Saturday, December 24, 2011

Numb Nuts:An Actual Condition or Is It Just the Holidays?

Looking at the photos in the newspaper, I couldn’t help but notice the pained expressions everybody was wearing. I knew that look. My old drill sergeant helped me learn all about it. It’s that look you get when your nuts are numb. Check ‘em out.

Texas Governor Rick Perry upon being informed that he was speaking in Portland Oregon, not Portland, Maine. If he looks like this a lot, well, you know the reason. His nuts are numb.

President Obama, whose nuts are not numb, just feel that way sometimes after a tough news conference. My, my, my…

How can they accuse Texas Congressman Ron Paul of racisim? Who knew he was black? But what’s he got his hands up there for like that? Is he going to catch a pass? No. Somebody’s throwing one of his old newsletters in his face Incomplete pass, no gain because his gold standard nuts are numb.

Speaker of the House House John Boehner can’t believe that West Virginia Congressman Alex Cantor just reached under the table and tweaked him. No deal numb nuts!

Somebody really should tell Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker that rattling those papers won’t denumbify his nuts.

Oops! Robert Di Niro’s nuts aren’t numb! Lucky, lucky man!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to know what happened to the spittoon?. O well, the frequency of this condition is proportional with age. Alas, the more, the more.

Paul Bernenke’s nuts are numb because he just realized there’s no wealth at all in the Federal Reserve.

“You’re all just…jealous,” proclaims presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. Journalist Paul Krugman is speechless. “Yowie, powie, zowie, that was a zinger, Batman!” thinks he to himself as his nuts go numb.

Queen Elizabeth getting a rise out of Prince Philip. (Psst. We got nuts. They have jewels.)

This is why everybody in the country’s nuts are numb.

Even Santa ain’t feelin’ it this year cuz his nuts are numb. “It was only a bottle in my pocket, little girl. I swear!”

You got to have numb nuts if you make fun of grandma around the holidays. Merry Christmas Everybody and a Happy New Year!

Saturday, April 02, 2011

A Walk Before Dawn

i love to be alone
with the world
that’s why i walk
in the wee hours
before the sun
erases the sky
of all mythology

my lonely footsteps
seem to echo
for blocks

up in the heavens
i can see a faint edge of white
run from a queen reclining
in the north
through a swan high
at the top of the arc
to a scorpion’s tail
in the south
pointing to the absorbing center
of the galaxy

the splash of milk is blanched
by the swift aging moon
now reduced to bull’s horns
just above the horizon

because my mind is sneaky
and full of time honored patterns
i’m worrying about my future

one sage of long acquaintance
always says fix your thoughts
upon the now

another says
forget the past-
repeat the mistakes

but the blind
singer of songs
as usual
had the balance right

though a man must
march with the times
he has an eye
for the day ahead
as well as

the day behind

i’m passing a gated community now
suddenly
as if my shadow
triggered it
an electronic gate
starts to swing shut
groaning on its hinges
not a soul in sight

an old world sage
would call this technicality
a synchronicity
a new world sage
far more ancient than
the old world one
would call it an affirmation

our creatively destructive world
would cheerfully remind me
one gate closes
another opens
in any given fiscal quarter

the question remains
what just closed in me
and what is opening?

my oldest friend
would scornfully say
an expletive deleted gate just closed
and what will most certainly open
is your foolish pocketbook

but as my footsteps
now echoing louder than ever
lead me back home
i can’t shake the hunch
he just might be wrong

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Driving Home

the rains have been abundant
and left the rolling hills
fat with grass

driving home
the wind blasted up the hillsides
and made the soft green
ripple like flowing water

all the creek flows have busted their banks
and spread out on the pastures
like lagoons

flocks of white cranes
meditate knee deep
motionless and buffeted
their feathers frumpy
in place of their usual grace
and elegance

one suddenly appears
just off the asphalt
up ahead on hiway 1
struggling in the wind
and almost hit by a truck

something drops from its beak
and a violent gust
sweeps the bird from sight
in a flash

a mouse lays stunned
in the middle of the road
another truck swerves to avoid
crushing it under wheels

as i pass
the mouse comes to
and dashes for the safety
of the grassy roadside

i love escapes
and this one made my day

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Only Way

The only way
you can talk
to a screaming person
is to wait
till they go hoarse
and whisper
in their ear.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, October 24, 2010

The Daemons of Leisure

The under-secretary of the treachery
Called the daemons of leisure to order.
Their fickle bones of mercury melted
As they oozed into their gilded chairs.
Oily serpents started at their sodden eyes
And slithered down increasing wrinkles,
Dribbling off their chins and staining waistcoats
Like bird droppings below a roost of buzzards.
They hugged their dysentery inducing
Money belts tighter to their buttocks
And opined with their flapping, pearly mouthes
While the bloody leader’s toady stooge
Sounded from his bully ranting pulpit
Like a tuba stuffed with desiccated snot.
He worked his nostril hairs into a fury at
The unbelievers of the bottom line,
The disenfranchised and the fatherless,
The misbegotten meek, the reason mongers,
The commissars of universal suffrage,
The evil-doers of egalitarianism
And everything that smacked of foreign accents.
Only further increase and vast conquest
Would stimulate the salubrious phagocytes,
(To steal a phase from Ireland’s Shakespeare)
And keep the hierarchy properly top-heavy.
But though the under-secretary of the treachery
Spat his well-spun phrases as vociferously
As a slot machine vomiting silver dollars,
The daemons of leisure felt their collars tighten
As they came to realize, from anus to insight,
That no matter how much silver and gold
They tossed into their well-dug graves
Mother Earth still gaped to receive them
Just like she would for the slightest tick upon a cur.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Damn Your Ignoring

Damn your ignoring.
I can’t wait anymore
for you to define me.

Everything’s been put
into the act.
It’s risen like
an outgrowth of nerve.

But its birth’s been
more the unleashing
of another prey for fate
than received as a gift.

It’s the children
who really bestow the reward.
Whatever’s of true worth
cannot ever be lost
and is surely passed on to them.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, June 13, 2010

The Road

The Road’s a Snake that twists and bends across the Land.
I pray You find a Friend who lends a helping Hand.
I pray You can forgive Me, Son, all Slights and Pains
And as a Man, that You not shun what Love remains.
This sudden Life cares not for what We grieve and feel.
To cling to Strife prolongs the Rut that Fate will seal.
An angry Mind will wander far to flee Regret.
Come Home! You’ll find the Door ajar, the Table set.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Two Thoughts At Once

 there are times
when i don’t want
to take my mind
off of you

 my daydreams are full
of sweet yesterdays
and exciting tomorrows

 work is a demand
that is hard to ignore

 loving you proves
i can and must
think two thoughts at once

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, May 16, 2010

What She Found

she found him
like a trampled book
kicked to the wayside

pity put her
on her knees
curiosity kept her
turning pages

she found so much
of her own story
written there

they lived a year in love
and then he suddenly died

alone again
streaming tears
she told her
family and friends
it’s only when
your heart is finally
broken that you realize
the only pages
that can’t be ripped
from your book of life
are those devoted
to the love you felt

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, May 02, 2010

Rainbow

 Omni-colored white reveals its secret
nature when storm clouds break apart and sigh
laments to the reemerging sun
their showers their course have run.
Sunbeams cut by tears into a rainbow
bridge all colors from earth to cloud throne
in bands of light only love outshines
and myths no eternity can dim.

 You emerged from the primal darkness
in a surprise of happy energy
that lit both the future and the past.
You are sung into my memory
as deeply as we share celestial eyes
and are all the promise God need give.

(for Mara)

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero