteenth,
but in his case that was less divinity
and more narcissistic Sun King
what with all celestial bodies
rotating in mass about his egotistic ass.
From worship of Sun to pantheon of
Sun signified shimmering bonnets,
you knew you were in the presence
of somebody oh so special.
And yet it must be noted that
over the past one thousand odd years,
reports of neon noggin sightings
have significantly dropped.
What was once sacred
slides into mythology.
Greek… mythology.
Roman… mythology.
Norse… mythology.
Egyptian… mythology.
Tele-Tubbie… mythology.
Nowadays, if you see someone
walking down the street with
a halo atop their head,
there is almost always a wire involved.
Whoa but it would appear that
true halos have sadly gone obsolete.
And if such is admittedly the case,
what suitable signifier of divinity
supplants our current visual requirement
for designating that most worthy of veneration?
I submit for your approval
the common white lab coat.
Ah yes… well…
I imagine you are in less than full agreement.
That that which denotes science,
from general practice doctor
to genetic engineer,
holds no symbolic power
worthy of devout reverence.
Perhaps you’ve come to the conviction
that white lab coats hold no sway
in your embrace of spirituality.
In that case,
retain the halo,
ignore the wire
and let your faith prevail.
But if you’re a lowly rat or
laboratory mouse
bred for experimentation,
what is the man in white
if not absolute godhead?
Yesterday
I read that a lab biologist
had taken a group of mice
and made them all alcoholics.
Why?
Because he could.
And then,
he would pluck a random
inebriated mouse
out of the mass of its
stupor soaked brethren and
force it to go cold turkey.
Why?
Because he could.
And the mouse goes into withdrawal.
The mouse gets a tad depressed.
And here the man in the sacred white coat
performs a “man in white coat” experiment.
Upon placing that alcohol deprived mouse
into a tall beaker of water,
he soon observes that it makes
no attempt to swim.
That the mouse would rather sink.
The report said nothing of whether he’d
therewith reach into the beaker
and save the drowning mouse.
Nothing of whether he
returned it to its cage and
gave it back its booze soaked life.
Did he?
Well, we want to believe so,
for that is the way we’d like to perceive our gods.
That everyone whose head
dips below the water’s surface
is saved.
Saved whether they desired it
or not.
Some
would call this
compassion.
But the mice…
These mice
beg
to differ.
©08 Jack Hubbell
There was a time
when you could tell who was a deity
simply by whether or not
they had a halo.
From shimmering aureole
to just a hint of glowing nimbus,
there was simply no mistaking
you were in the presence
of divinity.
Ah but which particular divinity
sort of depended on what page
from what book you were using to
anchor your current metaphysical
alter-reality.
As halo haberdashery goes,
the deity on the far side of the room
might just be Ra or possibly Horus.
Could also be Apollo or better yet, Helios.
Any assortment of baby faced putti or
sword welding cherubim.
Might just be Louis the Fourteenth,
but in his case that was less divinity
and more narcissistic Sun King
what with all celestial bodies
rotating in mass about his egotistic ass.
From worship of Sun to pantheon of
Sun signified shimmering bonnets,
you knew you were in the presence
of somebody oh so special.
And yet it must be noted that
over the past one thousand odd years,
reports of neon noggin sightings
have significantly dropped.
What was once sacred
slides into mythology.
Greek… mythology.
Roman… mythology.
Norse… mythology.
Egyptian… mythology.
Tele-Tubbie… mythology.
Nowadays, if you see someone
walking down the street with
a halo atop their head,
there is almost always a wire involved.
Whoa but it would appear that
true halos have sadly gone obsolete.
And if such is admittedly the case,
what suitable signifier of divinity
supplants our current visual requirement
for designating that most worthy of veneration?
I submit for your approval
the common white lab coat.
Ah yes… well…
I imagine you are in less than full agreement.
That that which denotes science,
from general practice doctor
to genetic engineer,
holds no symbolic power
worthy of devout reverence.
Perhaps you’ve come to the conviction
that white lab coats hold no sway
in your embrace of spirituality.
In that case,
retain the halo,
ignore the wire
and let your faith prevail.
But if you’re a lowly rat or
laboratory mouse
bred for experimentation,
what is the man in white
if not absolute godhead?
Yesterday
I read that a lab biologist
had taken a group of mice
and made them all alcoholics.
Why?
Because he could.
And then,
he would pluck a random
inebriated mouse
out of the mass of its
stupor soaked brethren and
force it to go cold turkey.
Why?
Because he could.
And the mouse goes into withdrawal.
The mouse gets a tad depressed.
And here the man in the sacred white coat
performs a “man in white coat” experiment.
Upon placing that alcohol deprived mouse
into a tall beaker of water,
he soon observes that it makes
no attempt to swim.
That the mouse would rather sink.
The report said nothing of whether he’d
therewith reach into the beaker
and save the drowning mouse.
Nothing of whether he
returned it to its cage and
gave it back its booze soaked life.
Did he?
Well, we want to believe so,
for that is the way we’d like to perceive our gods.
That everyone whose head
dips below the water’s surface
is saved.
Saved whether they desired it
or not.
Some
would call this
compassion.
But the mice…
These mice
beg
to differ.
©08 Jack Hubbell
~About a Book
The application of baby oil to skin
can be a wondrous thing.
As good for the giver
as the givee.
Yes, there’s a certain tactile delight
as one individual’s skin
comes in contact
with another.
No matter how young or old,
you will take pleasure.
And so, I find myself dwelling on this
as I stand before a dark display case
in Bury Saint Edmunds, England.
There beneath finger smudged glass
lies a book bound in
human skin.
And how do they keep that skin so supple?
Enquiring women
across the nation
really want to know.
I suppose that in this case,
baby oil is simply out of the question.
It may just be they’re using
Oil of Olay,
though that’s just a guess on my part.
Okay.
Although distracting, how ‘bout
a little aside information?
That is,
assuming you all want to know
how this museum got its hands on
a skin bound book.
It would seem
a few centuries back
this guy had a mistress,
and since she was of the troublesome
“make me an honest woman” sort,
he murdered and buried her in the Red Barn.
The Red Barn?
Oh yes, there is so much more
to this sordid story but
let’s just cut to the quick.
They found the body.
They found the killer.
And what with all them locals
being such a temperamental lot,
they hung him, and drawn and
quartered his misogynistic butt.
Took him apart.
Dismantled him as it were.
And
“Hey! You want souvenirs?
Got yer souvenirs right here.
You want thigh bones?
We got thigh bones.
You want big toes for your key chain?
We got manicured and non-manicured.
With bunion and without.
Wanna bind a book in human skin?
Today’s your lucky day.
We can do that at competitive cost.”
And so…
someone did.
And gosh golly gee willikers if you can’t
just walk right into a museum
and see it there on display.
Yup. Sitting just there next to
this fella’s skull cap.
And I mean real skull cap.
Grisly right ear and scalp.
But hey!
That’s macabre
and I don’t want to be accused of
dwelling on that too much
so let’s get back to the book.
Now what I want to know is,
is it a good read?
Did it say,
make the Opray Winfrey book list?
Did it get a plain ol’
Opray Book Club sticker
or did they splurge and
go all out for a tattoo?
And since we can assume that
this book’s been around,
does it have a little pocket in the back
for the library card?
And if so,
can you still check it out and take it home?
I mean,
what with a book of such high provenance
and overall lack of
epidermal blemish or unsightly scarring,
there’s got to be some substantial prose inside.
You just don’t go bind a book in human skin
and then fill it full of say…
you know…
the poetry of your current flavor to savor writer.
No.
You want something good
in a book of this quality binding.
Otherwise, there you are,
sitting down at the local coffee shop
when some stranger asks,
“Hey. What you reading?”
And there you’re
forced to respond,
“Oh, not much.
How ‘bout you?”
I mean,
this wouldn’t happen
with a book full of
my delightful verbosity, but
if you wanna fill a book full of
flavor savor poo-poo poems,
go right ahead.
No skin off my back.
©06 Jack Hubbell
The application of baby oil to skin
can be a wondrous thing.
As good for the giver
as the givee.
Yes, there’s a certain tactile delight
as one individual’s skin
comes in contact
with another.
No matter how young or old,
you will take pleasure.
And so, I find myself dwelling on this
as I stand before a dark display case
in Bury Saint Edmunds, England.
There beneath finger smudged glass
lies a book bound in
human skin.
And how do they keep that skin so supple?
Enquiring women
across the nation
really want to know.
I suppose that in this case,
baby oil is simply out of the question.
It may just be they’re using
Oil of Olay,
though that’s just a guess on my part.
Okay.
Although distracting, how ‘bout
a little aside information?
That is,
assuming you all want to know
how this museum got its hands on
a skin bound book.
It would seem
a few centuries back
this guy had a mistress,
and since she was of the troublesome
“make me an honest woman” sort,
he murdered and buried her in the Red Barn.
The Red Barn?
Oh yes, there is so much more
to this sordid story but
let’s just cut to the quick.
They found the body.
They found the killer.
And what with all them locals
being such a temperamental lot,
they hung him, and drawn and
quartered his misogynistic butt.
Took him apart.
Dismantled him as it were.
And
“Hey! You want souvenirs?
Got yer souvenirs right here.
You want thigh bones?
We got thigh bones.
You want big toes for your key chain?
We got manicured and non-manicured.
With bunion and without.
Wanna bind a book in human skin?
Today’s your lucky day.
We can do that at competitive cost.”
And so…
someone did.
And gosh golly gee willikers if you can’t
just walk right into a museum
and see it there on display.
Yup. Sitting just there next to
this fella’s skull cap.
And I mean real skull cap.
Grisly right ear and scalp.
But hey!
That’s macabre
and I don’t want to be accused of
dwelling on that too much
so let’s get back to the book.
Now what I want to know is,
is it a good read?
Did it say,
make the Opray Winfrey book list?
Did it get a plain ol’
Opray Book Club sticker
or did they splurge and
go all out for a tattoo?
And since we can assume that
this book’s been around,
does it have a little pocket in the back
for the library card?
And if so,
can you still check it out and take it home?
I mean,
what with a book of such high provenance
and overall lack of
epidermal blemish or unsightly scarring,
there’s got to be some substantial prose inside.
You just don’t go bind a book in human skin
and then fill it full of say…
you know…
the poetry of your current flavor to savor writer.
No.
You want something good
in a book of this quality binding.
Otherwise, there you are,
sitting down at the local coffee shop
when some stranger asks,
“Hey. What you reading?”
And there you’re
forced to respond,
“Oh, not much.
How ‘bout you?”
I mean,
this wouldn’t happen
with a book full of
my delightful verbosity, but
if you wanna fill a book full of
flavor savor poo-poo poems,
go right ahead.
No skin off my back.
©06 Jack Hubbell
~‘World of Men’
My childhood was a virtual cornucopia
of sexually deviant acts. Well,
that’s what you’d like to think.
How else to explain your perception of my
inherent depravity?
But naw…
It was all Opie and Andy Griffith.
All Huck Finn and Mark Twain.
All Haley Mills and Pollyanna.
That is except for haircuts.
Getting a haircut was perverse in the
worst possible way.
Not the actual act of getting a haircut per se,
though it goes without saying that
there was a brutal indoctrination involved when
those shears passed over your head.
Yea, your style options equated to
crew-cut, crew-cut, or on the rare occasion,
crew-cut.
‘Cause there weren’t no F’in way that
my dad’s son was gonna be no goll dang
long haired hippy and… um… sorry.
That was scarred Freudian psyche issue number two.
Let’s stay with the psycho trauma hiding behind
door number one, shall we?
Erotomania of the reprobate sort.
But now listen:
none of this soiled sanity occurred in the barber’s chair.
No. Though you fell beneath his blade of
follicular annihilation,
there was sanctuary to be found
in the swank leather upholstery
of that chromed pneumatic highchair.
Quite the opposite of
what was to be encountered
while awaiting your cranium buzz.
This was no beauty parlor.
This was a barber shop.
A mid Sixties barbershop.
Testosterone haven from all things estrogen.
And there while you awaited your
total world domination haircut,
there was an assortment of magazines to be perused.
Mainly mammary festooned
misogynous lust of bust
manly masturbatory
pulp pumping literature.
Just the sort of stuff an eight year old boy
needs to get his mind right
when it comes to acquiring an appreciation of
the delicate sex.
Considering men were incessantly motivated
to visit the barber shop whether their
noggins needed it or not,
it’s no wonder their hair remained so short.
Now I imagine you’ve got visions of stacks
of Playboys, Penthouse and Hustler,
you know, gynecological study material, but no.
Something altogether different here.
There at the barber shop
you encountered magazines such as
‘Stag’, ‘Inside Detective’ and
‘World of Men’.
And these… um… wait. Here.
Let me throw out a tether and
pull you into my mind.
Oh, not the red-light salacious cesspool
that’s there right now but rather,
the mind I possessed when I was all of eight years.
There we sit at the end of a bench.
There we glance down at the heap of magazines.
There at the top, a copy of ‘World of Men’.
There on its cover… ***
I am not making this up.
This is not fiction.
This is a particular boy’s memory
of one graphically painted illustration.
There is a swimming pool with diving board.
There are girls with skimpy bikinis.
Wait… there’s more. Much more.
There are Bikers.
Bikers with swastikas.
Swastikas on their sleeves.
Swastikas on their Nazi Biker helmets.
Swastikas tattooed upon their bared chests.
And there at the edge of the pool, you find
one maniacal Biker ripping open
bag after bag after bag of lye
and pouring it into the water.
Water which is now pure acid.
There on the diving board
yet another crazed Biker has carried
a screaming girl to its end, and
there she hangs mid-air…
mid-scream… mid… impending.
And you are eight years old.
And you like Walt Disney cartoons.
You’re particularly fond of Goofy
and the antics of his dog Pluto.
They… They were funny.
Slapstick funny. Painfully funny.
Semi-nude girls
being thrown into acid
by Nazi Bikers.
The barber could have left a gun
there on that end table.
A syringe full of heroin or crank.
A stack of rusty razorblades.
But…
But no…
It was just the latest copy of
‘World of Men’.
There it remains in my brain,
and now in yours as well.
©08 Jack Hubbell
My childhood was a virtual cornucopia
of sexually deviant acts. Well,
that’s what you’d like to think.
How else to explain your perception of my
inherent depravity?
But naw…
It was all Opie and Andy Griffith.
All Huck Finn and Mark Twain.
All Haley Mills and Pollyanna.
That is except for haircuts.
Getting a haircut was perverse in the
worst possible way.
Not the actual act of getting a haircut per se,
though it goes without saying that
there was a brutal indoctrination involved when
those shears passed over your head.
Yea, your style options equated to
crew-cut, crew-cut, or on the rare occasion,
crew-cut.
‘Cause there weren’t no F’in way that
my dad’s son was gonna be no goll dang
long haired hippy and… um… sorry.
