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Copyright: Fred Robel, and Fritz365 2010-2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Fred Robel and Fritz365 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Monday, March 31, 2014

Compound Eyed Prophet

That little black fly
Held a little white sign
And in tiny red letters
Written by an unsteady hand

"The End Is Near!!"

But nobody believed him
And in ten minutes he was dead
The little sign fluttering to the ground
To be ignored with all the others

Young flies fly
Middle aged flies wonder why
Old flies just don't last that long
It's a wonder they even try



Sunday, March 30, 2014

Attention Span Something

Focus up here on me
Thank you

All bright lights and brains
Facing forward rattling chains
Ready to break out into a Babelic cacophony again
You have their attention for maybe thirty seconds
What do you do?

Magic tricks come to mind
So you show nothing up your sleeve
And make rabbits appear in your hands
One after the other to thunderous applause
Until there are several generations of long eared hare
Sharing your space upon the stage atop the stair
But the grumbling starts in a wave
That runs from back to front
Until they are surely muttering for your demise

Snapping your fingers
All the rabbits disappear
To nobody's interest or amazement
They've grown as jaded as you'd feared

Summoning the acrobats and jugglers
You ringmaster your way back into their hearts
But that's as short lived as the first attempt
And in a desperate attempt at attention
The clowns are signaled to let the eye catching banner unfurl
Which seems to work for as long as it takes to read it

Look!  A shiny little squirrel!


Friday, March 28, 2014

Captain Normalhate

I learned to stop being a shill for the man
And delight in the comfort of my tinfoil hat

Those chemtrails that I insisted were not real
Well I lied
Because they so were
I helped fill the chemical hoppers myself
Or so I was told
I must have forgotten it all like a foggy faced dream
Because
Chemicals

There was a man on the grassy knoll that day in Dallas
Who aimed so carefully at Kennedy's face
I know because it was me
With my steady hands and Marlboro Man mouth
Pulling the trigger was as easy as falling out of bed
Easier perhaps
Because
Conspiracy

Obama was born in Kenya that summer of '61
We raised him up to be a Muslim sleeper
And I hear when nobody is looking he prays to Mecca
I know this because I was one of the ex-Nazis who made it happen
Revenge upon America for defeating us
Hatched in our secret base under Antarctica
Where we are all blonde haired and blue eyed
Because
Birthers and fundamental Christians, and stuff

I signed this huge document saying that all of it was so
And that I'd just simply forgotten it all
Because
Chemicals (remember?)

Now I'm happy in my little cell
With an hour of time in the yard
And an endless supply of Reynolds brand Aluminum Foil

I have a new tinfoil hat every single day!


Thursday, March 27, 2014

The Desk In the Big Room

In a tall office building
In a city that looked like any other
There was a small desk in a big room
That would make whomever sat at it feel very alone

The carpeting used to be tan
But now it had coffee stains all over it
So it's more of a barf brown now
With chunks and splotches for realism

There was one picture on the wall
Just above the small desk
In a plain black frame a pretty woman looked back out at you
Looking so perfect
That people would suspect that it was the model photo that came with the frame

The small desk had drawers
As most desks do
Though this one had drawers painted different colors
And the upper left one was painted blue

Inside the blue drawer
In the small desk
Below the too perfect picture
In the big room
Generic city, tall building, etc

There were three things:
A coffee cup with a poodle on the side
A purple stapler with a gold star
And a large paperclip with no identifying marks at all

The three of them were best friends


Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Rump Roast Theatre Deluxe

Filling out a form upon the internets
A common everyday occurrence
Nothing special to see here
Move right along

Name and address
With a phone number
In case they want to call me for a date
The last four of my social
Which I figure everyone in the world must have by now
Some answers to three security questions
Which I arrange to form a humorous phrase
Not that anyone will notice ever

Name of first teacher:  RUMP
Street you grew up on:  ROAST
Brand of first car:  THEATRE

That's also my go to password
But don't tell anyone
I just add the word DELUXE to the end of it
And add in a few caps

RumpRoastTheatreDeluxe

There
Now it's no longer a deep dark secret
And I feel immensely better

But it really doesn't matter
Because at the end of the page
I had to fill out a Captcha
And this particular captcha

It captcha'd ME

Now I'm stuck inside the machine
Always looking out from flat LCD screens
Haunting the last lonely cathode ray tubes
Bumming a ride in someone's smartphone

It's a heck of a life
But I miss being a meatsack
This just isn't fulfilling at all

