Southern Legitimacy Statement: Gerry who’s worked as a healthcare consultant in Nashville, partied with relatives living in Greensboro and stayed awhile in Sunflower County, Mississippi.
Lunacy
1. VARIATIONS ON SHRINK [3]
i.Cut And Dried Martinized Lingo?
One school of talk therapy
Uses a few covert codes
(Often overthought)
About I and Thou
Lock plus keys
That will vary
From Linear
For normal
Speaking
Patterns
To Loose,
Buberish*,
Tangential,
Overwrought,
Disorganized,
Circumstantial
That do produce
Worthier poetry than I
Unless so very Paranoid
Cannot write words down.
*https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/06/modernity-faith-and-martin-buber
ii. Shrinkology
After nada pre-med
because I “only” wanna
to be a psychiatrist
which back then had
but little to do with
hardcore science stuff
instead I decided
to be an internist who
then dissed mental
health workers as soft
in the head, too
many of ‘em choosing
that field to work
out their own issues –
particularly if had
stronger IQ’s than EQ
social skills nice
for advising patients.
However, since
a daughter trained as
an MD running
hospital Psych ERs,
it behooved me
to change my tune.
iii. “Momusic” Class
is is what sexist
toddler session’s
called — apparently
after two decades
ain’t by accident
— since all adults
each time I am
there are Y gene
deficient except
for Ger where
next youngest
grown-up looks
~ half my mid-
septuagenarian
stage & she’s only
other grandparent
thus way nimbler
dancing, rolling
swaying which
with positional
vertigo causes me
bit of difficulty
functioning fully
but still Coachie
can make Liavy
proud belting out
Scarborough Fair
+ waving tie-dye
flags & giraffes to
Twist and Shout.
Post belly stamps,
when we’re done
one nanny takes pity
on GOMER, shares
peanut butter snacks
(I offer her charge
shelled pistachios/
a nutritious pouch)
as exhausted pouty
kids slouch during
which my boychick
stares at stroller pushed
by ?Mother containing
somebody peeking out
with Progeria disease
that ages prematurely,
a bald, shrunk wrinkled
infant won’t live long:
both children point,
What’s wrong? as
we caregivers try
real hard to change
subjects singing
another few songs.
After Liav’s strapped
in car-seat, I dodge
further questions
by distracting him
“Aunt Julia/Uncle Eli
are getting a baby!”
so oy 6 of 6 1st cousins
will be males – seems in
our extended fam having
both X & Y chromosomes
to escalate from a boy’s
basketball toward baseball
team may be autosomal
dominant product of
your ancestral gene pool
as it surely is for doomed
cripple in carriage as
I hear someone whisper
something about poor
tiny Benjamin Button.
2. SHORT-SHORTS BY THE SHORT HAIRS
i. Dead Of Night
Thanks to Joyce Carol Oates
Heart attack
Terrible terror
Stuck under
Tongue like
My nitro pill.
ii. Understand The Moment haiku
These days I sleep like
a baby, waking every
few hours crying.
3. Pacific Pisces Story
Week after Labor Day,
striding along ocean to
Redondo Beach Pier,
I’ll turn 73 tomorrow
so treat myself extra
special well, spring for
September’s Lobster
FEST bisque + ceviche
& Hawaiian Opakapaka
we once saw SCUBA
diving although that one
was truly humungous.
The pleasant man who ?up
sold me to pay $19.99/ lb.
is a member of our local
fishmonger cooperative
which never laid anyone
off during 2008’s Great
Recession tourist crisis.
Angel assuaged Ger’s guilt
shelling out so much dough
at this generally reasonable
open-air seafood market
by relating how he bought
(50% employee discount)
the same whole fresh fish
just shipped in yesterday
then descaled gutted broiled
precisely like h had prepared
mine to impress almost-fiancé
with fabuloso to the max result
thusly my mate would similarly
not be little bittiest disappointed
even though she’d sent me for
cheaper scrumptious snapper.
40 minutes $83.41 pre-tip later,
while I finish scribbling this
missive’s half-baked scrod
screed’s narrow paragraph
columns on 3 paper napkins
with ballpoint I eyed Angel
tossed in since not too smart
phone’d run outa charge just
after shooting pics to reassure
half-century wife but before I
jot words, the toast-shaped LRS’s
lights/buzzer went bonkers berserk
signaling griddle’s funky reeking
goodies bag (4 corn on cob, bunch
butter pads/ sliced lemon, enough
plastic utensils/Styrofoam to serve
downscale dinner party thrown in)
is ready to return to waterfront
condo where I anticipate being
heatedly grilled by fishy spouse.