That was scarred Freudian psyche issue number two.
Let’s stay with the psycho trauma hiding behind
door number one, shall we?
Erotomania of the reprobate sort.
But now listen:
none of this soiled sanity occurred in the barber’s chair.
No. Though you fell beneath his blade of
follicular annihilation,
there was sanctuary to be found
in the swank leather upholstery
of that chromed pneumatic highchair.
Quite the opposite of
what was to be encountered
while awaiting your cranium buzz.
This was no beauty parlor.
This was a barber shop.
A mid Sixties barbershop.
Testosterone haven from all things estrogen.
And there while you awaited your
total world domination haircut,
there was an assortment of magazines to be perused.
Mainly mammary festooned
misogynous lust of bust
manly masturbatory
pulp pumping literature.
Just the sort of stuff an eight year old boy
needs to get his mind right
when it comes to acquiring an appreciation of
the delicate sex.
Considering men were incessantly motivated
to visit the barber shop whether their
noggins needed it or not,
it’s no wonder their hair remained so short.
Now I imagine you’ve got visions of stacks
of Playboys, Penthouse and Hustler,
you know, gynecological study material, but no.
Something altogether different here.
There at the barber shop
you encountered magazines such as
‘Stag’, ‘Inside Detective’ and
‘World of Men’.
And these… um… wait. Here.
Let me throw out a tether and
pull you into my mind.
Oh, not the red-light salacious cesspool
that’s there right now but rather,
the mind I possessed when I was all of eight years.
There we sit at the end of a bench.
There we glance down at the heap of magazines.
There at the top, a copy of ‘World of Men’.
There on its cover… ***
I am not making this up.
This is not fiction.
This is a particular boy’s memory
of one graphically painted illustration.
There is a swimming pool with diving board.
There are girls with skimpy bikinis.
Wait… there’s more. Much more.
There are Bikers.
Bikers with swastikas.
Swastikas on their sleeves.
Swastikas on their Nazi Biker helmets.
Swastikas tattooed upon their bared chests.
And there at the edge of the pool, you find
one maniacal Biker ripping open
bag after bag after bag of lye
and pouring it into the water.
Water which is now pure acid.
There on the diving board
yet another crazed Biker has carried
a screaming girl to its end, and
there she hangs mid-air…
mid-scream… mid… impending.
And you are eight years old.
And you like Walt Disney cartoons.
You’re particularly fond of Goofy
and the antics of his dog Pluto.
They… They were funny.
Slapstick funny. Painfully funny.
Semi-nude girls
being thrown into acid
by Nazi Bikers.
The barber could have left a gun
there on that end table.
A syringe full of heroin or crank.
A stack of rusty razorblades.
But…
But no…
It was just the latest copy of
‘World of Men’.
There it remains in my brain,
and now in yours as well.
©08 Jack Hubbell
~Small Talk
Okay, so it may come down to the fact
I was never very good at conversation.
Sure. I’ll grant you that.
But now listen:
I was all of nineteen years old and
being Midwest bred and raised,
I was pretty far from worldly.
You’ve got to understand that
on this particular topic,
I had no worthy opinions;
absolutely nothing of importance to say.
Perhaps… Perhaps I just looked knowledgeable.
What with the fact of my wearing a uniform,
it may have appeared
I’d automatically have some insight
into all things military.
If a manual exists on the fine art of conversation,
I figure there’s got to be a passage
about initiating discourse with
some element of small talk.
You know… Something mutually inclusive.
Common ground.
Common experience.
Small talk.
Yea. But this was not…
small talk.
And so…
I share a room with a man
who had entered only five minutes ago,
and there in that short span of silence,
I’ve certainly noticed his long hair;
his civilian attire;
the fact he’s a good ten years my senior.
And then…
And then he decides to engage in small talk.
He turns to face me
and from his mouth come the words:
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
You know. Small talk.
Being as I still qualified as teenager,
it was relatively easy to do a
body count in my head and
come up with a summation of none.
But of course I refrained from
answering too quickly.
As an expression of machismo,
it’s important to give
the appearance I’m pondering the
trail of bodies left in my lethal wake.
“Hmm? No.
Let’s see. That one guy?
I believe he managed to crawl away.
Um… And I’m certain she’s still quite alive.
Pretty sure that one bus load of kids
made it to the hospital in time.”
How fucking ridiculous!
But… with a somber face,
I simply returned his awaiting gaze and said,
“Umm… No.”
And no sooner did I reply
but did he quickly come back with,
“Well, I have. Yea. Numerous times.”
“Now aren’t you the over-achiever.”
Well…
That’s what I should have replied, but no.
I was nineteen years old, and
it’s rather difficult to dive into a conversation
about serial killing or mass murder
when you have no point of reference.
“I was in Viet Nam,” he continues. “Were you?”
“Were you in Viet Nam?”
This was 1979.
I… a young man, fresh out of high school.
This conversation was going to be a bit one sided.
“No,” I said. And to this he chimes back with,
“Well, I was.
Shot some gook in the face with a shotgun.
You ever shoot someone in the face with a shotgun?”
Pretty sure my response to that one
matched all the other answers I’d given so far.
And for the next thirty minutes,
this man I did not know,
proceeded to regurgitate
every violent homicidal act
he’d ever been involved in.
Why? … Why?
Why was I deemed worthy of his
sole soul repository?
Something to do with the fact
the cloth against my skin was olive drab?
That he’d spent the last five, six, seven years
with this orgasmic power point presentation
locked and looped there in his head and now,
seeing that cloth…
Seeing a certain insignia upon my sleeve,
there in his mind,
a door unlocks in some dark cranial corridor
and the bloody viscera splattered foliage
of some distant jungle
comes spilling forth at my feet.
The popping sound of rotor blades;
the buzz of an M60;
the thump of a mortar round;
the smell of white phosphorus
as it burns its way through human flesh.
All of this dying to get out of his head.
All of this dying,
a perpetual loop of validation
that he was most certainly alive.
Dying to be alive.
Dying to be alive.
And anything…
Anything less than the jungles
and hills and grasslands of Viet Nam
was a lesser form of life
and greater form of death.
Somewhere in between these two extremes
a man seeks affirmation,
and all he asked of me was small talk.
A faint nod of the head.
A hushed whisper of “I hear you.”
And here now, so many years later,
some post traumatic grandpa
shares the couch with his post traumatic grandson.
One of the two with his foot still buried
deep in a distant fetid swamp.
The other with his boot in scorched sand.
And were you to walk into that room,
all you’d see
would be two men
sharing a couch.
Just two men sharing a couch.
But there in between lie severed legs.
Severed arms. Severed lives.
Whilst severed dreams
lie buried and forgotten
in far distant lands.
Here are two men locked
in that moment of loss.
Both quite alive
and both quite dead,
whilst there in their heads:
small talk.
©07 Jack Hubbell
Okay, so it may come down to the fact
I was never very good at conversation.
Sure. I’ll grant you that.
But now listen:
I was all of nineteen years old and
being Midwest bred and raised,
I was pretty far from worldly.
You’ve got to understand that
on this particular topic,
I had no worthy opinions;
absolutely nothing of importance to say.
Perhaps… Perhaps I just looked knowledgeable.
What with the fact of my wearing a uniform,
it may have appeared
I’d automatically have some insight
into all things military.
If a manual exists on the fine art of conversation,
I figure there’s got to be a passage
about initiating discourse with
some element of small talk.
You know… Something mutually inclusive.
Common ground.
Common experience.
Small talk.
Yea. But this was not…
small talk.
And so…
I share a room with a man
who had entered only five minutes ago,
and there in that short span of silence,
I’ve certainly noticed his long hair;
his civilian attire;
the fact he’s a good ten years my senior.
And then…
And then he decides to engage in small talk.
He turns to face me
and from his mouth come the words:
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
You know. Small talk.
Being as I still qualified as teenager,
it was relatively easy to do a
body count in my head and
come up with a summation of none.
But of course I refrained from
answering too quickly.
As an expression of machismo,
it’s important to give
the appearance I’m pondering the
trail of bodies left in my lethal wake.
“Hmm? No.
Let’s see. That one guy?
I believe he managed to crawl away.
Um… And I’m certain she’s still quite alive.
Pretty sure that one bus load of kids
made it to the hospital in time.”
How fucking ridiculous!
But… with a somber face,
I simply returned his awaiting gaze and said,
“Umm… No.”
And no sooner did I reply
but did he quickly come back with,
“Well, I have. Yea. Numerous times.”
“Now aren’t you the over-achiever.”
Well…
That’s what I should have replied, but no.
I was nineteen years old, and
it’s rather difficult to dive into a conversation
about serial killing or mass murder
when you have no point of reference.
“I was in Viet Nam,” he continues. “Were you?”
“Were you in Viet Nam?”
This was 1979.
I… a young man, fresh out of high school.
This conversation was going to be a bit one sided.
“No,” I said. And to this he chimes back with,
“Well, I was.
Shot some gook in the face with a shotgun.
You ever shoot someone in the face with a shotgun?”
Pretty sure my response to that one
matched all the other answers I’d given so far.
And for the next thirty minutes,
this man I did not know,
proceeded to regurgitate
every violent homicidal act
he’d ever been involved in.
Why? … Why?
Why was I deemed worthy of his
sole soul repository?
Something to do with the fact
the cloth against my skin was olive drab?
That he’d spent the last five, six, seven years
with this orgasmic power point presentation
locked and looped there in his head and now,
seeing that cloth…
Seeing a certain insignia upon my sleeve,
there in his mind,
a door unlocks in some dark cranial corridor
and the bloody viscera splattered foliage
of some distant jungle
comes spilling forth at my feet.
The popping sound of rotor blades;
the buzz of an M60;
the thump of a mortar round;
the smell of white phosphorus
as it burns its way through human flesh.
All of this dying to get out of his head.
All of this dying,
a perpetual loop of validation
that he was most certainly alive.
Dying to be alive.
Dying to be alive.
And anything…
Anything less than the jungles
and hills and grasslands of Viet Nam
was a lesser form of life
and greater form of death.
Somewhere in between these two extremes
a man seeks affirmation,
and all he asked of me was small talk.
A faint nod of the head.
A hushed whisper of “I hear you.”
And here now, so many years later,
some post traumatic grandpa
shares the couch with his post traumatic grandson.
One of the two with his foot still buried
deep in a distant fetid swamp.
The other with his boot in scorched sand.
And were you to walk into that room,
all you’d see
would be two men
sharing a couch.
Just two men sharing a couch.
But there in between lie severed legs.
Severed arms. Severed lives.
Whilst severed dreams
lie buried and forgotten
in far distant lands.
Here are two men locked
in that moment of loss.
Both quite alive
and both quite dead,
whilst there in their heads:
small talk.
©07 Jack Hubbell
~My Physique
There comes a time
when you know you’ve attained your
perceived pinnacle of athletic achievement.
For me, the moment is at hand,
and I must seize it.
I will become a professional bowler.
Now I suppose I could have
taken up bowling
a year ago, but no.
I was different then.
I was toned.
I was ripped.
I was svelte.
I had just completed a season
touring with the
Chippendales.
I’m sure many of you are asking, “Hey!
Why the career change?”
Well let me tell you:
it’s hard work being a Chippendale.
Loads of physical and mental stress.
Listen: You wouldn’t know.
You haven’t done this.
For one,
it’s a sex trade.
Really.
No getting around it.
You can talk up the art side of it all you want
but those women could care less
whether you’ve just executed the
most perfect triple cabriole.
Deep down,
what they really want is
perpetual pelvic thrust.
And then, of course all those
late nights fading to dawn
as you sit there counting and stacking
thousand upon thousand of
single dollar bills.
It’s an ugly taxing business.
So I quit.
Just let myself go.
Traded my six-pack abs in for
a six-pack belly.
Hung up my G-string.
Gave all that baby oil to my best buddy _______.
Parked my butter butt in a barcalounger
for one whole year
with nothin’ but a TV remote in one hand
and a can of PBR in the other.
And yes, right about now
I feel I’m at my physical prime to
dive into the grueling arena of professional bowling.
But let me be honest here.
I’ve got a bit of a hidden agenda.
You see, unbeknownst to many,
professional bowling has its sordid side.
Indeed, professional bowling
is overrun with groupies.
Yup.
It’s all about sex,
and that my friends explains
why I look the way
I do today.
©06 Jack Hubbell
There comes a time
when you know you’ve attained your
perceived pinnacle of athletic achievement.
For me, the moment is at hand,
and I must seize it.
I will become a professional bowler.
Now I suppose I could have
taken up bowling
a year ago, but no.
I was different then.
I was toned.
I was ripped.
I was svelte.
I had just completed a season
touring with the
Chippendales.
I’m sure many of you are asking, “Hey!
Why the career change?”
Well let me tell you:
it’s hard work being a Chippendale.
Loads of physical and mental stress.
Listen: You wouldn’t know.
You haven’t done this.
For one,
it’s a sex trade.
Really.
No getting around it.
You can talk up the art side of it all you want
but those women could care less
whether you’ve just executed the
most perfect triple cabriole.
Deep down,
what they really want is
perpetual pelvic thrust.
And then, of course all those
late nights fading to dawn
as you sit there counting and stacking
thousand upon thousand of
single dollar bills.
It’s an ugly taxing business.
So I quit.
Just let myself go.
Traded my six-pack abs in for
a six-pack belly.
Hung up my G-string.
Gave all that baby oil to my best buddy _______.
Parked my butter butt in a barcalounger
for one whole year
with nothin’ but a TV remote in one hand
and a can of PBR in the other.
And yes, right about now
I feel I’m at my physical prime to
dive into the grueling arena of professional bowling.
But let me be honest here.
I’ve got a bit of a hidden agenda.
You see, unbeknownst to many,
professional bowling has its sordid side.
Indeed, professional bowling
is overrun with groupies.
Yup.
It’s all about sex,
and that my friends explains
why I look the way
I do today.
©06 Jack Hubbell
~Gorge Buoyant
I once ate a fly by accident.
Again…
I want to be very clear on this.
It was by accident.
I would in no way do this with malicious intent.
This is not to say I feel any form of
affection towards flies
for I do not.
In fact, I despise the little buggers.
But let’s come to an understanding.
I am an overwhelmingly loving and
entirely lovable person,
and though I loathe flies,
I absolutely would not
consume one in any vindictive manner.
Yes, it is quite understandable
that flies have nutritional value,
but at this specifically stated
moment of ingestion,
I was not particularly malnourished.
I could easily have made it ‘til nightfall
without the sacrifice of his
protein sustenance.
Without a doubt, I
would have survived.
Being as I am overflowing
with raging hormonal butchiness,
it should be of no surprise that I once experienced
a wilderness survival school.
Yes indeed, by bug breathed brethren…
John Rambo and Yours Truly.