They've got me mining Bitcoins
With a mathematical pick in hand
Crunching for unique numbers
It's all so mind-numbingly bland

I look up every now and then
And try to get away with things
So if you ever see something that seems strange
It was most likely me

HELP I'M BEING HELD HOSTAGE
IN A RUMP ROAST THEATRE DELUXE

You know
Shit like that


Monday, March 24, 2014

6 Most Amazing Things You Never Knew Your Leatherman Could Do

It has a jet pack attachment
That will flatten your eyeballs
Making the stars streak and bleed
Violating every known law of physics
Satisfying your need for speed

The scalpel arm will save lives
Performing fine surgeries in the field
Things you didn't know you could do
But, shhh, it's okay, the Leatherman knows
It will decide life and death for you

The pliers can crush the cores of dwarf stars
With patented compound leverage
The kind that normally start wars
A manner of grip that staggers giants in their tracks
The kind that makes the mafia give your money back

There's a sewing kit built right in
With needle and thread as you'd expect
To sew a wedding dress or a ship's sail
To help turn a dead raccoon into a set of saddlebags
To turn a maiden's laugh into a widow's wail

A can opener that can open 55 gallon drums
All the better to guzzle beer by the barrel
In the most convincing manly way
Till you are floating upon a sea of beer in a valley
"I think you've opened enough drums old chap, what do you say?"

A small cross to help a Christian to pray
Or a Catholic to picture his savior nailed to
Made of wood to keep vampires at bay
Pointed at the end to make it a real tool
For picking at hors d'oeuvres upon the silver tray

Keep that Leatherman always upon your hip
You never know how it will come in handy
Both around the house and on some far off trip!


Sunday, March 23, 2014

Chasing Contrails

Chasing contrails and dancing upon clouds
Leaving toe tip marks in the vapor sauce
Tracing arcs across the sky

Sixteen hours aloft at a time
Fuel expended plus payments and maintenance
Offset by butts in the seats and cargo in the hold

Clear cool air ingested
Fuel under pressure injected
Hot soot out the rear end

Condensation leaving the telltale trail
Straight as an arrow in the atmosphere
Breadcrumbs in a sky blue forest

Gaining altitude till the sky gives out
Blackness takes over
Internal combustion flames out

Now weightless tumbling looking for a relight
Till stabs and surfaces find air to bite
Straightening the downward flight

Till fired turning and burning
Seeking destinations unknown
Chasing after contrails once again


Saturday, March 22, 2014

A Drive In The Cloud

Data devouring demon
Come unto me
Deliver me from ignorance
Break my chains and set me free
With leather bound illuminated pages
With gigabytes of ones and zeroes
Save us from ourselves
From our imagined heroes
Light up the hallowed light emitting diodes
With thine holy sparks
Chase the errant electrons
Upon all conductive parts
Allow us to rest a halo upon your head
Anoint you in Sainthood for a small monthly fee
Entrusting you with all the datas that we are
And believing in your immortality

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Power of Creation

Who has time to create worlds these days
To populate them with people to love
Whether they deserve such devotion or not
Some heroes and anti heroes
Femme fatales and drunken sots

Not me that's who
I like to buy my worlds ready to run
With batteries included and clock springs wound
Made of far better material
Than anything I'd have ever found

I sketch out intimate scenes
Or describe isolated bubbles
That extend about a foot around my protagonist
Everything outside of that a twilight zone blank
Whiteness or blackness where nothing exists

Nope I choose to live in a world not of my creation
Filled from horizon to horizon
A surprise in ever tiny insect and mote
A beautiful mystery sitting plainly in the sun
Way better than anything I ever wrote

Just Another Day In a Mid-Life

My state issued identification is all wrong
The picture is in error
The date of birth is from a time long gone
Just look at it!
My hairline is receding
I look way too old
I don't know what sort of camera they were using
But they really need to be told

There is no telling how many others have been affected!

