Long ago, Charles Dickens wisely noted, these are the best of times, and these are the worst of times. At present, the balance seems to be drifting toward the worst. Harsh judgments and general nastiness are flying every which way. Some are chronically disappointed in their own mistakes and shortcomings, while others loudly denounce the stupidities and failures of our neighbors.
And some, like me, swing both ways, genetically predisposed to identifying the egregious and erroneous both inside and out. The illusory algorithms don’t help. It’s difficult to live within myself and torturous to watch the news or go to town.
That’s why I reluctantly give thanks and praise to the giddiest, most irreverent, whimsical, Mutha of a Coauthor ever. She’s so far over the top there’s no defining or containing her. This is a horrible blessing.
Just yesterday, she livened my horizon dancing naked, ponderous brown breasts swaying like unhinged planets. Holding a rainbow flag and an assault rifle above her head, the Howling Creator finished her pirouettes, and the known universe bowed in prayer. I stood by, watchful.
She bent a witchy finger and beckoned me to come hither, but I ran for yon. The potential for defiant joy was palpable, but it’s safer to notice what’s wrong.
“Oh, my dear foolishness,” my Coauthor cackled from the back of a camouflaged pick-up. She shot off rounds with her heavenly auxiliary and scattered red and blue aster seeds in the wind.
“Asters are perennials,” I yelled from a safe distance. “And perennials often become weeds.”
She shrugged. “You need to focus on what’s good, If joy floats by, soak it up, gulp it down. Expand your innards!” She demonstrated with a thunderous belch and pounded her chest.
Despite myself, I burst out laughing.
“That’s it!” she shouted. “Now let’s expand the pie!”
She brandished a pie and sliced it open, freeing four and twenty blackbirds. Red-winged blackbirds, jubilant in flight. “You’re the niftiest little thing I’ve taunted all day!” she declared, delighted and crazed.
Our times are dark with fear. The blind are leading the blinded; the rich, filthy rich, the poor, desperately poor. Yet Creation gambols on, fighting the good fight, leaving no one behind.
We toil in the garden, be it Eden or hell, while she leaps about shouting, “All will be well.”
“Stop with the outlandish assertions,” I told her dryly. “No one believes you anyway.”
She feigned indignation, but I didn’t back down. She never tells the whole truth. She’s Queen of Poetic License, a victim of malicious misinterpretation.
She gave me a look. “I could just take my resilience elsewhere, you know.”
“I know,” I admitted. “Please don’t.”
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For more uplifting, cheery poems and conversations just like this, you can order our book from the YOU KNOW WHO online and for a mere $13.99, you can torment your soul every day. Also, I am now posting on Substack, and may drift there as my primary place to post.