Mano-a-Mano with nary a vending machine
within a fifty mile radius.
Would I slit Stallone’s throat for the
last stale twinkie?
Does Boy George own a pair of pink panties?
You damn straight!
I am not to be trifled with
when it comes to cup-cakes.
Especially with them there sprinkles on top.
Ahem… Anywho…
This guy was throwing up.
Wait!
I just prematurely climaxed my poem.
Let’s back on out and
reinsert from another direction.
Today’s Survival 101 objective is to catch a trout.
Catch him, cook him, eat him.
And though them there fishy things
be a bit of a rarity,
all us men have easy access to worms.
Just dig on down into Mother Earthy’s womb
and they’re slippin’ n’ slidin’ a slimy squirm fantastic.
And this guy was throwing up.
Yes, well… okay.
Let’s just move on to the post poetic
oh so climaxadelicious cigarette shall we?
Not too many fish in the creek but
a whole lotta worms in the mud.
And a worm being high in protein goodness,
the instructor goads our designated vomitee
into swallowing one whole.
Swallow him live.
Swallow him down and be done with it.
Okay, let’s just jump to the
After-the-fact vomit vile-tastic.
He what did the puking tells me
that it wasn’t the aspect of
eating a worm that made him hurl.
No. Seems that one of the side affects
of swallowing a worm whole and alive
is that whole and alive worms
don’t like to be swallowed.
That they resist the urge to go down.
This worm…
This worm wanted out.
And I sorta figure this is the moment of truth
where the worm gets religion.
That he’s in there sayin’ “I hear ya Lord and
Imma willin’ to do whatever it takes ta get out.”
And there in the back of this fella’s throat
a disco mirror ball startsta rotating
and the worm startsta wigglin’.
And this guy, who by the way,
has decided he’s not having a
whale of a good time,
brings forth unto the creek’s sacred bank
a somewhat blessed worm.
And yea…
That fly I swallowed all those years ago…
Now that I think about it…
Sucker must have been a
god damn atheist.
©08 Jack Hubbell
I once ate a fly by accident.
Again…
I want to be very clear on this.
It was by accident.
I would in no way do this with malicious intent.
This is not to say I feel any form of
affection towards flies
for I do not.
In fact, I despise the little buggers.
But let’s come to an understanding.
I am an overwhelmingly loving and
entirely lovable person,
and though I loathe flies,
I absolutely would not
consume one in any vindictive manner.
Yes, it is quite understandable
that flies have nutritional value,
but at this specifically stated
moment of ingestion,
I was not particularly malnourished.
I could easily have made it ‘til nightfall
without the sacrifice of his
protein sustenance.
Without a doubt, I
would have survived.
Being as I am overflowing
with raging hormonal butchiness,
it should be of no surprise that I once experienced
a wilderness survival school.
Yes indeed, by bug breathed brethren…
John Rambo and Yours Truly.
Mano-a-Mano with nary a vending machine
within a fifty mile radius.
Would I slit Stallone’s throat for the
last stale twinkie?
Does Boy George own a pair of pink panties?
You damn straight!
I am not to be trifled with
when it comes to cup-cakes.
Especially with them there sprinkles on top.
Ahem… Anywho…
This guy was throwing up.
Wait!
I just prematurely climaxed my poem.
Let’s back on out and
reinsert from another direction.
Today’s Survival 101 objective is to catch a trout.
Catch him, cook him, eat him.
And though them there fishy things
be a bit of a rarity,
all us men have easy access to worms.
Just dig on down into Mother Earthy’s womb
and they’re slippin’ n’ slidin’ a slimy squirm fantastic.
And this guy was throwing up.
Yes, well… okay.
Let’s just move on to the post poetic
oh so climaxadelicious cigarette shall we?
Not too many fish in the creek but
a whole lotta worms in the mud.
And a worm being high in protein goodness,
the instructor goads our designated vomitee
into swallowing one whole.
Swallow him live.
Swallow him down and be done with it.
Okay, let’s just jump to the
After-the-fact vomit vile-tastic.
He what did the puking tells me
that it wasn’t the aspect of
eating a worm that made him hurl.
No. Seems that one of the side affects
of swallowing a worm whole and alive
is that whole and alive worms
don’t like to be swallowed.
That they resist the urge to go down.
This worm…
This worm wanted out.
And I sorta figure this is the moment of truth
where the worm gets religion.
That he’s in there sayin’ “I hear ya Lord and
Imma willin’ to do whatever it takes ta get out.”
And there in the back of this fella’s throat
a disco mirror ball startsta rotating
and the worm startsta wigglin’.
And this guy, who by the way,
has decided he’s not having a
whale of a good time,
brings forth unto the creek’s sacred bank
a somewhat blessed worm.
And yea…
That fly I swallowed all those years ago…
Now that I think about it…
Sucker must have been a
god damn atheist.
©08 Jack Hubbell
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Barb’s Beaver
Barbara is hanging by her knees
upside down on the monkey bars.
Oh, and I’d like to point out
she’s wearing a dress.
And here on this vast spinning globe
of which we normally stand upright,
there are magnetic properties
which translate to gravity.
And it is interesting to note what these
said properties
have done to the hem of Barb’s skirt.
Of course she and I and
all the other guys standing there studying
the manifestation of this earth’s affects
upon that at the surface are not
at the moment
contemplating aspects of Newtonian Law.
No. Such terrestrial force permutations have
yet to be covered
up on our classroom chalkboard, but
were the teacher to use what’s transpiring
up on the monkey bars as
applied laboratory,
he would be certain to have an
overly rapt audience.
Indeed, though the concept of gravity
has yet to be covered in our current curriculum,
we are fascinated.
This is precisely the sort of
illustrative science
that keeps boys alert and pumping away
at their normally tedious school studies.
Barb? Barb’s dress looks
kinda funny this way.
This likeness of Barbness is just… well…
unnatural.
Um… disturbing comes to mind.
Yes, we boys were being disturbed.
But… you know…
Not that we could force ourselves to
look away.
Oh yea. And I’d like to point out that
what with Barb’s current bodily orientation,
you could see her underwear
and they were… and…
oh my god!
You’re not going to believe this…
They were white!
Well okay...
Allot of girls wore white underwear back then,
but you see, that
is exactly my point!
Yo! You weren’t supposed to
see a girl’s underwear.
Oh, here now, so many years hence,
with post horny hindsight,
I will acknowledge there was
something of particular interest
underneath all that pristine whiteness
but again, that’s now.
Back then it was just about catching a glimpse of
bleached white cotton.
You see, there was no pudenda.
There was no punanee.
No P-U-S-S- Y.
Oh, this might have been about sex but
most certainly not the act of sex.
Intercourse?
What the fuck was fuck?
Upperclassmen… you know…
Fourth and fifth graders…
They’d informed us that
the correct lexicon for what we were ogling
was properly defined as “Beaver”.
Thusly elucidated and ever so below the hip hip,
we now knew enough to say,
“Wow! Look at that beaver!”
and “Yep.
That’s a pretty nice beaver all right.
Thanks for the heads up.”
Of course, it was a pretty surreal image
trying to somehow make the bizarre connection
between white cotton panties
and a big brown aquatic rodent.
Mighty cerebral stuff but
if our peers said “beaver” then
who were we to argue their eloquence?
“Beaver. Beaver. Beaver.” You know.
Sorta springs from the tip of the tongue
just like it was always meant to be there.
All of this brings to mind that time Barb and I
were out on the playground and
an argument ensued.
There came a moment when Barb’s anger
built to a climax and there
in an effort to demonstrate her disgust at my
inability to comprehend her
impassioned point of view,
she lifted her skirt
and with one hand doing a sort of
faux scratching motion at her um…
whited out area,
exclaimed, “Big Hairy Ape!”
I and all the other boys were dumbfounded.
We were rendered speechless at her
somewhat incoherent connection of
all that glorious white, and
a fur clad simian.
But… and this is an important point…
Barb won the argument.
She had used her crotch to dominate us,
and oh so dominate us she did.
Yes, but back here in the present moment,
Barb is currently hanging upside down
from monkey bars whilst we blithering idiots
stand there jaws agape
like the hairy apes that we are.
Oh, I’d like to think that years from now,
we as grown men will have changed.
That horizontal monkey bars
will not have transformed to
vertical poles on dimly lit stages.
That the act of a scantily clad woman
clinging to a chromed erection
will hold no sway over our manly intellects.
Yes, I’d like to think that.
I want to think that.
But… We are weak,
and that which hangs from poles…
strong.
No. No.
Never underestimate
the mind numbing power
of beaver.
©07 Jack Hubbell
Barbara is hanging by her knees
upside down on the monkey bars.
Oh, and I’d like to point out
she’s wearing a dress.
And here on this vast spinning globe
of which we normally stand upright,
there are magnetic properties
which translate to gravity.
And it is interesting to note what these
said properties
have done to the hem of Barb’s skirt.
Of course she and I and
all the other guys standing there studying
the manifestation of this earth’s affects
upon that at the surface are not
at the moment
contemplating aspects of Newtonian Law.
No. Such terrestrial force permutations have
yet to be covered
up on our classroom chalkboard, but
were the teacher to use what’s transpiring
up on the monkey bars as
applied laboratory,
he would be certain to have an
overly rapt audience.
Indeed, though the concept of gravity
has yet to be covered in our current curriculum,
we are fascinated.
This is precisely the sort of
illustrative science
that keeps boys alert and pumping away
at their normally tedious school studies.
Barb? Barb’s dress looks
kinda funny this way.
This likeness of Barbness is just… well…
unnatural.
Um… disturbing comes to mind.
Yes, we boys were being disturbed.
But… you know…
Not that we could force ourselves to
look away.
Oh yea. And I’d like to point out that
what with Barb’s current bodily orientation,
you could see her underwear
and they were… and…
oh my god!
You’re not going to believe this…
They were white!
Well okay...
Allot of girls wore white underwear back then,
but you see, that
is exactly my point!
Yo! You weren’t supposed to
see a girl’s underwear.
Oh, here now, so many years hence,
with post horny hindsight,
I will acknowledge there was
something of particular interest
underneath all that pristine whiteness
but again, that’s now.
Back then it was just about catching a glimpse of
bleached white cotton.
You see, there was no pudenda.
There was no punanee.
No P-U-S-S- Y.
Oh, this might have been about sex but
most certainly not the act of sex.
Intercourse?
What the fuck was fuck?
Upperclassmen… you know…
Fourth and fifth graders…
They’d informed us that
the correct lexicon for what we were ogling
was properly defined as “Beaver”.
Thusly elucidated and ever so below the hip hip,
we now knew enough to say,
“Wow! Look at that beaver!”
and “Yep.
That’s a pretty nice beaver all right.
Thanks for the heads up.”
Of course, it was a pretty surreal image
trying to somehow make the bizarre connection
between white cotton panties
and a big brown aquatic rodent.
Mighty cerebral stuff but
if our peers said “beaver” then
who were we to argue their eloquence?
“Beaver. Beaver. Beaver.” You know.
Sorta springs from the tip of the tongue
just like it was always meant to be there.
All of this brings to mind that time Barb and I
were out on the playground and
an argument ensued.
There came a moment when Barb’s anger
built to a climax and there
in an effort to demonstrate her disgust at my
inability to comprehend her
impassioned point of view,
she lifted her skirt
and with one hand doing a sort of
faux scratching motion at her um…
whited out area,
exclaimed, “Big Hairy Ape!”
I and all the other boys were dumbfounded.
We were rendered speechless at her
somewhat incoherent connection of
all that glorious white, and
a fur clad simian.
But… and this is an important point…
Barb won the argument.
She had used her crotch to dominate us,
and oh so dominate us she did.
Yes, but back here in the present moment,
Barb is currently hanging upside down
from monkey bars whilst we blithering idiots
stand there jaws agape
like the hairy apes that we are.
Oh, I’d like to think that years from now,
we as grown men will have changed.
That horizontal monkey bars
will not have transformed to
vertical poles on dimly lit stages.
That the act of a scantily clad woman
clinging to a chromed erection
will hold no sway over our manly intellects.
Yes, I’d like to think that.
I want to think that.
But… We are weak,
and that which hangs from poles…
strong.
No. No.
Never underestimate
the mind numbing power
of beaver.
©07 Jack Hubbell
Beating Dead Poets
(for Fun and Profit)
You may not have realized it but the literary rapture has already come and gone. Oh, and by the way, some of you didn’t make the cut. Indeed, you missed that divine A-Train Ascension to deity status. Missed your chance to sit just to the right of He who controls the almighty microphone. Granted, some supplicants make it, but of course there are all those lesser scribes left behind. Left to shamble from shadow to shadow; stage to stage; coffee house to coffee house. And just listen to their lamentations: “Excuse me. Um…excuse me. Could you put my name on the list? Any chance I could read tonight?”
I guess you could say that ‘divinity’ (or lack thereof) might be a metaphor for the performance poetry scene here in Nebraska, but it sure conveys a bitter assessment. And lo, but when you’ve come to accept your lot in life, who’s to say you don’t enjoy your sub-seraphim designation? “Dude! Listen. I didn’t even get on the list! I’m sooo far more ‘beat’ than you will ever be!” And with that, it’s pretty easy to grab your beret, bongos and bottle of sour grape, slink away into a dark corner, and self indulge a mighty fine whine.
Okay. Granted, that was a piss-poor ‘Beat’ analogy. Let’s try again.
Before I step too far into a critique of performance poetry, I feel it is important to acknowledge the existence of poets who have never stood before a microphone, and possess no intent at ever doing so. Poets who are perfectly happy to have their outpour of inner thought exist upon paper without delusion that anyone would ever care to utter it aloud. For instance, some single mother who’s only intended audience is the future eyes of that adult her daughter or son will one day become. Or more sadly, that office clerk who upon his death will have an entire unseen life’s verse tossed into a dumpster. A legacy destined for landfill.
At least those of us who once stood upon stage will have had our voices heard, but please note that, listened to is an entirely different matter. Whether our presence was actually noted by those at assorted tables, shuffling their own stack of poems, is the true gauge of just how truly visible or invisible you are. Am I the only one to note how you can walk away from the stage to a round of courtesy applause and still wonder at whether my words have actually registered?
Slam poetry versus straight open mic. There. I’ve said it. Lines are formed; factions joined. Oh, we stand there smiling at each other, but full well know that everybody in attendance has their pockets full of rocks.
Permit me a further caustic clarification by way of cold war simile.
Slam Poetry? Slam Poetry is like Capitalism, whereas with straight open mic, you’ve got Socialism.
‘Isms’ in poetry? Here. Let me elucidate you. You’ve got your poets. You’ve got your coffeehouse. You’ve got your alpha-poet and coffeehouse owner who in the tradition of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, come to the epiphany of “Hey! Let’s put on a show!” They let their presence be known and like bugs to a porch light, the tables are soon laminated with sheaves of poems all angled and arrayed perpendicular towards mecca. And yes, Mecca in this case is better pronounced ‘microphone’.