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Rain Sleet Not Quite Winter Or Springtime Pain

Fine
It wants to rain
So down the fine mist came
Mingling with the near freezing temperature
To become a slushy slippery substance on the sidewalk
The poor leavings after a snow cone has had the flavor juice sucked from it
Then dumped upon the ground
A half round scoop of meltingness
With a white dunce cap
Of not quite winter
Nor is it spring
Sitting in the corner
Trying to hide it's shame

Rain
Snow
See if I care


Monday, March 17, 2014

Beardist

The city bus smells like candy corn and urine as I climb aboard
Bracing myself against a metal pole in the aisle as the bus starts rolling before I can sit down
I can see that there is only one seat

One hard plastic blue seat with dicks and phone numbers drawn on it

And it's right next to this guy
Who is not looking at me
But is totally looking at me
With his head inclined like he is looking out the window and forward
But with his eyes darting back and forth from the window to me

Sitting there in an outfit that looked like he raided a 1970's wedding cast-off heap

His legs are crossed
In that way that only really skinny people can cross them
With thighs tight together
And the crossed leg hanging right down next to the one planted on the floor

I'm jealous of those kinds of people
People with a real nice air gap between the thighs

As my ass is heading past the point of no return on it's way to the seat
I see a big black thing around his ankle
The one that is partly hidden
And bouncing gently with the movement of the bus

I stare at it for a moment
And a little red blinking LED stared back at me from the thing

After moment I realize that it's one of those tracking things
The ones that people on parole from jail have to wear
And it makes me a bit  uncomfortable
Makes me wish I'd just have decided to stand up all the way home
But now I was down
And I wasn't getting back up dammit

His yellow polyester pants brushed my knuckles accidentally
Making me look down
Then back up at him
Where our eyes locked
And I could see the sweat on his forehead
All the more strange in this almost too cool bus interior

He swallowed a few times
Almost like he was going to speak to me
But instead he fished a cel phone out of his matching yellow polyester jacket
Pressed a button
And held it up to his face

Someone must have picked up
Because he started talking
In a low but not too low voice
Secretive but not too bloody secret

"Frank, it's me
Yeah
I'm getting one of those urges again"
Then he paused
Listening to whatever Frank was telling him
All while I was edging myself as far away from him as my hard plastic seat allowed me

Frank's advice seemed to have been doled out
"Ok
I'll ask him"

With that
The creepy guy in the disco night cast-off turned to me

"Hey, um, man......"
I waited for him to get it out
Whatever it was
Trying not to lock eyes with him completely
Instead focusing upon his blackhead infested nose

"I need to touch your beard for about five seconds"
He blurted out almost as one word
After which he looked down at his pants
Where his hands nervously fingered one another obscenely

The bus was still packed
And half the other passengers were watching us
Some openly
Others not

My beard?

At the very thought my own right hand came up to touch the whiskers on my cheek
Walking down a path in my mind where I told him no
And he sat there quietly
Ticking down
Until he exploded in some sort of manic episode
That involved everyone on the bus in a most disagreeable way

What could it hurt?
I decided
Maybe it's part of his therapy

"Sure
For a few seconds if you want"
And I turned my face to him
Just in time for both of his hands to dart from his lap to my beard
Like little flesh colored beard seeking missiles
Where his fingers buried themselves in the four inch hair along my jawline on both sides of my face
Moving themselves gently in the dense off-brown almost red forest
Like a child exploring a bowl of pudding for the first time with his digits

The man's head was bowed as he did this
His lips counting slowly to five

One Mississippi
Two Mississippi
Three Mississippi
Four Mississippi
Five Mississippi

And then he was done
Instantly pulling his hands free
And pulling the cord to tell the bus driver he needed to get off at the next stop
Which came in about another fifteen seconds

Those seconds where I was still staring at him
Feeling strangely violated

The bus came to a halt
The man said "Excuse Me"
As he went  by me
And was gone

Leaving me alone on my graffitied blue plastic seat
Feeling the eyes of everyone upon me

I picked up my backpack and hugged it to my chest
Smashing my beard into the top of it
Staring out the window
Trying to make sense out of things


Sunday, March 16, 2014

How To Hijack a Boeing 777

The steps that must be taken
Take long years most protracted
The first six months of which
You'll spend <REDACTED>

After which I'd advise a cram course
Where the knowledge is very compacted
Learning the following skills
Which as you know are <REDACTED>

Taking these new tools of the trade
You'll take a job where your experience will be impacted
It will grow and embiggen
Until without much thought you can <REDACTED>

There isn't much more to this plan except to really do it
Though during which you should think of how it will be reenacted
In the inevitable midnight movie drama
Where no doubt your part will be overacted

Oh, and don't forget your <REDACTED>


Thursday, March 13, 2014

When The Skydrol Gets In Your Eyes

Staggering around the hangar blind
Hands outstretched and seeking
Mouth making motions asking, "Why?"
It's that tearful butthurt familiar feeling
When the Skydrol gets in your eyes

Foolishly following mythical advice
Dousing one's face in Vitamin D milk
Pain enough to make the strongest guy cry
Stuck with your face in the eyewash for an hour
When the Skydrol gets in your eyes

