Countdown

"How will you explain Daylight Savings Time to your cat?" asks Ivo, saying Congress may pass a law that it only apples to states with names of more than 2-syllables. I explain: "Reggie's time-agnostic. He can really only distinguish analog day from analog night."

Last night, packed into NASA Ames Immersion Center (Mt.View), Ivo & I watched the Kepler liftoff at Canaveral, surrounded by scientific graybeards & multi-ethnic families with teenagers, witnesses to galactic history...beside me, Dr. Ginny Zeitman (NASA), joined the hand-clapping countdown as I sat on my hands...

CHENEY raves alone

CHENEY raves alone
on the porcelain throne,
damning Obama’s blood
as lacking real manhood:

“Real men can disagree
about what's tortury,
but only communists
cancel war-contracts!”

CHENEY will retire
to Dubai to the heart
of Haliburton corporat,
protected by Black-
water Men in Black.

“I am who I was & am;
I am the realer Man!”
CHENEY boasts alone.


(05 MAR 09, Santa Clara CA)v5

People no longer

People no longer
ask me about Carolin
as tho they’ve just heard she’d died.

Those who need to know, now know;
the rest of the world will have to be told
in every way I am capable of:

On You Tube: Chef Carolin
crafts a Crème Marie Louise
as I sweatily sous chef her,
for as long as You Tube exists:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkDKecx2ZKI

Material irony: Carolin
really didn’t like chocolate
& only chose it out of sheer bravada
because chocolate impresses people,
always has & always will.


(06 MAR 09, Santa Clara CA)v5

Ri$ing Expectation$

A child bends over to pick up a penny,
an adolescent, a Benjamin,
a banker, a billion, expectations
just about equal: Where’s the next?


(05 MAR 09, Santa Clara CA)

Pennies into Dollars

Pitching pennies into a penny-jar
on your way out the front door
teaches your children

how to save pennies indoors;
rolling them up in paper tubes
teaches their paper value to banks.

What teaches us the reification of
millions, billions, trillions of dollars?

(04 MAR 09, Santa Clara CA) v8

A Libertarian

Once a Libertarian I carpooled with tried to talk me into mortgages as rock-solid investments: “My mortgage is my bank account!” he chortled, smiling. “But the bank actually owns your house,” I argued, “If you lose your job, the bank will take your bank-account-house. What will you have left then?” In his scenario, it could never happen. In a while, the computer company we both worked for was taken over twice. I wonder if he still works in high-tech, & still has his same suburban house?

Walk, off

After e-mailing Ivo that
light rain's cancelling our walk
to the posh mall a mile away.

I hold out my R-fingers
to my cat Reggie who sniffs
them, growling appreciatively.


(01 MAR 09, Santa Clara CA)v4