Will you get your chance to stand before that mic and face the crowd? Well, your name was put on the list wasn’t it? The Earth rotates and our Sun consistently rises upon distant horizon. You put your name on the list; your horizon at the mic is inevitable. Do you deserve to be up there? Well of course. This is Socialism. We are all the same. There is no good. There is no bad. This is not to say the audience won’t experience some amazing poetry transpiring there at the mic. It will. It will also experience mind numbing banality. It will experience excruciating discomfort. Some of that by way of a well written poem done well. Some of that by a very bad poem done poorly. It will be a manic depressive bi-polar roller coaster ride that pretty much mirrors life, and if you ain’t up for that, then you have to wonder whey you’re involved in poetry at all.
Now in contrast, walk across the street into the Capitalist world of Slam Poetry and everything is Rodeo Drive. Or perhaps Wal-Mart. Pick your analogy. Glitz or bargain bin, these poems have mass market appeal. This is America after all and by God, the customer is always right. At a Slam event, every poet is a commodity and that audience out there is all about assessing value.
“Ladies and Gentlemen! What would you give for this fine set of three minute stone washed jeans?” And there in the front row we have a query. “Um… Is that Kerouc denim or W.H. Auden? Bukowski or e. e. cumming?” And with a mighty huffing from our emcee, “Sir. Madam. If you have to ask, you can’t afford the ridicule. No matter. We must have your hyper-critical/knee-jerk/astute valuation NOW.”
And let’s face it: in the Capitalist world of Slam Poetry, for one poem to achieve value, some other commodity has to be de-valued, right? You won’t find Jesus or Buddha in the world of Slam Poetry. No meek inheriting the earth. No. This is the realm of Charles Darwin. Capitalist survival of the profit test. Wrap your easily digestible rabid revelation in a three minute package and pray that the stage upon which you display it will provide favorable lighting. Three minutes to shine with full knowledge that every second beyond that limit your poem is exposed to such brutal light, it wilts. At three minute plus one second, Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg succumb to entropy. Alas, a certain literary DNA spiral breaks down and dissolves, and there in the back of the coffeehouse, someone raises a stopwatch to proclaim, “Yo, dude and dudette! You suck!” And lo but Walt and Allen satchel their weighty tomes and slink away to hide in the shadows.
In their stead, the fruit of the MTV Generation send forth their token crank cased spark plugs of attention deficit overload to mount the aerie stage. Ecstasy-eyed splice hip-hop tongue tied, they deliver a 9.9 poem at two minutes fifty-nine, and somewhere deep underground Edgar Allen Poe cuts the string to his mausoleum’s bell, because he’s pretty damn sure he’s finally dead.
But wait… If I’m gonna name drop Poe, I might as well drop the name dropper of all name droppers: Truman Capote. Wasn’t it he who was not the one to sigh and bluntly lisp, “Um… That ain’t writing. That’s just shouting”?
Well pardon my slam.
©06 Jack Hubbell
(for Fun and Profit)
You may not have realized it but the literary rapture has already come and gone. Oh, and by the way, some of you didn’t make the cut. Indeed, you missed that divine A-Train Ascension to deity status. Missed your chance to sit just to the right of He who controls the almighty microphone. Granted, some supplicants make it, but of course there are all those lesser scribes left behind. Left to shamble from shadow to shadow; stage to stage; coffee house to coffee house. And just listen to their lamentations: “Excuse me. Um…excuse me. Could you put my name on the list? Any chance I could read tonight?”
I guess you could say that ‘divinity’ (or lack thereof) might be a metaphor for the performance poetry scene here in Nebraska, but it sure conveys a bitter assessment. And lo, but when you’ve come to accept your lot in life, who’s to say you don’t enjoy your sub-seraphim designation? “Dude! Listen. I didn’t even get on the list! I’m sooo far more ‘beat’ than you will ever be!” And with that, it’s pretty easy to grab your beret, bongos and bottle of sour grape, slink away into a dark corner, and self indulge a mighty fine whine.
Okay. Granted, that was a piss-poor ‘Beat’ analogy. Let’s try again.
Before I step too far into a critique of performance poetry, I feel it is important to acknowledge the existence of poets who have never stood before a microphone, and possess no intent at ever doing so. Poets who are perfectly happy to have their outpour of inner thought exist upon paper without delusion that anyone would ever care to utter it aloud. For instance, some single mother who’s only intended audience is the future eyes of that adult her daughter or son will one day become. Or more sadly, that office clerk who upon his death will have an entire unseen life’s verse tossed into a dumpster. A legacy destined for landfill.
At least those of us who once stood upon stage will have had our voices heard, but please note that, listened to is an entirely different matter. Whether our presence was actually noted by those at assorted tables, shuffling their own stack of poems, is the true gauge of just how truly visible or invisible you are. Am I the only one to note how you can walk away from the stage to a round of courtesy applause and still wonder at whether my words have actually registered?
Slam poetry versus straight open mic. There. I’ve said it. Lines are formed; factions joined. Oh, we stand there smiling at each other, but full well know that everybody in attendance has their pockets full of rocks.
Permit me a further caustic clarification by way of cold war simile.
Slam Poetry? Slam Poetry is like Capitalism, whereas with straight open mic, you’ve got Socialism.
‘Isms’ in poetry? Here. Let me elucidate you. You’ve got your poets. You’ve got your coffeehouse. You’ve got your alpha-poet and coffeehouse owner who in the tradition of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, come to the epiphany of “Hey! Let’s put on a show!” They let their presence be known and like bugs to a porch light, the tables are soon laminated with sheaves of poems all angled and arrayed perpendicular towards mecca. And yes, Mecca in this case is better pronounced ‘microphone’.
Will you get your chance to stand before that mic and face the crowd? Well, your name was put on the list wasn’t it? The Earth rotates and our Sun consistently rises upon distant horizon. You put your name on the list; your horizon at the mic is inevitable. Do you deserve to be up there? Well of course. This is Socialism. We are all the same. There is no good. There is no bad. This is not to say the audience won’t experience some amazing poetry transpiring there at the mic. It will. It will also experience mind numbing banality. It will experience excruciating discomfort. Some of that by way of a well written poem done well. Some of that by a very bad poem done poorly. It will be a manic depressive bi-polar roller coaster ride that pretty much mirrors life, and if you ain’t up for that, then you have to wonder whey you’re involved in poetry at all.
Now in contrast, walk across the street into the Capitalist world of Slam Poetry and everything is Rodeo Drive. Or perhaps Wal-Mart. Pick your analogy. Glitz or bargain bin, these poems have mass market appeal. This is America after all and by God, the customer is always right. At a Slam event, every poet is a commodity and that audience out there is all about assessing value.
“Ladies and Gentlemen! What would you give for this fine set of three minute stone washed jeans?” And there in the front row we have a query. “Um… Is that Kerouc denim or W.H. Auden? Bukowski or e. e. cumming?” And with a mighty huffing from our emcee, “Sir. Madam. If you have to ask, you can’t afford the ridicule. No matter. We must have your hyper-critical/knee-jerk/astute valuation NOW.”
And let’s face it: in the Capitalist world of Slam Poetry, for one poem to achieve value, some other commodity has to be de-valued, right? You won’t find Jesus or Buddha in the world of Slam Poetry. No meek inheriting the earth. No. This is the realm of Charles Darwin. Capitalist survival of the profit test. Wrap your easily digestible rabid revelation in a three minute package and pray that the stage upon which you display it will provide favorable lighting. Three minutes to shine with full knowledge that every second beyond that limit your poem is exposed to such brutal light, it wilts. At three minute plus one second, Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg succumb to entropy. Alas, a certain literary DNA spiral breaks down and dissolves, and there in the back of the coffeehouse, someone raises a stopwatch to proclaim, “Yo, dude and dudette! You suck!” And lo but Walt and Allen satchel their weighty tomes and slink away to hide in the shadows.
In their stead, the fruit of the MTV Generation send forth their token crank cased spark plugs of attention deficit overload to mount the aerie stage. Ecstasy-eyed splice hip-hop tongue tied, they deliver a 9.9 poem at two minutes fifty-nine, and somewhere deep underground Edgar Allen Poe cuts the string to his mausoleum’s bell, because he’s pretty damn sure he’s finally dead.
But wait… If I’m gonna name drop Poe, I might as well drop the name dropper of all name droppers: Truman Capote. Wasn’t it he who was not the one to sigh and bluntly lisp, “Um… That ain’t writing. That’s just shouting”?
Well pardon my slam.
©06 Jack Hubbell
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The Man From... (Nantucket Part One)
Nantucket.
They have men there
who are incredibly popular.
Well...
one man was,
or so we've been led to believe.
It could be
that he wasn't popular at all,
and that, all this time,
we've been convinced that he was
because we expected this
anatomical aberration of his
to appeal to either sex
who perchance heard of it,
or worse,
encountered it.
Other than his own
auto-gratification
who else would truly benefit?
Isn't it ultimately
a visual scopophilic stimulation
that excites,
with little orifice penetrating benefit
after the initial six inches?
Anything beyond that would often appear
to inflect discomfort as opposed to
some hitherto inexperienced
plateau of pleasure.
The phallic truncheon?
Our icon of the supreme sado-sexual satori?
An ultra-appendage with trauma intent?
Ah...perhaps the misogynist in us all.
The misogynist in man...
The misogynist in woman...
Embrace the blade.
Sheath Nantucket.
©93 Jack Hubbell
Nantucket.
They have men there
who are incredibly popular.
Well...
one man was,
or so we've been led to believe.
It could be
that he wasn't popular at all,
and that, all this time,
we've been convinced that he was
because we expected this
anatomical aberration of his
to appeal to either sex
who perchance heard of it,
or worse,
encountered it.
Other than his own
auto-gratification
who else would truly benefit?
Isn't it ultimately
a visual scopophilic stimulation
that excites,
with little orifice penetrating benefit
after the initial six inches?
Anything beyond that would often appear
to inflect discomfort as opposed to
some hitherto inexperienced
plateau of pleasure.
The phallic truncheon?
Our icon of the supreme sado-sexual satori?
An ultra-appendage with trauma intent?
Ah...perhaps the misogynist in us all.
The misogynist in man...
The misogynist in woman...
Embrace the blade.
Sheath Nantucket.
©93 Jack Hubbell
Nantucket (Part Two)
Okay. I’m making a ruling.
Enough about this guy from Nantucket.
In my experience,
there’s nothing special about his attributes
or achievements.
Me?
Been doin’ that stuff for years.
Big deal.
Instead, let me tell you about
this man from Uttar Pradesh, India.
Dude was born with two
fully functional penises.
And what does he go and do
but request that one of them
be cut off.
Now I ask you:
Where’s the sense in that?
I mean, where will it all end?
As in getting a tattoo,
it could all get quite addictive.
Get one pecker lanced off,
think to yourself,
“Hey! That was pretty neat.”
And it’s not long before this whole
“cleaning house” aesthetic overtakes you.
“Well, if one less penis is good,
then two less penis’ has got to be great.”
This unique double eunich wannabe
from Uttar Pradesh
really pisses me off in a
non-stereo piss sort of way.
Double chomp chump!
Wanna one wang wanker!
Okay wait…
Let me wax romantic.
And really
this has always been about romance.
Admit it.
You know I was going there.
When you were a frumpy little girl,
didn’t your grandma take you aside
and tell you there would always be that
significant other waiting for your
tender knock on her back door?
But just think of all the female psyches
you will have tromped
on your way to true love?
Indeed, were it you who desired to go
the eunuch route,
why just think of all those girls
lined up around the block with their
pruning shears in hand.
It might just rival the national lottery.
But enough about you.
It’s this wanker times two in Uttar Pradesh
I’m trying to focus on.
Surely there was that moment
when his Gran Mama took him aside
and said,
“Listen Double D”
(as this was the endearing way
she was prone to address him),
“Listen, for every double digit One,
there a double digit Zero.
It’s all mathematics.
You can’t have One without One-not.
And of course you can’t have Two
without Two-not.”
And he slowly nods his head,
though on the inside,
he doesn’t have a clue
what the fuck she’s talking about.
And little does he know but
just at that moment,
there on the far side of the world in, oh,
let’s say someplace obscure like
Omaha, Nebraska,
some girl is born who is special
in a double Zero way.
And she grows to adulthood.
And she’s there waiting for him.
And… And…
Think of the PASSION to be had!
Think of it!
Visualize it!
Oh My God!
But nooooo.
Double Dickhead wants to be a
single dickhead!
And don’t we have enough of those already?
©07 Jack Hubbell
Okay. I’m making a ruling.
Enough about this guy from Nantucket.
In my experience,
there’s nothing special about his attributes
or achievements.
Me?
Been doin’ that stuff for years.
Big deal.
Instead, let me tell you about
this man from Uttar Pradesh, India.
Dude was born with two
fully functional penises.
And what does he go and do
but request that one of them
be cut off.
Now I ask you:
Where’s the sense in that?
I mean, where will it all end?
As in getting a tattoo,
it could all get quite addictive.
Get one pecker lanced off,
think to yourself,
“Hey! That was pretty neat.”
And it’s not long before this whole
“cleaning house” aesthetic overtakes you.
“Well, if one less penis is good,
then two less penis’ has got to be great.”
This unique double eunich wannabe
from Uttar Pradesh
really pisses me off in a
non-stereo piss sort of way.
Double chomp chump!
Wanna one wang wanker!
Okay wait…
Let me wax romantic.
And really
this has always been about romance.
Admit it.
You know I was going there.
When you were a frumpy little girl,
didn’t your grandma take you aside
and tell you there would always be that
significant other waiting for your
tender knock on her back door?
But just think of all the female psyches
you will have tromped
on your way to true love?
Indeed, were it you who desired to go
the eunuch route,
why just think of all those girls
lined up around the block with their
pruning shears in hand.
It might just rival the national lottery.
But enough about you.
It’s this wanker times two in Uttar Pradesh
I’m trying to focus on.
Surely there was that moment
when his Gran Mama took him aside
and said,
“Listen Double D”
(as this was the endearing way
she was prone to address him),
“Listen, for every double digit One,
there a double digit Zero.
It’s all mathematics.
You can’t have One without One-not.
And of course you can’t have Two
without Two-not.”
And he slowly nods his head,
though on the inside,
he doesn’t have a clue
what the fuck she’s talking about.
And little does he know but
just at that moment,
there on the far side of the world in, oh,
let’s say someplace obscure like
Omaha, Nebraska,
some girl is born who is special
in a double Zero way.
And she grows to adulthood.
And she’s there waiting for him.
And… And…
Think of the PASSION to be had!
Think of it!
Visualize it!
Oh My God!
But nooooo.
Double Dickhead wants to be a
single dickhead!