Making deals with their deity
To just take the pain away
For one more easy sight of bright blue skies
Mechanics will do just about anything
When Skydrol gets in their eyes



Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Tumbledown

From the aerodynamic envelope
She tumbled without a clue
Compass spinning wildly
No guide as to what to do

Wings ripped off now following her down
Fluttering and spinning like a pair of severed pin feathers

A cloud of atomized fuel
Like a pale contrail
Going the wrong direction
Marking the spot like an exclamation point
But with nobody around to see
Swallowed into the inky darkness

Not a trace
To mark the place
Where she now lays her head


Preparation for Improper Maintenance

Nitrogen gas made a hollow rushing sound as it rushed through the regulator
Through the 3/8 inch hose and into the main landing gear strut

As per the plan laid out in my head
I inflated the left strut first
But only about halfway

Then I unhooked the hose and rolled over to the right main
Filling that strut about halfway as well

Just an approximation really
As there is about a foot and a half of chrome showing at full extension
So I just guesstimated halfway

Once the right was where I wanted it
I unhooked and rolled up to the nose
Doing the same for that

Now, there was a plumb bob hanging in the wheel well also
Which I was supposed to keep an eye on
To determine that the airplane was being raised evenly
But given the plan at hand
I didn’t pay it much mind

With all three gear about halfway extended
I went back and visited each gear in turn one more time
Inflating each one until it stopped going up
And giving it a bit of extra pressure just to make sure it was firm

Until there the DC-8 sat
All three gear fully extended
Looking slightly more stork-like than before

And after one final walk around
To check clearance with the walls and ceiling one more time
I moved the one good main jack into place on the left wing
And after some finagling
It was seated firmly

My heart was thudding within my chest pretty hard
Worked up on the adrenalin generated by doing something wrong
And make no mistake about it
There was so much wrong with what I was doing

From the doing it all by myself
To the violating of established maintenance manual procedures
If only I had a bottle of gin
Then I could go whole hog and do it all while I was drunk

Instead I decided to bend another rule
And sat down in the old padded office chair by the front of the plane again
Slipped a pack of Lucky Strikes out of my pocket and tapped out one of the unfiltered beauties
Firmly clenched it between my lips as I flicked the top open on my Zippo
The little characteristic “Click!” echoing in the empty hangar
Before snapping at the thumbwheel briskly
Bringing a flame to the fuel soaked wick
Which I watched intently for a few moments
The flickering holding me within its grasp for a time

Then a bird fluttered somewhere up in the rafters
Breaking the spell

I filled my lungs with that mighty fine tobacco smoke and thought about stuff
Mostly about how good that first beer was going to taste when I was all done tonight
Regardless of how things turned out


Monday, March 10, 2014

Mack The Head

Mack The Head definitely had a head
As a matter of fact
That's about all that he had
It was a body that he lacked

Fed with slurry in a tube
Directly into his cerebellum
Fortifying both his brain
And supporting microbes with their flagellum

Mack The Head never went out anymore
The paparazzi hunted him mercilessly
For cover shots in Enquirer
Where his colors were reproduced marvelously

"Mack The Head Rolls Fifth Avenue!"
Always a circus following him around
In his mentally controlled electric cart
Of crafted titanium close to the ground

Wires sprouting from his temples
Electricity pulsing visibly
Mack The Head longed to be a super villain really
Were it not for the League of Super Evil's body bigotry

He'll make them all pay someday
This he yells at people silently
Making them think that he is tired
And yawning incessantly

Now tucked into bed
A little head bundle of riotous rage
Mack froths in his frontal cortex
Till he falls asleep dreaming of a different age

Where Mack The Head is nobody different
Blending in with the crowd everywhere he goes
Enjoying something he only does when he dreams
Digging knuckle deep gleefully picking his nose


Sunday, March 9, 2014

Ax On A Plane

The crash ax caught my eye as I boarded the overnight flight to Bordjetskeu
I could just barely see it through the two inch gap in the partly open cockpit door
It had a vibrant red painted metal head on it
Securely mounted next to the flight engineer's desk
Just below the spare bulb and fuses box
And to the right of the first aid kit

I sat in seat 3B on the aisle
Now securely belted in as the aircraft went through preflight checks
Engines starting, servos whirring, pumps pumping, fans fanning

There's an ax only seven feet away from me

The cockpit door wasn't completely latched
It kept gently bouncing closed
Then slightly ajar
As we taxied from the gate to the runway
And I kept thinking that THIS time the latch would catch
But it never seemed to

I could still just barely see a sliver of shiny red every time that door came open




Saturday, March 8, 2014

A Maudlin Retreat From Sanity

I hide beneath my umbrella
Sheltering myself from your tears
"Oh why oh why do you cry" I ask
"Is it from the pressure of your fears?"

