Amazon, Best Buy
Call it Cyber Monday but
Tuesday’s just as bad
Click away your dough
Wednesday’s worse, dot com shop curse
Thursday’s also sad
Digital dollars
Fly on Friday, Saturday
I go out to play
Nothing left to fill
The plate on Sunday, Lord have
Mercy Judgement Day
Starts Cyber Monday
But the digital drain draws
24/7
Starts Cyber Monday
Bills won’t be paid till I go
To cyber heaven
Jimi, still miss you
Your mind-expanding guitar
Rock’s ultimate drug
Black Friday: Don’t jump!
Your death wish fulfilled, no charge,
By fellow shoppers
Just try to get one
Of those huge flat-screen TV’s.
You’ll be flattened first
Women duke it out
Over cheap towels, the better
To wipe up the blood
Wielding pepper spray
And packing heat, we’re ready
To shop till they drop
Cash registers ring
And shots ring out: What do you
Expect at Target?
I know what I’ll get
To win next year’s shopping war.
Are tanks on sale soon?
Gather round, ask kids,
“What do we say first?” That’s right:
“Pass the cranberries!”
Turkey, dressing, spuds
Yams, beans, rolls — big bird won’t be
The only thing stuffed
Eat hearty, drink deep
Soon enough we’ll collapse in
Haze of tryptophan
Don’t forget dessert
Apple, cherry, pecan, mince
Pie with your Cool Whip
Circumference over
Diameter of squash-gourd
Equals pumpkin pi
If it’s my last meal
Skip the urn, keep my ashes
In a gravy boat
Couldn’t decide. Take your pick. I think I like the third one most.
Gift #1: Life
Gift #2: Sharing it
Gift #3: Thanks
Gift 1: To have life
Gift 2: People to share it
Gift 3: Gratitude
Gift 1: Our next breath
Gift 2: Our conspirators
Gift 3: Our true thanks
Sunny day, Dallas
When bullets rained down, stealing
A piece of the light
Coleman Hawkins, Nov. 21, 1904 – May 19, 1969
Really don’t know jazz
Do know I like anything
By Coleman Hawkins
The Hawk, hatched this date
In St. Joseph, Missouri
Baby, born to blow
Piano, age 5,
Cello at 7, at 9
Tenor saxophone
Many instruments
Many Midwestern homes
Nebraska, Kansas
Topeka High band
Must’ve really had some swing
Hawk doing his thing
He played in KC
Before the Big Apple called
Hawk was on his way
Fletcher Henderson
Gave him a chance, Satchmo showed
Him how to relax
He was the first great
On the tenor sax, and few
Ever outdid him
Lester Young, called Pres,
Told people Hawk really was
The tenor’s first prez
So swinging, so smooth
Miles Davis said Hawk showed how
To play a ballad
Chords and progressions
Hawk knew them all, but what’s more
He knew to evolve
Hanging with Django
And Benny Carter, breaking
Ground, “Body and Soul”
Helped when the time came
Ushered in new bop players,
Out-jammed them at times
Thelonious Monk,
Dizzy, Miles, Rollins, Coltrane
To name just a few
More traditional
In his last decades, but still
A winning tenor
Happy birthday, Hawk
Let that smoky sound tell us
All the things you are
63°
Fall afternoon, sun angles
Lower in the sky
Two pleased-as-punch mutts
Pull their young owner along
Pony tail, ball cap
Cracked country asphalt
Rebar-staked against the sprawl
Grass browned for winter
Hydrant amid trees
Odd artifact in nature
No truck comes calling
Litter of “Lite” cans
Aluminum smashed flatter
Than the brew they held
Lone hubcap, rusting
Little airplane gin bottle
Party in the ditch
An hour’s brisk walking
Indian summer’s last gasp?
43°
The first record store I ever haunted, Kief’s in Lawrence, Kan., turns 52 today. Wish I still had my “Rain”/”Paperback Writer” 45.
Happy birthday, Kief’s
Older than 45, not
Yet 78
You took all my cash
When I was a kid, priceless
Memories in return
Deliver papers
Get paid, ride bike to The Malls
Your spot in ’60s
Just two-ninety-nine
Most mono albums, a buck
More for stereo
Rows and rows of all
The latest vinyl, each with
A hole in its heart
But they spoke to me
So I took them home, we grooved
Over and over
Beatles 45s
Loads of Greatest Hits albums
Beach Boys, Hendrix, Stones
Mamas and Papas
Byrds, Hollies, Doors, Buckinghams
And Wilson Pickett
“Like a Rolling Stone”
With “Gates of Eden” flip side
Dylan masterpiece
A guilty pleasure:
Tommy James singles, but what
The hell’s a Shondell?
The Guess Who, Box Tops
Rascals, Monkees (Pre-Fab Four!)
Had to have them all
Get, spend, listen, love
Pattern I repeated like
A broken record
Happy birthday, Kief’s
Founder John Kiefer’s vision
Still rocks and rolls on
Capture a moment
And make it last forever
If only we could
Big development:
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre
Was born on this date
Painter, printmaker
Showcased theatrical scenes
At Diorama
His Diorama:
Popular Parisian spot
A feast for the eyes
But he made his name
With something else, breakthrough in
Still photography
Physics, chemistry
Met art in Daguerre’s process
Years of hard toil
Camera obscura
Cast an image to observe
But not to preserve
Another Frenchman
Photographed barn but it took
8-hour exposure
Daguerre got that down
To 20 minutes, called pics
Daguerreotypes — Natch!
Iodine vapors,
Silver-plated copper sheet
In big box camera
Then the fix was in
Sodium thiosulphate
Voilà! Still photos
Portraits elusive
Till faster shutters were made
But still, impressive!
Scientific pics
Through microscopes, telescopes
Amazing detail
Landscape photos, too
Revolutionized the way
Many saw their world
Thanks, Louis Daguerre
Think I will take a picture
It’ll last longer
(A sad epilogue:
Diorama, his lab burned
They didn’t last long)
————————
Random from the past:
Digital photos
Have no darkroom moments to
See what develops
Greg's Hack-u 