And don’t we have enough of those already?
©07 Jack Hubbell
Nantucket Part Three
A phallus sea of cock-dumb nation,
this should live in the anals of history.
Or her story.
Depends on your pointy bit of view or
lack thereof of pointy out bits for viewing.
Confused?
It don’t mean dick!
Here, let me expound on the meat.
In 2006, Chinese surgeons
performed the world’s first penis transplant,
but… now hold on!
Don’t start getting your hopes up for
all those wee willy wankers you hold so endearing.
There were some short comings.
Turns out the patient and his wife
didn’t like this penis and
had it cut back off.
Wait…
Let this settle in for a bit.
Ponder.
Just ponder the heart rending story of…
What the fuck is wrong with these people?!
Don’t you think that if that guy
sitting over there had a choice
between living with what little penis he has
and having no penis at all,
he wouldn’t opt for the ‘with dangle’
as opposed to ‘dangle not’?
And yet… GAH!!!
This couple in China…
They jointly decide “Um… You know…
Were not entirely fond of this particular penis.
Would you mind ever so if you
took it back?”
“Excuse me sir?
You did not like the penis?
You found the penis wanting?”
“Well it’s just that…”
But his wife cuts him off, and
somewhat demurely interjects,
“It’s just that,
we thought there’d be more.”
“More?” queries the surgeon. “How so?”
And to this the unfulfilled wife
rolls her almond eyes and says,
“More. You know.
I was just hoping for…
more.”
And the surgeon thinks to himself,
“Why you ungrateful bitch!
That was a damn, damn, DAMN fine penis!”
[Note that he thinks all this in Chinese.
It’s not at all funny when you hear it in Chinese.
It’s actually kind of sad.]
“Some guy out there…
Some guy gave his all.
I mean, all that’s of importance
that any one guy can give.”
Oh, there’s a chance that someone somewhere
had one penis too many, but
what are the odds of that, huh?
And so… This Chinese couple…
They take that penis for a ride.
Take it around the block as it were.
And for a short time,some other guy
buried in the grave sans pecker
says, “Death is good.
Take my bat and
hit a homer little fella.”
But no. No and nadda.
She says, “It just doesn’t feel right.”
Okay.
So maybe I can see her point of view.
For her, there is an understandable desire
for “more” all the way to infinity.
That she might have a capacity for love
that only a NASA booster rocket could fill.
We can forgive her insatiable appetite for the
almighty mega-meat cleaver but… him?
To have and have not?
To be or not to be?
To have been a wheel absent pedestrian
and then gone 0 to 60, nitrous oxide,
parking lot to Autobahn,
pulsating penile piston plunging passion
and then…
“Nah. I don’t really care for that…
What is that?
Is that a Yugo? No.
Didn’t have an itty bitty Austin Mini in mind either
though, dang if it ain’t sporty and all.
Rather like the racing stripe
running down the length of it, but…
It’s just that the stripe sorta ends
before it really has a chance to get going.”
And then she steps forward and whispers,
“Since we’re talking in extreme metaphor here,
might I politely ask,
are there any Cadillacs parked back there in your freezer?
Don’t mind if that suckers got
a couple a hundred miles on the dial.
Don’t need no super charger under the hood.
No, as long as that engines got a bumpy cam shaft
that can provide the proper timing ala
thump a thump thump…
You know, get those tires to turn
one full revolution forward,
then I’ll license that pecker
and drive it home.
Might even drive it home repeatedly.”
Okay. So we know she has needs, but
what about the husband?
He’s no dummy.
He’s got goals.
Though he’s being a bit of a
non-dick about it all,
he’s got some ballsy intentions.
Indeed, we must admire his
Nantucket ear fuckit aspiration.
Me? Now, were I to kick the proverbial
don’t that suckit bucket,
I’d love to be there for him.
Indeed, there to fulfill his
phallic lick fantasy, but hey…
Rumor has it I’ve spent my life
driving nothing but a boring old Volvo.
Nothing too racy there.
But… (and I mean a big “but”)
What was mine was me,
and even in death,
I’d like to think I was
rather attached to it.
©07 Jack Hubbell
A phallus sea of cock-dumb nation,
this should live in the anals of history.
Or her story.
Depends on your pointy bit of view or
lack thereof of pointy out bits for viewing.
Confused?
It don’t mean dick!
Here, let me expound on the meat.
In 2006, Chinese surgeons
performed the world’s first penis transplant,
but… now hold on!
Don’t start getting your hopes up for
all those wee willy wankers you hold so endearing.
There were some short comings.
Turns out the patient and his wife
didn’t like this penis and
had it cut back off.
Wait…
Let this settle in for a bit.
Ponder.
Just ponder the heart rending story of…
What the fuck is wrong with these people?!
Don’t you think that if that guy
sitting over there had a choice
between living with what little penis he has
and having no penis at all,
he wouldn’t opt for the ‘with dangle’
as opposed to ‘dangle not’?
And yet… GAH!!!
This couple in China…
They jointly decide “Um… You know…
Were not entirely fond of this particular penis.
Would you mind ever so if you
took it back?”
“Excuse me sir?
You did not like the penis?
You found the penis wanting?”
“Well it’s just that…”
But his wife cuts him off, and
somewhat demurely interjects,
“It’s just that,
we thought there’d be more.”
“More?” queries the surgeon. “How so?”
And to this the unfulfilled wife
rolls her almond eyes and says,
“More. You know.
I was just hoping for…
more.”
And the surgeon thinks to himself,
“Why you ungrateful bitch!
That was a damn, damn, DAMN fine penis!”
[Note that he thinks all this in Chinese.
It’s not at all funny when you hear it in Chinese.
It’s actually kind of sad.]
“Some guy out there…
Some guy gave his all.
I mean, all that’s of importance
that any one guy can give.”
Oh, there’s a chance that someone somewhere
had one penis too many, but
what are the odds of that, huh?
And so… This Chinese couple…
They take that penis for a ride.
Take it around the block as it were.
And for a short time,some other guy
buried in the grave sans pecker
says, “Death is good.
Take my bat and
hit a homer little fella.”
But no. No and nadda.
She says, “It just doesn’t feel right.”
Okay.
So maybe I can see her point of view.
For her, there is an understandable desire
for “more” all the way to infinity.
That she might have a capacity for love
that only a NASA booster rocket could fill.
We can forgive her insatiable appetite for the
almighty mega-meat cleaver but… him?
To have and have not?
To be or not to be?
To have been a wheel absent pedestrian
and then gone 0 to 60, nitrous oxide,
parking lot to Autobahn,
pulsating penile piston plunging passion
and then…
“Nah. I don’t really care for that…
What is that?
Is that a Yugo? No.
Didn’t have an itty bitty Austin Mini in mind either
though, dang if it ain’t sporty and all.
Rather like the racing stripe
running down the length of it, but…
It’s just that the stripe sorta ends
before it really has a chance to get going.”
And then she steps forward and whispers,
“Since we’re talking in extreme metaphor here,
might I politely ask,
are there any Cadillacs parked back there in your freezer?
Don’t mind if that suckers got
a couple a hundred miles on the dial.
Don’t need no super charger under the hood.
No, as long as that engines got a bumpy cam shaft
that can provide the proper timing ala
thump a thump thump…
You know, get those tires to turn
one full revolution forward,
then I’ll license that pecker
and drive it home.
Might even drive it home repeatedly.”
Okay. So we know she has needs, but
what about the husband?
He’s no dummy.
He’s got goals.
Though he’s being a bit of a
non-dick about it all,
he’s got some ballsy intentions.
Indeed, we must admire his
Nantucket ear fuckit aspiration.
Me? Now, were I to kick the proverbial
don’t that suckit bucket,
I’d love to be there for him.
Indeed, there to fulfill his
phallic lick fantasy, but hey…
Rumor has it I’ve spent my life
driving nothing but a boring old Volvo.
Nothing too racy there.
But… (and I mean a big “but”)
What was mine was me,
and even in death,
I’d like to think I was
rather attached to it.
©07 Jack Hubbell
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
Nantucket (Part Four)
Okay. It’s been confirmed.
Via scientific research of some sort,
it was recently reported that lesbians
have more orgasms.
I’m gonna be straight up here.
I’m not happy with this.
In fact, I’m sorta depressed.
There is a hypothesis
floating around out there
that we on the male side of the
homo-sapien equation are
insensitive, self-indulgent assholes.
Yes. Some think that.
But I, Fabio that I am,
stand here before you on the verge of tears.
No… Wait…
There just now I started crying.
Oh, but you can’t see it cause we Cro-Magnon
do it on the inside.
Yes. We do it all the time.
It’s just that you are insensitive to
male muy macho emotive fragility.
Lesbians have more orgasms?
How could you?!
How could you do this to us?
Haven’t we always been there for you?
Is there no feature upon us that you
in any way find desirable? No?
And so there we stand,
fresh out of the shower,
toweling down our pathetic
insignificant extremities.
Blubbering fools
we pause to wipe
a large swath of condensation
from the fogged mirror,
and are startled at the sudden appearance
of that which we use to take such pride in.
And now?
Oh you little, little man.
You sad little vienna sausage.
Why, you do not even cast a shadow.
This… [sob]
This is what entropy does to you.
Listen men.
We’ve got to stand up.
We’ve got to rise to the occasion
for we as a
go daddy go go gonad nation
are on the verge of obsolete.
Our testosteroney lonely ponies
are soon to have no saddles cinched
to their buckin’ bronco backs.
What with the power of the genetic clone,
there will soon be no need for
our monkey bars to
spit spumy spermatozoa.
Pay heed to my somber warning.
Two thousand years hence,
the great mothership
(yea, you heard me… MOTHERship!)…
The mothership will return to this spinning nut
to find mankind gone!
Oh… Womankind yes.
We will have womankind.
And those of the mothership will ask the big question.
“So um… These men we’ve heard of…
Just what were they like?”
And the all important answer?
“Who? Whatzat? Oh…
The men you say. [sigh]
We kept them around for awhile to
change tires on cars,
but once we devised ways of transport
beyond big ol’ throbbing dicks-on-wheels,
we pretty much phased them
knuckle-draggers out of business.”
And yet the mega-mammary matrons of the
immaculate mothership
mull the minus of man mislaid.
“So these men,” they coyly ask.
“You have video?”
“Erased it.”
“You have photographs?”
“Burned.”
“You have sculptures?”
“Smashed them all.”
“Oh, but if you’re curious,
there are fossil remains
scattered here and there.”
And so off they go
to dig up a relict of man.
Pulling it forth from the musty ground,
they lay the skeleton next that of a pristine woman’s.
Much deductive analysis later,
they scratch their lofty heads and ask,
“What’s the diff?”
And the women of the Earth respond,
“Trust us.
There was a Yin and
there was a Yang.
This… This before you…
This was man.
And beyond what you see as
some lesser skeletal form, there
was a lot of meat to man. But…
Let’s just say we came to prefer our meat
that of the boneless variety.”
And this men is what orgasms
(or lack there of) did to us.
Lesbians prefer their fish
without those prickly bones.
©07 Jack Hubbell
Okay. It’s been confirmed.
Via scientific research of some sort,
it was recently reported that lesbians
have more orgasms.
I’m gonna be straight up here.
I’m not happy with this.
In fact, I’m sorta depressed.
There is a hypothesis
floating around out there
that we on the male side of the
homo-sapien equation are
insensitive, self-indulgent assholes.
Yes. Some think that.
But I, Fabio that I am,
stand here before you on the verge of tears.
No… Wait…
There just now I started crying.
Oh, but you can’t see it cause we Cro-Magnon
do it on the inside.
Yes. We do it all the time.
It’s just that you are insensitive to
male muy macho emotive fragility.
Lesbians have more orgasms?
How could you?!
How could you do this to us?
Haven’t we always been there for you?
Is there no feature upon us that you
in any way find desirable? No?
And so there we stand,
fresh out of the shower,
toweling down our pathetic
insignificant extremities.
Blubbering fools
we pause to wipe
a large swath of condensation
from the fogged mirror,
and are startled at the sudden appearance
of that which we use to take such pride in.
And now?
Oh you little, little man.
You sad little vienna sausage.
Why, you do not even cast a shadow.
This… [sob]
This is what entropy does to you.
Listen men.
We’ve got to stand up.
We’ve got to rise to the occasion
for we as a
go daddy go go gonad nation
are on the verge of obsolete.
Our testosteroney lonely ponies
are soon to have no saddles cinched
to their buckin’ bronco backs.
What with the power of the genetic clone,
there will soon be no need for
our monkey bars to
spit spumy spermatozoa.
Pay heed to my somber warning.
Two thousand years hence,
the great mothership
(yea, you heard me… MOTHERship!)…
The mothership will return to this spinning nut
to find mankind gone!
Oh… Womankind yes.
We will have womankind.
And those of the mothership will ask the big question.
“So um… These men we’ve heard of…
Just what were they like?”
And the all important answer?
“Who? Whatzat? Oh…
The men you say. [sigh]
We kept them around for awhile to
change tires on cars,
but once we devised ways of transport
beyond big ol’ throbbing dicks-on-wheels,
we pretty much phased them
knuckle-draggers out of business.”
And yet the mega-mammary matrons of the
immaculate mothership
mull the minus of man mislaid.
“So these men,” they coyly ask.
“You have video?”
“Erased it.”
“You have photographs?”
“Burned.”
“You have sculptures?”
“Smashed them all.”
“Oh, but if you’re curious,
there are fossil remains
scattered here and there.”
And so off they go
to dig up a relict of man.
Pulling it forth from the musty ground,
they lay the skeleton next that of a pristine woman’s.
Much deductive analysis later,
they scratch their lofty heads and ask,
“What’s the diff?”
And the women of the Earth respond,
“Trust us.
There was a Yin and
there was a Yang.
This… This before you…
This was man.
And beyond what you see as
some lesser skeletal form, there
was a lot of meat to man. But…
Let’s just say we came to prefer our meat
that of the boneless variety.”
And this men is what orgasms
(or lack there of) did to us.
Lesbians prefer their fish
without those prickly bones.
©07 Jack Hubbell
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Leo’s Libido
Much like dogs,
men will lower their voices
when they’re feeling dominant.
Nothing surprising there,
but you might find it of interest
that women prefer men with lower voices.
Especially during those fertile periods
of the menstrual cycle.
Oh yea, and scientists also found
that women preferred these baritones
when it came to brief sexual affairs.
This might explain why my friend Leo
scores more poon tang than I do.
In his youth,
Leo was what you might call a
feral child.
Indeed, the rumor on the street was that at
sixth grade he had already grown hair
down there
on his knuckles.
By second grade he was being asked
to use the men’s toilets,
as it was feared that other boys exposure
to his premature manhood
might cause deep Freudian psycho-trauma.
Baby-sitting for Leo became a costly affair
as it quickly became apparent
his parents would have to hire a third person
to be present as chaperone.