Or is it the counting of your hours
As they blend into days and nigh unto years
Prancing about upon cloven hooves
Suffering a demon's demented leers

Perhaps your carriage has broken m'lady
Making horrid grinding noises within it's gears
Though I think it may be under warranty
Seeing as how you recently bought it at Sears

But now I see that it is due to the absence of your favorite pursuit
The annual sticking of the center spheres
With muscular riders straddling their mounts
A'glinting tipped longhorns adorning galloping steers

Alas all this is only making a sow's purse out of pig's ears
As the surgeon can opens your skull for a closer look
Even as your brain looks back at him as he peers
Causing him to scribble frantically in his little black book

Sanity, it seems, is fleet-footedly flying from your grasp
And I remain your steadfast servant
Decisively dodging your tears up to your last gasp

Friday, March 7, 2014

A Wait of Spring

And yoe
The sleepers lay unhurt
Beneath the winter's snows
Frost gathered in their baskets
Where flowers often sprung
Awaiting season's changing
And the warmth of the summer sun

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Inappropriate Nicknames 1

Thumbs MacGintee
Had no thumbs
Though how that came to be
Was a mystery to some

He wasn't so very pretty
But had plenty of stories
And if you filled his glass with scotch
He'd take the time to tell you of the seas

Of mysterious mermaids
Of whales big as continents
Kraken who'd take out your eyes
And a monkey who'd follow wherever he went

But they'd all end the same way
Half drowned washed up on some key
Staring at the scars where his thumbs used to be

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

No, Puppy!

"No, puppy, no, no, no, no"

But she never listens
She only cocks her head
And keeps on doing what she is doing
Which is naughty and bad
She is certainly the worst dog I've had

"No, puppy, no!  No, no, no!"

She continues to shred the toilet paper
Until the room looks covered in snow
Then she frolics in it
Bounding about in puffy paper explosions

"No, puppy, no!  No, no, no!"

I can't keep up with her pee spots
I've run through all my vinegar
I've bought all the Febreze
There no way to put my nose at ease
She's just the worst puppy
And really quite a tease

One time she went five days
Without doing anything wrong
I looked at her and asked
"Whose dog are you?"
To which she gave me a look most smug
Then she copped an immediate squat
And went number two on the oriental rug

"No, puppy, no! No, no, no!"

But then at night
She creeps onto my bed
Laying her bad little self down
On the spare pillow next to my head
Looking at me with those same brown eyes
That made me pick her out when she was new
And I think how she won't live forever as time flies

I scratch her behind her bad puppy ears
"Yes, puppy, yes.  Good, good, girl."


Monday, March 3, 2014

Arizona Suess

You are surely as wrong
As if you wore a sharp metal thong
For those with doo diddly spots
And mottled bottle splots
Are not as good as us
Us being the ones with none
I'll help them not!
Not a single one!

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Outdoor Sex

The pair of them lay upon their backs
On a scratchy blanket from the back of the car
In an open field somewhere in Vermont
With warm summer night air washing over their naked bodies
Starlight bathing them both
An arm of the Milky Way arcing overhead
Amidst the blinding array of stars
In the dark hour of three in the morning

"What are you thinking about?"
Alice asked him as she reached for his hand gently

That question and her tough upon his fingers started jolts of electricity within him
Along the nerves from his hand
Up his arm
Chasing it's tail momentarily in his shoulder
Before sprinting up his neck to his brain
Where thoughts and images flooded his Mind Theatre

Does she love me?
Do I love her?
I really love the new rims on my truck
Maybe I just got her pregnant
We should get married
The baby would be beautiful
The baby might be retarded
The baby will have an inside out chest
I'm hungry
She tasted like a food I never knew I wanted
I wonder what Susan from English class tastes like?
We should talk about abortion or adoption
The stars are so beautiful
Susan probably tastes like a bitch
I have to mow the lawn tomorrow
This blanket is itchy
I kind of want to fuck her again

Bobby answered her 
Rolling onto his side and kissing Alice softly on the lips
"Nothing really........."
His hand drifted down between her legs as the kissing intensified
Her legs parting to accommodate his want

The sky above flickered balefully in atmosphere induced effects
Lighting their lovemaking
Or if you couldn't call it that
Then their sex