HOPPING AND FLUTTERING

This morning at the crack of dawn I was woken up by the doorbell. So I went down to answer it, and saw a dark shrouded figure doing what I often describe as the smoker's crouch, where one shields oneself from the wind to light up. It shuffled around as if to find the best angle, and in doing so kept bumping against the doorbell. But there was no pipe or cigar evident. Nor a cigarette or marijuana joint. Sadly, just another haveless San Francisco street eccentric looking for discarded butts. I gently shooed it away after it very politely apologized for having got me down. Going back upstairs I realized that their addictions keep many people happy even in the darkest times.

Cigarettes. Meth. Fentanyl. Marijuana. Adderall and conspiracy theories.

Which last two bring up that our dearly beloved leader wishes to tariff the heck out of foreign movies and become the pope, sort of the immoral authority figure for our age, I guess. After he passes of natural causes, or is poisoned by a successor, we can drag his body through the streets of Rome, put it on trial for heresies, and cut off the benediction fingers.
Then cast it into the Tiber. A fitting nod to hallowed tradition.

Oh, I forgot. Cheating at golf and hamberders.
He's obviously a very happy man.
The first bozo of our land.

Ranting, ranting, ranting.
For Freedom!

Just below the surface of the mind is a layer with glowing orbs and growing things. Not quite the subconscious, but more a swampy zone of distractions. Abounding with life. Fecund.
A place of mental decomposure.

It's where the earworms germinate.

One morning recently I had the Italian National Anthem going through my head reatedly, the next morning the happily singing underpants gnomes from South Park. This morning, for no reason that I can figure out, it's a bawdy song from two centuries ago.

[No, I wasn't alive back then. The song has been a favourite of reasonably literate people for generations, probably sung in the finest salons after the women had withdrawn to the sitting room and the men had crouched over and lit up their pipes, cigars, cigarettes, or joints, then passed around the port and poured themselves cups of coffee.]

A fractured horizontal smear of cold greys with things shooting off that bisects the plane, with glimmers of light through what may be morning mist. Autumnal, as is evident from the rusty oranges and dull violets, some indigo. Colder and wetter than here.

The pool is visually less important than the trees.
It is fecund there, abounding with life.
As well as decomposure.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================