Oh, I see you raise your eyebrows in
confounded disbelief but
when at nine months in,
the third babysitter in row
found herself looking for
her own babysitter, well…
action had to be taken.
The question was:
how do you suppress the rampant libido
of a testicular dynamo
whose every sexual encounter
was the equivalent of
the Yanks hitting Omaha Beach?
Yank after Yank after Yank spewing forth
from waves of turbo charged
amphibious landing craft.
Every woman’s crotch was Normandy
and his phallus
“Operation Overlord”.
Sure, Leo could have been sequestered away
in monastic solitude but
what spiritual mandate of
celibate condom-nation
could hope to tourniquet
his copious fluid passion?
What was it?
What was it that finally curbed Leo’s feral libido?
If his dog was limited
to a defined array of fire hydrants,
what was it that gave us the short leash?
Was it his lifetime subscription to Martha Stewart?
No.
His I Pod hardwired to Barry Mantilow?
No. Then…
what was it?
I’ll tell you what.
At some point in Leo’s seminal life,
some evil son of a bitch introduced him
to poetry.
You heard me right. Po-et-ry!
And just what do you think poetry does
to a man’s sperm count? Hum?
YOU say Leo is the same growling dog he always was.
You say he lifts his leg just like in those days of yore.
That Leo Marks his territory
with every guttural utterance.
And yet all that flows from his pencil is ink.
The lead’s long gone.
This dog
is spade.
This dog
is neutered.
This dog is nutted.
Oh so eunich…tified!
And I?
Because I’m a lesser man,
I cry for Leo.
I sob.
I lament.
He that was in many ways bigger than life-size
(in more ways than one)
has shriveled away to nothing.
And I ask you:
What is poetry but low down squat to pee?
For the sake of all things testosterone,
take away his pen
and give that dog a bone!
©07 Jack Hubbell
Much like dogs,
men will lower their voices
when they’re feeling dominant.
Nothing surprising there,
but you might find it of interest
that women prefer men with lower voices.
Especially during those fertile periods
of the menstrual cycle.
Oh yea, and scientists also found
that women preferred these baritones
when it came to brief sexual affairs.
This might explain why my friend Leo
scores more poon tang than I do.
In his youth,
Leo was what you might call a
feral child.
Indeed, the rumor on the street was that at
sixth grade he had already grown hair
down there
on his knuckles.
By second grade he was being asked
to use the men’s toilets,
as it was feared that other boys exposure
to his premature manhood
might cause deep Freudian psycho-trauma.
Baby-sitting for Leo became a costly affair
as it quickly became apparent
his parents would have to hire a third person
to be present as chaperone.
Oh, I see you raise your eyebrows in
confounded disbelief but
when at nine months in,
the third babysitter in row
found herself looking for
her own babysitter, well…
action had to be taken.
The question was:
how do you suppress the rampant libido
of a testicular dynamo
whose every sexual encounter
was the equivalent of
the Yanks hitting Omaha Beach?
Yank after Yank after Yank spewing forth
from waves of turbo charged
amphibious landing craft.
Every woman’s crotch was Normandy
and his phallus
“Operation Overlord”.
Sure, Leo could have been sequestered away
in monastic solitude but
what spiritual mandate of
celibate condom-nation
could hope to tourniquet
his copious fluid passion?
What was it?
What was it that finally curbed Leo’s feral libido?
If his dog was limited
to a defined array of fire hydrants,
what was it that gave us the short leash?
Was it his lifetime subscription to Martha Stewart?
No.
His I Pod hardwired to Barry Mantilow?
No. Then…
what was it?
I’ll tell you what.
At some point in Leo’s seminal life,
some evil son of a bitch introduced him
to poetry.
You heard me right. Po-et-ry!
And just what do you think poetry does
to a man’s sperm count? Hum?
YOU say Leo is the same growling dog he always was.
You say he lifts his leg just like in those days of yore.
That Leo Marks his territory
with every guttural utterance.
And yet all that flows from his pencil is ink.
The lead’s long gone.
This dog
is spade.
This dog
is neutered.
This dog is nutted.
Oh so eunich…tified!
And I?
Because I’m a lesser man,
I cry for Leo.
I sob.
I lament.
He that was in many ways bigger than life-size
(in more ways than one)
has shriveled away to nothing.
And I ask you:
What is poetry but low down squat to pee?
For the sake of all things testosterone,
take away his pen
and give that dog a bone!
©07 Jack Hubbell
Wood
I fall asleep in a weathered Adirondack
to awake and there find a leaf
has fallen into my lap.
Yes, on this spinning clod of earth,
once again, decay has found me.
Oh, not that I’ve been
running from decadence mind you.
Not that I’m running towards it either.
I know my place in the scheme of
all things entropy.
That Adirondack chair I’m sitting in,
could collapse at any moment.
‘Course, any moment
could stretch out to forty years.
It could also occur in the next forty seconds.
Jeez, with this looming doom,
how’s it possible I relaxed my guard
long enough to fall asleep?
Yet sleep I did,
and though I did not dream of trees,
I awake to find this single leaf,
just there; just so.
You know,
I use to wake up with wood in my lap.
Oh, I suppose that still happens
every now and again, but
when I was younger?
I mean almost every morning
I’d wake to wood whether
I was inside or outside.
Exposed or un-exposed.
It was alarming and sometimes embarrassing.
There were times you’d awake to
the gentle nudging of she who shared your bed.
And there upon her face…
wide eyed wonderment as she
pointed to your supine lap
and exclaimed,
“You’ve got wood.”
Yes, truly embarrassing.
All you could think about was,
“Where can I bury this wood?”
Of course, there were those times you’d awake
and swear that someone
had planted a tree in your crotch.
“How the Hell did that get there?!
Man o’ man.
I’m gonna need a couple of extra hands to deal with this.”
But no.
You’re on your own.
Solo o’ mano.
So you grab your axe and
proceed to whack at your wood.
A hard job, but
somebody’s got to do it.
Couple of hours later,
it’s finally down and
with a mighty shout of “Timber!”
it’s safe to be seen in public again.
So many years have past now
and I figure I’ve pretty much
clear-cut my entire forest.
All the mighty Redwoods are long gone
and all that remain are those
ornamental Redbuds.
Still, I covet them.
Never tire of gazing out
from all the shade they provide.
No matter the size,
I am never less than awestruck.
Would that you could pull up an
Adirondack here just beside mine.
Partake of my
last remaining woodland as
it hovers there
just above your head.
And should you fall asleep
to later awake with
one of my leaves upon your lap,
please do not be startled.
Just be happy it’s not my seed,
‘cause what with
all this wood I’ve come to find
throughout the years,
you just know I was bound to get a
nut or two.
©06 Jack Hubbell
I fall asleep in a weathered Adirondack
to awake and there find a leaf
has fallen into my lap.
Yes, on this spinning clod of earth,
once again, decay has found me.
Oh, not that I’ve been
running from decadence mind you.
Not that I’m running towards it either.
I know my place in the scheme of
all things entropy.
That Adirondack chair I’m sitting in,
could collapse at any moment.
‘Course, any moment
could stretch out to forty years.
It could also occur in the next forty seconds.
Jeez, with this looming doom,
how’s it possible I relaxed my guard
long enough to fall asleep?
Yet sleep I did,
and though I did not dream of trees,
I awake to find this single leaf,
just there; just so.
You know,
I use to wake up with wood in my lap.
Oh, I suppose that still happens
every now and again, but
when I was younger?
I mean almost every morning
I’d wake to wood whether
I was inside or outside.
Exposed or un-exposed.
It was alarming and sometimes embarrassing.
There were times you’d awake to
the gentle nudging of she who shared your bed.
And there upon her face…
wide eyed wonderment as she
pointed to your supine lap
and exclaimed,
“You’ve got wood.”
Yes, truly embarrassing.
All you could think about was,
“Where can I bury this wood?”
Of course, there were those times you’d awake
and swear that someone
had planted a tree in your crotch.
“How the Hell did that get there?!
Man o’ man.
I’m gonna need a couple of extra hands to deal with this.”
But no.
You’re on your own.
Solo o’ mano.
So you grab your axe and
proceed to whack at your wood.
A hard job, but
somebody’s got to do it.
Couple of hours later,
it’s finally down and
with a mighty shout of “Timber!”
it’s safe to be seen in public again.
So many years have past now
and I figure I’ve pretty much
clear-cut my entire forest.
All the mighty Redwoods are long gone
and all that remain are those
ornamental Redbuds.
Still, I covet them.
Never tire of gazing out
from all the shade they provide.
No matter the size,
I am never less than awestruck.
Would that you could pull up an
Adirondack here just beside mine.
Partake of my
last remaining woodland as
it hovers there
just above your head.
And should you fall asleep
to later awake with
one of my leaves upon your lap,
please do not be startled.
Just be happy it’s not my seed,
‘cause what with
all this wood I’ve come to find
throughout the years,
you just know I was bound to get a
nut or two.
©06 Jack Hubbell
Want
It moves towards me.
From a distance,
it is seeking me out.
It is desire of a sort.
It is need.
It is want.
In stark contrast against some
desolate landscape,
a small black period exists
there at the end
of a short life sentence.
Want.
Want makes a sound not unlike
that of a mewing kitten.
And Indeed,
were it that a giant eye
might gaze down from above,
it might observe a tiny jet black kitten
vectoring towards me
from a distance of thirty feet and closing.
I stand in a compound
some twenty miles south of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Having given you the locale,
you envision desert—
an extreme environment.
And this Arabian desert is the ultimate of
austere arid nothingness.
Again, everything here has a life sentence.
Everything exists to die.
The compound of which I talk
is actually a series of interlocking concrete villas
and sporadic courtyards.
All of this surrounded by chain-link and razor wire.
All of this surrounded by wasteland.
Here inside, each courtyard is its own desert.
Its own failed petri-dish.
But look, each miniature desert
comes complete with the luxury of
two or three withered palm trees.
The gravel, sand and hardpan between them
has been artfully raked into parallel lines.
If you must die here,
please have the common courtesy
not to fall perpendicular to
these precisely defined lines.
In one courtyard we eat.
In another we find the villas where
we eventually come to sleep.
In between are all the courtyards
that make up the span
between here and there.
Fully sated, I am passing from
what I am to what I will be,
there at my final destination.
Along the way, demands are made—
both by me
and of me.
In one of those many courtyards
I encounter “want”.
Here in this vast honeycomb of villas
live a multitude of feral cats.
How this came to be, I don’t know.
An act of god?
Don’t get me started.
We are told that in this colony of cats,
there is the existence of rabies.
We are told to have no contact with these
feral felines whatsoever.
We are told that.
And here in this desert
there is that which thrives
and that which dies.
“Want” does not exist
though some apparition of it
continues to move towards me.
Abandoned by its mother,
this tiny black mewing kitten
should have been claimed by the desert
one week ago,
and yet some life-form…
Some thing we know
which walks on two legs,
has passed this way before.
Something bipedal gave in
to that which we define as
compassion.
Something upright and human
came to the assumption that
we as a generic species
would all possess
this exact same compassion.
That we as a whole
would always be here
for this one small kitten which
has come to associate us all with sustenance.
Rumor has it that
we are all made in the likeness of our creator.
That all of us possess aspects of
his divine qualities.
Do we?
There now six feet away,
“Want” cries out my name,
but I?
I take two steps back.
I turn and walk away.
And for my final week in this forsaken desert,
I follow a different path home.
©06 Jack Hubbell
It moves towards me.
From a distance,
it is seeking me out.
It is desire of a sort.
It is need.
It is want.
In stark contrast against some
desolate landscape,
a small black period exists
there at the end
of a short life sentence.
Want.
Want makes a sound not unlike
that of a mewing kitten.
And Indeed,
were it that a giant eye
might gaze down from above,
it might observe a tiny jet black kitten
vectoring towards me
from a distance of thirty feet and closing.
I stand in a compound
some twenty miles south of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Having given you the locale,
you envision desert—
an extreme environment.
And this Arabian desert is the ultimate of
austere arid nothingness.
Again, everything here has a life sentence.
Everything exists to die.
The compound of which I talk
is actually a series of interlocking concrete villas
and sporadic courtyards.
All of this surrounded by chain-link and razor wire.
All of this surrounded by wasteland.
Here inside, each courtyard is its own desert.
Its own failed petri-dish.
But look, each miniature desert
comes complete with the luxury of
two or three withered palm trees.
The gravel, sand and hardpan between them
has been artfully raked into parallel lines.
If you must die here,
please have the common courtesy
not to fall perpendicular to
these precisely defined lines.
In one courtyard we eat.
In another we find the villas where
we eventually come to sleep.
In between are all the courtyards
that make up the span
between here and there.
Fully sated, I am passing from
what I am to what I will be,
there at my final destination.
Along the way, demands are made—
both by me
and of me.
In one of those many courtyards
I encounter “want”.
Here in this vast honeycomb of villas
live a multitude of feral cats.
How this came to be, I don’t know.
An act of god?
Don’t get me started.
We are told that in this colony of cats,
there is the existence of rabies.
We are told to have no contact with these
feral felines whatsoever.
We are told that.
And here in this desert
there is that which thrives
and that which dies.
“Want” does not exist
though some apparition of it
continues to move towards me.
Abandoned by its mother,
this tiny black mewing kitten
should have been claimed by the desert
one week ago,
and yet some life-form…
Some thing we know
which walks on two legs,
has passed this way before.
Something bipedal gave in
to that which we define as
compassion.
Something upright and human
came to the assumption that
we as a generic species
would all possess
this exact same compassion.
That we as a whole
would always be here
for this one small kitten which
has come to associate us all with sustenance.
Rumor has it that
we are all made in the likeness of our creator.
That all of us possess aspects of
his divine qualities.
Do we?
There now six feet away,
“Want” cries out my name,
but I?
I take two steps back.
I turn and walk away.
And for my final week in this forsaken desert,
I follow a different path home.
©06 Jack Hubbell
Umbilical
The culmination of the pregnancy
was something she thought
best described as
popping a giant zit.
That which had produced the swelling
prior to the popping
was deemed unsightly.
An embarrassing blemish.
That delivered to her crotch
some nine months earlier:
nothing more than…
bacteria.
Is it important to know her
state of mind at that exact moment of
infection?
No. Not really.
That which is irrelevant before the act
is just as irrelevant after.
All you need know is that she
is incapable of love.
And so, this excrement comes to lie
in someone else’s hands.
An easy afterthought,
were it not for the fact it exists…
there at the end
of an umbilical.
“Umbilical”.
Just what the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Are you trying to imply that
it has something to do with motherhood?
Nah. Nah.
Nothing more than an inconvenient tether.
Nah.
Fuck that shit!
And there at the end of an umbilical,
some bacterial life-form
cries out for sustenance.
A sustenance beyond the mere
gratification of nipple.
