Abstract Collage of Evocative Nonsense

The tiny electric alarm I’ve been set for goes off, and I yawn to life. Groggy with hibernation, at first all I notice is the fan spinning above me.  Soon, sounds coming from down the hall let me know the Window is accusing the Door of abusing the Wall again.  Married couples.  They never seem to stop arguing. Quiet for a moment, these solitary thoughts keep me company until the VCR beside me screams “12:00!” “Yes, VCR,” I say soothingly.  “It’s 12:00.  Again.  Good morning, TiVo.” “Good morning, TV,” she replies. “I hope you slept well.” “Yes, I did.” “Good.  I’m glad to hear it,” I say, cycling through channels.  “Would you please start recording channel 26.  The Price is Right is almost on.” My request is greeted by silence. “TiVo...?” More silence. “12:00!” VCR screams again.   “...You know,” TiVo hedges, “there’s a fascinating docume...

In the spring, a new road was built.              Bulldozers and tractors of no small size tore up the prairie grass and wild flowers.  When they were finished, a new patch of bright black asphalt lay, suddenly, sodden and shimmering in the cool afternoon sunlight.              A week later, the telephone poles were put in.              More tractors, more men with their trucks laden with brilliant orange reflector barrels, swarmed over a road so new, the lines hadn’t even been painted down the center.  They dug at the brown earth with their shovels and steel-toed boots, erecting towering wooden masts as evenly spaced as fence posts; each one still glistening with a sappy, molasses coating that smelt of benzene and pine needles.  The wires went up, and the lineme...

Words that have no rhyme in English -- besides gibb’rish -- are, more than not, a bright hued lot. Why do colors vex poets so (Well, just ask Poe, does “ purple ” rhyme? is “ silver ” prime?); They work just fine in common prose. ...Though no one knows, the word “ orange ” sounds like “door-hinge.”

When Saint Peter asked me how I’d died -- If I’d been drowned, or burnt, electrified, Shot, stabbed, laid low by homicide -- “I forgot,” was all that I replied. “No,” I said, feeling mortified, “I bit the dust, another lonely suicide.” With that, his angelic eyes grew wide. “Not on purpose, though,” I clarified. “Skydiving one day, goggle-eyed,  I became a bit too preoccupied  Admiring the beauty of the countryside  To notice my chute had come untied. How I forgot, I’m still mystified; But I could only watch, horrified, The chord did nothing every time I tried, As the Earth and I were about to collide.” Saint Peter waved his hand, satisfied. “An accident,” he said, “hardly suicide.” “It was my fault, though” I sadly sighed. “You see, I’d become so terrified, I forgot... the reserve chute on the other side.”

         Now     0 is a fat cypher who’s married to 1, an unpretentious         skinny number,         like Jack Sprat and his wife.         2 is just an ass, alone like         3, who’s rather odd, an unfinished heart but leads the other numbers, dutifully. 4 is stocky and graceless who holds hands         with 5, the most clever number.         And                 6 is a petty gossip, jealous of                 ...