Barrack and AWOL Following Tammy

I’m very coy and I seduce one girl, then another. They are dorm-mates in the house with me.
We are in a military barracks in some tropical region. Still, the barracks are spacious, clean, and simple.

Tammy (childhood dog) walks away from the barracks; she seems lost. I follow Tammy… out the fort, onto streets; I travel the paths next to streets.
Willa comes by in a plastic toy car. It’s a strange moment: neither of us is entirely excited to see one another; we resignedly say our hellos and a goodbyes.

I follow Tammy to the military city. A giant deluxe hummer as wide as the two-lane road is exiting. I grit my teeth as Tammy walks right across its path; however, the driver sees her and waited before moving the vehicle. As I walk in, I’m arrested for being AWOL (being late). I am interrogated by a chubby man and then his superior: a Condi Rice type of woman. I’m Hawkeye Pierce. I explain I was drafted into this. She corrects me. I re-explain I was drafted into this, then hired myself out as a soldier after the war.

Pizza Hut Again: Molten Hot to Cool Dairy

Back at Pizza Hut.

I’m helping out with a lady doing prep work. In my helping, I disturb some personal items she had laying on the table. I move on to the cut table.

This theme of helping only to be overwhelmed and hurting the people I try to help repeats a number of times; I forget the details.

At the cut table, the pizzas are stacking up at the oven belt’s end. I’m not cutting them fast enough. Nazer is there, with his professional no-nonsense, completely above the game and in control.

Then, dairy items start protruding out. A whole long rack of milk bottles, cakes, breads stand in a cool refrigerated room which was pushing out a crowd of molten pizza a second ago. It takes some time for me to investigate the items and to grasp the totality of the change.

Entirety

Tenderly you breathe upon me
 moving every atom
 brushing through my soul
Harsh lessons
 how is it I remain
 in entirety

Bugbear

Behold
No bugbear in my woods
but I
and the bugs I bare
Spider, mosquito, and tick
I tend
Scabs I once continually picked:
Beauty marks
Lost in my loving them

Koi Poems

The grey–curled dryad
spoke of a koi in the lake
she spied years ago
Koi in the lake?
Disposed by someone
Dispose of a koi?
Why not a lake full of koi?

I
I hunt for this koi
in this vast lake
a tug on my line
reveals grace–filled fins
            rainbow scales
             languid eyes
              from the depths
startled, I cut the line
regret its nursing my rusting hook
 blemishing its lip

II
I hunt for this koi
in this vast lake
a tug on my line
reveals grace–filled fins
            rainbow scales
             languid eyes
              from the depths
determined, I reel it in
grasp it
jerk out the hook
as its blinking eyes
wonder at my violence

III
I paddle
in this vast lake
a glimmer of light
reveals grace–filled fins
            rainbow scales
             languid eyes
              from the depths

IV
I dream of a glimpse
of grace–filled fins
     rainbow scales
      languid eyes
       from the depths

Library Heist

I’m in the library. I look for something to checkout; eventually, I decide against checking out anything.

As I leave and turn a corner, I see two teenagers, a white and black boy, steal books from behind the librarians as they help patrons checkout their books. The stealing is going inside to outside, back and forth; it’s all visible because the library has lots of glass in their walls.

Why steal from a public library??

Should I call the police? Yes. I call the police.

They go up the street. I chase after them. A policeman drives up; he knows I made the call.

Two older guys — thin, white, intelligent, college-age men — are walking around the park where the land is level. The are the brains behind the operation. Also involved are a group of small children, innocents.

I confront the black kid. He pulls out a gun. Somehow I manage to get the gun away from him. It turns out the gun is just a bee-bee gun.

Cut to in the school room, perhaps in a church. I talk about the stealing to the students, who are children of various ages.

I explain the two men arraigned it as a social protest of some sort. As I say this, I’m reminded of my own youthful demonstrations and I feel a pang of embarrassed regret at myself.

The black and white kid are in the class! It’s a strange, subtle confrontation with them here.

It’s hard to keep the students’ attentions; so, as much I want to explain the details completely, I try to wrap it up to preserve some semblance of effective communication.

I go to an adjacent interior room to get some object. I find something like a white orb in a small cubby area; I turn off the lights. Wait, there are teachers there, especially an older black lady. Lights back on.

I wake up thinking the Arthurian legend about the sword in the stone is referring to one’s true, scrawny self calling the shots, despite the seeming inappropriateness.