A sustenance of embrace.
To be enfolded into another’s arms.
Held beating heart
to beating heart.
The desire for an assortment of qualities
gathered under the heading of
what it means to be
a mother.
That which exists at the far end
of the umbilical
has a double X designate.
Chromosome string,
gene to gene,
they are one in the same female.
So very, very alike.
And yet… And yet…
That one which yearns
for nothing more than her mother’s touch,
is seen by the other as… what?
Diseased doppel-ganger?
Nine months of festering tumor,
now on the verge of being lanced.
On one end of the umbilical
is a life-form that once knew love
but now sees only an object of hate.
There on the umbilical opposite,
is that which knows
neither love,
nor hate.
She is a blank slate
in need of… What?
Does it come down to
sustenance?
There at the end of the cord,
a mouth opens and closes,
and with each transition,
the only emotion
it can possibly know
is expressly conveyed.
“Sustain me.
Sustain me.”
And yet… And yet…
The umbilical is severed,
and every external remnant
of mother/daughter
is cleansed away.
Two hands raise, lift, and lower—
mother’s womb
to sterile incubator.
“Sustain me.
Sustain me.”
And there in her mouth she finds it.
Love. Love.
Love is a dummy; a binky.
Love is a pacifier; a rubber nipple.
Love.
Love is right there at hand.
Right up until that very moment
when even your thumb
is denied you.
When even the love of you…
is brutally
taken away.
©06 Jack Hubbell
The culmination of the pregnancy
was something she thought
best described as
popping a giant zit.
That which had produced the swelling
prior to the popping
was deemed unsightly.
An embarrassing blemish.
That delivered to her crotch
some nine months earlier:
nothing more than…
bacteria.
Is it important to know her
state of mind at that exact moment of
infection?
No. Not really.
That which is irrelevant before the act
is just as irrelevant after.
All you need know is that she
is incapable of love.
And so, this excrement comes to lie
in someone else’s hands.
An easy afterthought,
were it not for the fact it exists…
there at the end
of an umbilical.
“Umbilical”.
Just what the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Are you trying to imply that
it has something to do with motherhood?
Nah. Nah.
Nothing more than an inconvenient tether.
Nah.
Fuck that shit!
And there at the end of an umbilical,
some bacterial life-form
cries out for sustenance.
A sustenance beyond the mere
gratification of nipple.
A sustenance of embrace.
To be enfolded into another’s arms.
Held beating heart
to beating heart.
The desire for an assortment of qualities
gathered under the heading of
what it means to be
a mother.
That which exists at the far end
of the umbilical
has a double X designate.
Chromosome string,
gene to gene,
they are one in the same female.
So very, very alike.
And yet… And yet…
That one which yearns
for nothing more than her mother’s touch,
is seen by the other as… what?
Diseased doppel-ganger?
Nine months of festering tumor,
now on the verge of being lanced.
On one end of the umbilical
is a life-form that once knew love
but now sees only an object of hate.
There on the umbilical opposite,
is that which knows
neither love,
nor hate.
She is a blank slate
in need of… What?
Does it come down to
sustenance?
There at the end of the cord,
a mouth opens and closes,
and with each transition,
the only emotion
it can possibly know
is expressly conveyed.
“Sustain me.
Sustain me.”
And yet… And yet…
The umbilical is severed,
and every external remnant
of mother/daughter
is cleansed away.
Two hands raise, lift, and lower—
mother’s womb
to sterile incubator.
“Sustain me.
Sustain me.”
And there in her mouth she finds it.
Love. Love.
Love is a dummy; a binky.
Love is a pacifier; a rubber nipple.
Love.
Love is right there at hand.
Right up until that very moment
when even your thumb
is denied you.
When even the love of you…
is brutally
taken away.
©06 Jack Hubbell
Below the Belt
Ponder this:
Is it ever appropriate
to strike a man in his testicles?
Now, don’t answer too quickly.
I want you to savor the visual
you have in your head
at this precise moment.
There’s that which you men have pictured
and then that spectacle of testicle trauma
you women have oozing through your brains.
They’re not always the same.
You women simply have not envisioned
a sufficient level of violence.
Try again.
Get mean.
Make a face.
Imagine someone who really deserves it.
This is YOUR moment.
Nope. Nope.
Pathetic attempt.
Girlfriend:
You are soooo lacking in motivation.
Have I ever struck a man in the groin?
Why yes. Yes I have.
Here. Take my hand.
I will lead you to the dark side.
It’s just up these stairs.
There behind my eye sockets.
Nice big comfy chairs where you can
sit back, relax and soak in
all that ultra-violence.
Oh, and being as you’re sharing my inner eyes
and they being prone to disturbed cognizance,
please note that my visual acuity is quite crisp.
Everything is HIGH DEFINITION.
Indeed, I have refrained from alcohol
because I knew you were
gonna wanna see this some day.
Shhh… Quiet now.
The show’s about to start.
I’m getting ready to open my eyes.
I’m at this party, see.
Okay. Turns out the girl we were just…
Wait… Again,
note that I’m including you in this
as you are now part of the decision process
and therefore must share in the guilt.
Anyway…
Turns out the girl we were just hitting on
has a live-in boyfriend.
Big guy. He’s upstairs.
There’s children upstairs.
She just went upstairs because he’s upstairs
and there’s children upstairs.
Course you and I don’t know this is an issue just yet.
Up until now, he’s just a quiet bodybuilder
you’ve seen off and on at the gym.
The party’s pumpin’. The music’s blarin’.
From where we are all sitting,
you can see down a long hallway
to observe the two of them have come downstairs
and passed through a screen door
to stand a few feet outside.
All you can hear is the music
but there on her face,
you can see she’s screaming at him.
He says something.
She reaches up and slaps him hard.
He reaches out and shoves her with such force
that she flies off her feet
and lands hard on the concrete sidewalk.
You stand up.
You start moving towards the door
which seems a lot further away
than it did a moment ago.
She’s tough.
She’s quick.
Before you’re halfway down that long hallway,
she’s gotten up,
took off one of her high heel shoes
and brought its spike down on the top of his head.
Impressive you think, and pause for a second.
And then, in slow motion,
you see his fist pull back,
fly forward and there explode into her fragile face.
As you pass through the screen door,
you see her hit the ground again.
The red of her lipstick
has been obliterated by another form of red.
He turns to face you and from his lips comes,
“I’ll kick your motherfucking ass too.”
And for the next thirty seconds he tries to do
just that.
Me?
I try my best to keep you guys
from getting knocked out of your comfy chairs.
Let’s cut to the quick.
She gets up off the ground
in yet another attempt to attack him.
I go to shove her aside
and it’s at this point that he jumps forward
and puts you and I into a forward headlock.
There in our muffled ears we hear him mumble,
“What do ya think of that?!”
Yup. He’s got us pretty tight.
Now bear in mind that from this vantage point
(I with my eyes and you in your comfy chairs)
we can see two things pretty prominently.
There to the left,
and sprawled across the ground,
she with her face a spattered mess of blood.
There to the right and just within reach—
his groin.
At this point I will pause.
I’ve a question I want to put to all you women out there.
There’s a decision to be made here.
Being as you are female
and morally superior when it come to
choosing peace over violence,
all you have to do
is come to a group consensus of “stop,”
and the poem ends right here.
So what’s it gonna be?
Yes?
Fuckin’ A right,
I slammed the inner edge of my hand
full force into his tender nuts!
Felt his testicles part
as my hand passed through
to crunch bone to bone.
Didn’t stop there.
Nosiree.
Grabbed ahold of his junk and squeezed.
Not only that— I twisted.
Felt his squishy gonads
pass through the ringer of my finger joints
to pop out on the other side.
One this way. One that way.
Oh, and he went down.
Me with him being as I was attached
appendage to appendage
in the worse
hands-on gay experience
he would ever have.
And he commences with this gagging noise.
Now normally,
a gagging noise isn’t pretty, but…
this one was.
And I feel hands grabbing at me.
Pulling me away.
There through my eyes…
There through your eyes…
There on the ground,
you see a man curled up in a fetal position.
And you ask yourself:
“Did I make the right decision?”
Well girls… did we?
©06 Jack Hubbell
Ponder this:
Is it ever appropriate
to strike a man in his testicles?
Now, don’t answer too quickly.
I want you to savor the visual
you have in your head
at this precise moment.
There’s that which you men have pictured
and then that spectacle of testicle trauma
you women have oozing through your brains.
They’re not always the same.
You women simply have not envisioned
a sufficient level of violence.
Try again.
Get mean.
Make a face.
Imagine someone who really deserves it.
This is YOUR moment.
Nope. Nope.
Pathetic attempt.
Girlfriend:
You are soooo lacking in motivation.
Have I ever struck a man in the groin?
Why yes. Yes I have.
Here. Take my hand.
I will lead you to the dark side.
It’s just up these stairs.
There behind my eye sockets.
Nice big comfy chairs where you can
sit back, relax and soak in
all that ultra-violence.
Oh, and being as you’re sharing my inner eyes
and they being prone to disturbed cognizance,
please note that my visual acuity is quite crisp.
Everything is HIGH DEFINITION.
Indeed, I have refrained from alcohol
because I knew you were
gonna wanna see this some day.
Shhh… Quiet now.
The show’s about to start.
I’m getting ready to open my eyes.
I’m at this party, see.
Okay. Turns out the girl we were just…
Wait… Again,
note that I’m including you in this
as you are now part of the decision process
and therefore must share in the guilt.
Anyway…
Turns out the girl we were just hitting on
has a live-in boyfriend.
Big guy. He’s upstairs.
There’s children upstairs.
She just went upstairs because he’s upstairs
and there’s children upstairs.
Course you and I don’t know this is an issue just yet.
Up until now, he’s just a quiet bodybuilder
you’ve seen off and on at the gym.
The party’s pumpin’. The music’s blarin’.
From where we are all sitting,
you can see down a long hallway
to observe the two of them have come downstairs
and passed through a screen door
to stand a few feet outside.
All you can hear is the music
but there on her face,
you can see she’s screaming at him.
He says something.
She reaches up and slaps him hard.
He reaches out and shoves her with such force
that she flies off her feet
and lands hard on the concrete sidewalk.
You stand up.
You start moving towards the door
which seems a lot further away
than it did a moment ago.
She’s tough.
She’s quick.
Before you’re halfway down that long hallway,
she’s gotten up,
took off one of her high heel shoes
and brought its spike down on the top of his head.
Impressive you think, and pause for a second.
And then, in slow motion,
you see his fist pull back,
fly forward and there explode into her fragile face.
As you pass through the screen door,
you see her hit the ground again.
The red of her lipstick
has been obliterated by another form of red.
He turns to face you and from his lips comes,
“I’ll kick your motherfucking ass too.”
And for the next thirty seconds he tries to do
just that.
Me?
I try my best to keep you guys
from getting knocked out of your comfy chairs.
Let’s cut to the quick.
She gets up off the ground
in yet another attempt to attack him.
I go to shove her aside
and it’s at this point that he jumps forward
and puts you and I into a forward headlock.
There in our muffled ears we hear him mumble,
“What do ya think of that?!”
Yup. He’s got us pretty tight.
Now bear in mind that from this vantage point
(I with my eyes and you in your comfy chairs)
we can see two things pretty prominently.
There to the left,
and sprawled across the ground,
she with her face a spattered mess of blood.
There to the right and just within reach—
his groin.
At this point I will pause.
I’ve a question I want to put to all you women out there.
There’s a decision to be made here.
Being as you are female
and morally superior when it come to
choosing peace over violence,
all you have to do
is come to a group consensus of “stop,”
and the poem ends right here.
So what’s it gonna be?
Yes?
Fuckin’ A right,
I slammed the inner edge of my hand
full force into his tender nuts!
Felt his testicles part
as my hand passed through
to crunch bone to bone.
Didn’t stop there.
Nosiree.
Grabbed ahold of his junk and squeezed.
Not only that— I twisted.
Felt his squishy gonads
pass through the ringer of my finger joints
to pop out on the other side.
One this way. One that way.
Oh, and he went down.
Me with him being as I was attached
appendage to appendage
in the worse
hands-on gay experience
he would ever have.
And he commences with this gagging noise.
Now normally,
a gagging noise isn’t pretty, but…
this one was.
And I feel hands grabbing at me.
Pulling me away.
There through my eyes…
There through your eyes…
There on the ground,
you see a man curled up in a fetal position.
And you ask yourself:
“Did I make the right decision?”
Well girls… did we?
©06 Jack Hubbell
Absolutely Flaccid
Girls. Girls. Girls.
You want them.
We got them.
They hang from poles for your delight.
And if we only had meat hooks,
the slaughterhouse of your somewhat
sexually confused dreams would be complete.
Did I say meat?
You bet I did!
But not the other red meat.
Not the other white meat either.
Nah. How’sa bout some shade of meat
dead center them thar two
titillating tones o’ pulsating protein?
An exact shade of pink
smack dab your object of desire.
This is what you want, right?
Not to worry.
We’re flexible.
Just watch.
We can tweak our taunt to penetrate
all the way to the center of your
erect wad of George Washingtons.
And just look at the size of those pockets!
Have we paused to tell you
how much you’re appreciated?
Why you’re our favorite idiot,
and we will indulge your every whim
as long as you can sustain that there bulge of…
Just how are
all those Georgie Washingtons?
Oooo, I bet you’ve got
something bigger in there don’t you?
Something huge.
Andrew Jackson huge.
Have I ever told you
how sexy Andrew Jackson is?
Oh and you?
You so remind me of Andrew.
Yes. That look on your face is
dead ringer for the seventh president.
Why, Mr. President!
What big eyes you have!
Indeed, there in your ample pockets live
six inch after six inch after six inch of
flat dead presidents,
and as wooed as I am by your
exquisitely greased mullet and
Andrew Jackson potential, dare say
I can sense the presence of a President Grant
lurking there in your wad o’ sex appeal.
Like you, our eighteenth president was a man of
such insatiable appetite.
Plop your six inch Grant in my hand
and the three of us will take a stroll
to the promised land.
But no. What’s this?
It would appear your pockets
have gone lame duck.
No Grants or Jacksons.
No Hamiltons or Lincolns.
Not even one
single solitary remaining
Mister Washington.
Oh, I’ll grant you you’ve got six inches of
some sort of George there in your pocket.
Grant that you deem it worthy of
forty seconds of something.
But I regret to tell you that your
forty second George is
and never will be
a worthy President.
Your six inch of George
ain’t nothin’ but flaccid dick.
Indeed, we regret tell you,
that your George or Dick or
whatever vice you care to call your
concept of presidency… they
are just about worthless.
Lame Duck or
Lame Fuck…
Either way, it is time
for you
to go.
©06 Jack Hubbell
Girls. Girls. Girls.
You want them.
We got them.
They hang from poles for your delight.
