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Images Conceits & Lollygags

Suzanne

April 29, 2015
In March, when the tall trees bend
To the pressure of a hard east wind
And the bare earth lies moist and new,
I stand and marvel at this brand-new world
And wonder at its rebirth, and think of you
Standing somewhere thinking of me.

Now somewhere doesn't seem so far away
And it seems like I left just yesterday
And will be home tomorrow
Of course that isn't so,
But in March it certainly seems that way. Read More 
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Sherlock Holmes of London - a poem

November 28, 2014
Tags: Holmes, poem
Sherlock Holmes of London
a verse in four fits
by
Michael Kurland

If you’ve a missing heir to locate, or a bank you have to guard,
There’s only one detective, and he’s not from Scotland yard.
When the duke has lost his coronet or the treaty’s gone astray,
It’s Sherlock Holmes of London who’s called in to save the day!

What the dog did in the night-time only Sherlock Holmes can hear.
He knows why the boot was missing from the doorway of the peer.
You may find him considering where redheads can be found
Or lost in thought while studying the footprints of a hound.
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CVJ Poem

April 1, 2014
Tags: poem, Chester Anderson
In honor of missing friends,
this poem by CVJ Anderson:

    How short a time
       For walking under trees
          We're given.
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Right and Wrong

April 1, 2014
Existentially speaking, there's no difference between right and wrong. Right?
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The "Dignity of Labor"

February 19, 2014
I'm getting tired of the right-wing blather about the "dignity of labor." I imagine the "dignity of labor" is what the slave owner called it when he was looking over the cotton fields with a whip in one hand and a mint julep in the other. It's what the sweat shop owner called itwhen he stood at the end of the long line of teenage girls bent over sewing machines.

The "dignity of labor" is what the Republican lawmakers pull out when they're explaining why a raise of the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour (still not enough to live decently on) will shrivel the soul of the American worker. It's one of the excuses they bring up while explaining why they should have health care but you shouldn't. They have conveniently forgotten the second half of the expression "An honest day's work for an honest day's pay."
Phooey!  Read More 
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Suits

September 8, 2013
Tags: Suits, Justice
About a decade ago, maybe more, a factory burned down somewhere in New England. It took a year to rebuild. For that whole year the owner of the factory kept paying his employees their full salaries until the plant reopened. I remember hearing an interview with the owner - I don't remember his name, or what the factory made, but I remember that the interviewer asked the owner why he kept paying out these salaries. The owner shrugged. "How many suits can I wear?" he replied.  Read More 
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Some thoughts on the Pledge of Allegiance

September 7, 2013
Tags: Pledge, stupidity, God
This from my friend Howard Pearlstein:

I was asked about this and this is what I answered -- my objection not religious but semantic...
 
*********
 I am not an atheist and I never cared one way or the other about daily bible readings in elementary school.
My objection to the insertion of "Under God" has always been that it defeated the purpose of the Pledge.
Consider this, syntactically:
When you say: "One Nation, indivisible.." you're saying this is one indivisible nation. One whole coherent unit. That we are all one people bound by a common ideal.
When you say -- even worse, change the assertion that we are all, regardless of individual difference, all one people, when you change it to:  Read More 
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Some Short Poems in an Unfortunate Style

July 14, 2013
Tags: Poems, unfortunate
cabbage is not a fruit
but it will have to do
There are no strawberries

kale is not a fruit
but it will have to do
there is no cabbage

potatoes are not a fruit
too bad.

I am tall,
You are short.
The consequences of this
Will soon be felt

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Star Griffin editorial comment

May 10, 2013
Tags: star griffin
Praise from one's editor is praise indeed. This from Fender Tucker, who is putting out the new edition of my 1987 novel Star Griffin:

Mike,

I really enjoyed reading STAR GRIFFIN. When I edited it I saw all the fonts and formatted areas and thought it would be one of the spacey SF experiments that  Read More 
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Silent Movies

May 3, 2013
Tags: movies, my mother
When my mother was a little girl in the 1920s she used to go to the movies on Saturday, where, in addition to the feature movie and a newsreel and maybe a cartoon, they usually showed one episode of a weekly serial. These were called Cliffhangers -"The Perils of Pauline" is the classic example, and each episode would end with the hero -- or often heroine -- in some deadly peril. Often literally hanging off a cliff. My mother used to worry about the heroine hanging there all week until the next episode, and hope that someone was bringing her sandwiches.  Read More 
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