Resimonized

"Shrimp Boats Are Coming"

Two buddies
newfound enthusiasm for singing
surprised me last month.

Wasn't dumbfounded
-- didn't think grown males shouldn't --
just wondered why guys suddenly do that.

Struck me as whimsical
(but not right time to say so)
which was the end of the matter until this week.

On recent walks
Simon's become particularly active
when I hum him a tune.

Over last five or six strolls
the little boy's
developed his own rock-out style.

Bounces up and down
in the frontpack
grabbing my thumbs in his fingers.

Moves our hands
around to the rhythm
of any random melody.

When really excited
puts both of us
into his mouth together.

When really really excited
shakes the green felt hat
off his head and laughs.

I've made it a game
to revive the same Old MacDonald and Oklahoma
I sang to my three kids a long time ago.

My grandson doesn't know
I've forgotten the words
to Over Hill Over Dale and Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

Remember the pleasure
back when you were the parent
making up new lyrics from wholecloth?

Only thing matters to baby
is his music doesn't stop
be it whistled or even whispered.

No problem if
mama, dada, bubbe, auntie, or greatgrandpa
sub for me over the cell phone's speaker.

Familiar voices
still ring out
from that tiny metal box.

In ways
me as ventriloquist is
even more fascinating to him.

Come to think of it,
perhaps I smile
more these days.

Step lighter,
maybe feel
a bit happier.

Toes tap
with more
dancing inside.

Lately find
myself belting out
arias in the shower.

Happened
to stumble upon
something really good?

Thanks for
the help,
men!

9.29.

06
Pre 8.7.06 at http://sarnatscat.

blogspot.com/

"Hollywood Hills Reverie"

His little nose sadly stuffy since
scratched by nettles sniffing
pretty blue roses, I trek on a
bit, trying to settle my innocent
grandson, no crying, no matter.

Among normal new houses
just up the road, we happen
upon an old-fashioned crone's
home I know from the skulls
decorated with seashell eyes

in the wormy soil next to all
kind of DeMillish witches' hats
and brooms and iron pots full of
strange hag brew and four scraggly
rotting black crows on the roof

whose slanted broken down
shingles and chimneys overflow
with caca among awful cawcaw
calls from surviving big ugly birds
pecking empty crania dry below.

I take my cues from Simon,
leaning forward in his frontpack,
not whining, seemingly more
curious than scared (that's me),
his newbie mind still wide open.

We move closer to explore walls
packed with heads stacked industrial
style on a river bed red with blood
and chock full of stinking corpses
running wild with forager ravens.

Which appears okay with the baby,
so I proceed inside most tentatively,
only to smell loaves of tantalizing fresh
bread beckoning my taste buds though
baked from nearby crushed human bone.

A nice crown of golden thorns adorns
a king's trophy wife, propped dead
on an alabaster alter surrounded by
loyal knife-wielding soldiers and plush
courtiers sacrificed for their queen.