And if we only had meat hooks,
the slaughterhouse of your somewhat
sexually confused dreams would be complete.
Did I say meat?
You bet I did!
But not the other red meat.
Not the other white meat either.
Nah. How’sa bout some shade of meat
dead center them thar two
titillating tones o’ pulsating protein?
An exact shade of pink
smack dab your object of desire.
This is what you want, right?
Not to worry.
We’re flexible.
Just watch.
We can tweak our taunt to penetrate
all the way to the center of your
erect wad of George Washingtons.
And just look at the size of those pockets!
Have we paused to tell you
how much you’re appreciated?
Why you’re our favorite idiot,
and we will indulge your every whim
as long as you can sustain that there bulge of…
Just how are
all those Georgie Washingtons?
Oooo, I bet you’ve got
something bigger in there don’t you?
Something huge.
Andrew Jackson huge.
Have I ever told you
how sexy Andrew Jackson is?
Oh and you?
You so remind me of Andrew.
Yes. That look on your face is
dead ringer for the seventh president.
Why, Mr. President!
What big eyes you have!
Indeed, there in your ample pockets live
six inch after six inch after six inch of
flat dead presidents,
and as wooed as I am by your
exquisitely greased mullet and
Andrew Jackson potential, dare say
I can sense the presence of a President Grant
lurking there in your wad o’ sex appeal.
Like you, our eighteenth president was a man of
such insatiable appetite.
Plop your six inch Grant in my hand
and the three of us will take a stroll
to the promised land.
But no. What’s this?
It would appear your pockets
have gone lame duck.
No Grants or Jacksons.
No Hamiltons or Lincolns.
Not even one
single solitary remaining
Mister Washington.
Oh, I’ll grant you you’ve got six inches of
some sort of George there in your pocket.
Grant that you deem it worthy of
forty seconds of something.
But I regret to tell you that your
forty second George is
and never will be
a worthy President.
Your six inch of George
ain’t nothin’ but flaccid dick.
Indeed, we regret tell you,
that your George or Dick or
whatever vice you care to call your
concept of presidency… they
are just about worthless.
Lame Duck or
Lame Fuck…
Either way, it is time
for you
to go.
©06 Jack Hubbell
Aidan is a Fish
At the moment, Aidan is a fish.
She has fins.
She has gills.
Of course, what I see
is a small girl of four years
communing with one solitary fish that’s
been placed in a pitcher full of water,
but these are mere facts.
Nothing to be confused with reality.
No.
What’s real is that Aidan
is a fish.
So much so that it does not occur to her
that she cannot breathe underwater.
A ridiculous observation in her point of view.
Why would a fish dwell on such menial things?
At this moment I am a human being.
One of the adult sort, I sit with other adults
some twelve feet distant from Aidan.
We mature humans
relate just as mature humans
are supposed to relate.
We co-exist in the bodies we were given,
and yet…
As I glance over at Aidan,
a part of me wants to peel away
and join her .
Here at this table we discuss issues of
such heavy import
while there at Aidan’s table,
wondrous things are happening.
Aidan is a fish!
How can you not see the marvel in this?
Perhaps you envision Aidan
pretending to be a fish, but no.
That is an adult assumption.
Though we might see a small girl
there on her elbows,
mere inches away from a pitcher of water,
that… That is not Aidan.
No.
Aidan is in that pitcher.
Aidan is there in that water.
She is at one with all things aquatic.
All things piscine.
She is so much a fish
she doesn’t know that water exists.
There is no her inside water
for water simply is.
It eases through her mouth
with each subconscious gulp
to pass through her gills as mere…
…sigh.
Why waste her time pondering frivolities
when there are better fishbowl conundrums
to puzzle over.
Aidan moves to the inner edge
of the pitcher’s thick glass
and looking out sees a small girl
gazing in.
Far beyond that girl
a man sits at a crowded table.
Swishing her tail,
she nudges up against some hard invisible barrier.
And there in her piscine mind a question forms,
“What? What does that human desire?
He looks such an old man.
So old, yet surely he longs for… something.”
Isn’t the answer evident?
He?
He desires that return to innocence.
That forever sense of awe and wonder.
He?
He
wants to be Aidan.
©07 Jack Hubbell
At the moment, Aidan is a fish.
She has fins.
She has gills.
Of course, what I see
is a small girl of four years
communing with one solitary fish that’s
been placed in a pitcher full of water,
but these are mere facts.
Nothing to be confused with reality.
No.
What’s real is that Aidan
is a fish.
So much so that it does not occur to her
that she cannot breathe underwater.
A ridiculous observation in her point of view.
Why would a fish dwell on such menial things?
At this moment I am a human being.
One of the adult sort, I sit with other adults
some twelve feet distant from Aidan.
We mature humans
relate just as mature humans
are supposed to relate.
We co-exist in the bodies we were given,
and yet…
As I glance over at Aidan,
a part of me wants to peel away
and join her .
Here at this table we discuss issues of
such heavy import
while there at Aidan’s table,
wondrous things are happening.
Aidan is a fish!
How can you not see the marvel in this?
Perhaps you envision Aidan
pretending to be a fish, but no.
That is an adult assumption.
Though we might see a small girl
there on her elbows,
mere inches away from a pitcher of water,
that… That is not Aidan.
No.
Aidan is in that pitcher.
Aidan is there in that water.
She is at one with all things aquatic.
All things piscine.
She is so much a fish
she doesn’t know that water exists.
There is no her inside water
for water simply is.
It eases through her mouth
with each subconscious gulp
to pass through her gills as mere…
…sigh.
Why waste her time pondering frivolities
when there are better fishbowl conundrums
to puzzle over.
Aidan moves to the inner edge
of the pitcher’s thick glass
and looking out sees a small girl
gazing in.
Far beyond that girl
a man sits at a crowded table.
Swishing her tail,
she nudges up against some hard invisible barrier.
And there in her piscine mind a question forms,
“What? What does that human desire?
He looks such an old man.
So old, yet surely he longs for… something.”
Isn’t the answer evident?
He?
He desires that return to innocence.
That forever sense of awe and wonder.
He?
He
wants to be Aidan.
©07 Jack Hubbell
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Big Bang-ish
I’ve got the Big Bang on my television set
and I want to get it off.
Not that I want to get off by
watching a big bang on my TV.
Not that by Big Bang we’re talking
John Holmes blitzkrieging the Kama Sutra.
Naw.
We’re talking the original orgasmic pop.
Absent prophylactic.
We’re talking the original sploosh of stars
spewed forth from the
great cosmic gonad of forever-was.
Back in them thar days of early creation, when
dinosaurs ruled the Earth and
every TV had a pair of
rabbit-ear aerials on top,
you could twist your select-switch
and tune off mid-channel.
Most programming back then
had to do with infomercials about
what you could be eating or
what could be eating you.
Pretty redundant stuff really.
In between Channel One and Channel Two
you’d find… Well…
Bear in mind, we Homo sapiens had
minimal vocabularies back then.
We looked at that TV screen
and came to the group consensus that
what was present there
might best be described as “snow”.
Someone at the back of the cave proffered that
it was a video presentation of microwave range noise,
but he was quickly stoned as a heretic.
So… “Snow” it was.
Course, centuries later we found that this
somewhat evolved dude had been right all along,
so we dealt with it by
writing him out of our history
and science bibles.
I am now happy to tell you that
what you see on the TV when you
disconnect that cable is a
video presentation of microwave noise.
And here now in the age of Cheeze Whiz
and mass enlightenment,
we are free to ask the following question
without fear of the inquisition:
“Oh Great and Mighty Oz.
From whence doth that micro-wavy noise originate?”
And to that a voice responds:
“Pay no attention to that old man behind the curtain!
The Great Oz has spoken!”
But being of the inquisitive sort,
you lesser beings
Google your question and push aside a
few thousand years of dogma by
simply putting your pinky on that ‘enter’ key.
And here I must interject,
what sort of world is this
when the Great Oz is forced to
genuflect in front of deities such as
Microsoft and Macintosh?
Anywho… I believe the gist of your question was:
microwave noise, liquid cheese in a can,
snow on top of your TV, and
if Britney Spears is still a virgin,
how did she get knocked up not only once but twice?
Something to that affect.
In a get-a-nut shell,
the answer is: “The Big Bang.”
That snow on your TV screen
originated at the center of the universe
from a penis the size of a Humvee.
The big Humvee.
Not the small one.
The big one give or take a few inches.
Okay… I may be exaggerating about
the size of the penis.
I’m known to do that.
If you want to know the true size,
ask that fella Adam.
Supposedly, his penis
was made in the likeness
of that original one
smack dab in the middle of the cosmos.
But now wait.
This presents a bit of a quandary, for
it would seem… rather… I mean,
as history has it:
Not only was Adam incapable of the Big Bang
(you’ve seen how small his fig leaf is),
he could barely manage a
little one.
Big Bang?
More along the lines of
Snap, crackle and… Ho-hum.
“Hey. What’s on TV?
Yea, and…
You gonna eat that apple or what?”
©06 Jack Hubbell
I’ve got the Big Bang on my television set
and I want to get it off.
Not that I want to get off by
watching a big bang on my TV.
Not that by Big Bang we’re talking
John Holmes blitzkrieging the Kama Sutra.
Naw.
We’re talking the original orgasmic pop.
Absent prophylactic.
We’re talking the original sploosh of stars
spewed forth from the
great cosmic gonad of forever-was.
Back in them thar days of early creation, when
dinosaurs ruled the Earth and
every TV had a pair of
rabbit-ear aerials on top,
you could twist your select-switch
and tune off mid-channel.
Most programming back then
had to do with infomercials about
what you could be eating or
what could be eating you.
Pretty redundant stuff really.
In between Channel One and Channel Two
you’d find… Well…
Bear in mind, we Homo sapiens had
minimal vocabularies back then.
We looked at that TV screen
and came to the group consensus that
what was present there
might best be described as “snow”.
Someone at the back of the cave proffered that
it was a video presentation of microwave range noise,
but he was quickly stoned as a heretic.
So… “Snow” it was.
Course, centuries later we found that this
somewhat evolved dude had been right all along,
so we dealt with it by
writing him out of our history
and science bibles.
I am now happy to tell you that
what you see on the TV when you
disconnect that cable is a
video presentation of microwave noise.
And here now in the age of Cheeze Whiz
and mass enlightenment,
we are free to ask the following question
without fear of the inquisition:
“Oh Great and Mighty Oz.
From whence doth that micro-wavy noise originate?”
And to that a voice responds:
“Pay no attention to that old man behind the curtain!
The Great Oz has spoken!”
But being of the inquisitive sort,
you lesser beings
Google your question and push aside a
few thousand years of dogma by
simply putting your pinky on that ‘enter’ key.
And here I must interject,
what sort of world is this
when the Great Oz is forced to
genuflect in front of deities such as
Microsoft and Macintosh?
Anywho… I believe the gist of your question was:
microwave noise, liquid cheese in a can,
snow on top of your TV, and
if Britney Spears is still a virgin,
how did she get knocked up not only once but twice?
Something to that affect.
In a get-a-nut shell,
the answer is: “The Big Bang.”
That snow on your TV screen
originated at the center of the universe
from a penis the size of a Humvee.
The big Humvee.
Not the small one.
The big one give or take a few inches.
Okay… I may be exaggerating about
the size of the penis.
I’m known to do that.
If you want to know the true size,
ask that fella Adam.
Supposedly, his penis
was made in the likeness
of that original one
smack dab in the middle of the cosmos.
But now wait.
This presents a bit of a quandary, for
it would seem… rather… I mean,
as history has it:
Not only was Adam incapable of the Big Bang
(you’ve seen how small his fig leaf is),
he could barely manage a
little one.
Big Bang?
More along the lines of
Snap, crackle and… Ho-hum.
“Hey. What’s on TV?
Yea, and…
You gonna eat that apple or what?”
©06 Jack Hubbell
Utopia
He stands in a depression.
What you would call his “low place”.
The altitude of that earth beneath his feet
will always be lesser than
your deepest elevation,
and he…
He calls this existence
“utopia”.
To each his own,
and he certainly owns this one.
Not that it’s something he purchased.
No, this utopia was
acquired.
An asset he never signed for, yet it’s
undeniably his.
A package deal with
generic label.
It was utopia in its most literal sense.
Utopia?
A word which translates as
“no-place”.
A noun which interprets as
“nowhere”.
So how do you get from the
literal translation of nowhere to this
perceived rapture of absolute nirvana?
Good point.
Good fucking point.
Should you figure that out,
he’d sure like to know.
Until then, he exists alone in his
stadium sized sinkhole.
And though a multitude of bleachers
array its steep perimeter
there will be no applause,
for he remains
a solipsistic nation of one.
Above his head black flags wave
and there on the loud speakers,
the late John Lennon
sings his sub-terrestrial anthem
of self-sustained nihilism.
It’s a somber tune.
The perfect libretto for
solo a cappella.
Not the sort of anthem
to put a tear in your eye,
but just the thing for explaining
why the one that’s there
will never leave.
Yes, John’s vocals serenade empty seats.
His melancholy melody drifts upon
stale silent air.
A sustained echo of woe
amidst a stadium with
far too many
oh so inviting exits.
“He’s a real nowhere man.
Sitting in his nowhere land.
Making all his nowhere plans,
for nobody.”
And what are such lyrics if not
to die for?
©06 Jack Hubbell
He stands in a depression.
What you would call his “low place”.
The altitude of that earth beneath his feet
will always be lesser than
your deepest elevation,
and he…
He calls this existence
“utopia”.
To each his own,
and he certainly owns this one.
Not that it’s something he purchased.
No, this utopia was
acquired.
An asset he never signed for, yet it’s
undeniably his.
A package deal with
generic label.
It was utopia in its most literal sense.
Utopia?
A word which translates as
“no-place”.
A noun which interprets as
“nowhere”.
So how do you get from the
literal translation of nowhere to this
perceived rapture of absolute nirvana?
Good point.
Good fucking point.
Should you figure that out,
he’d sure like to know.
Until then, he exists alone in his
stadium sized sinkhole.
And though a multitude of bleachers
array its steep perimeter
there will be no applause,
for he remains
a solipsistic nation of one.
Above his head black flags wave
and there on the loud speakers,
the late John Lennon
sings his sub-terrestrial anthem
of self-sustained nihilism.
It’s a somber tune.
The perfect libretto for
solo a cappella.
Not the sort of anthem
to put a tear in your eye,
but just the thing for explaining
why the one that’s there
will never leave.
Yes, John’s vocals serenade empty seats.
His melancholy melody drifts upon
stale silent air.
A sustained echo of woe
amidst a stadium with
far too many
oh so inviting exits.
“He’s a real nowhere man.
Sitting in his nowhere land.
Making all his nowhere plans,
for nobody.”
And what are such lyrics if not
to die for?
©06 Jack Hubbell
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