Reality 24/7

Unrestrained by the wise, abetted by toads 

The Day-One dictator will soon have the codes

He’ll knock allies, break treaties, he’ll trash global order

Impose big new tariffs and stiffen the border

At home, with his helpers (all in on the grift)

He’ll cut rich folks’ taxes and kill the green shift

He’ll cancel, dismantle, untether and wreck

Sometimes to score-settle, sometimes just for heck

He’ll name-call, dog-whistle, he’ll insult and brag

So the base will hold firm and believe him on MAG

And we’ll watch it non-stop, ’cause we be what we be:

Credulous suckers hooked on reality TV

Inspired by Tunnel Vision. Image by Ron Thompson, based on a photo by Oleksandr Delyk and the ubiquitous dumpster-fire meme, photographer unknown.

Tunnel Vision

When our old console TV broke, my mother, in the belief that you never throw anything away, and that she’d have the money to fix it someday, borrowed a smaller black-and-white set with a finicky bunny ear antenna, and placed it on top of the old set. I watched reruns of Star Trek, Gilligan’s Island, and I Dream of Jeanie in fuzzy grey tones. A year later, when the second TV broke, she got her hands on an even smaller set and placed that on top of the second. I carried on watching reruns—not noticing the tragicomedy around me.

Inspired by Autumn Moon. Illustration by Image Creator, character design by Filmation.

Autumn Moon

It was during the autumn moon, and she came calling

She took me to the tower top to catch a breath and see the city lights

How could I refuse those lights?

She took me into the streets to feel the city lights

And how could I refuse to feel those lights?

She walked me through the electric lights to a place where there were no electric lights to a place where there were only lights from within.

How could I refuse her then?

With my love I sleep, in her arms I keep.

How could I refuse her then?

Inspired by Getting Back to Her. Photo by Fred Ni.

Getting Back to Her

She forgot how to have fun

She forgot how to smile

Moaning, griping, bitching

Tired, dirty wasted place

No one seems to give a shit

Busy buried in internet space

7 am

She wakes alive

Her heart’s beating 

She’ll do something different today

Baby, she’s running

And you’re holding her hand

She’s all glittered up and laughing

Masses of friends

Enveloped in joy

Gentle touches, grateful eyes

Dancing and singing

Throats parched dry 

Feet aching, backs tweaking

Don’t let it end

Cool damp air

Rushes upon them

Wrists twinkling with traffic lights

Wanting to walk forever 

She found herself tonight

Inspired by My Secret Garden. Photograph by Lars Van de Goor.

My Secret Garden

Fear of identity theft got me worried enough to purchase my own paper shredder, figuring that if I was still expected to recycle my personal records, at least I could discourage the more casual fraudsters.

Next was to hide those shredded records at the bottom of the blue bin and pile it high with junk mail and fliers. Finally, the best advice I heard was to mix all the most critical stuff up with your compost—a stupid mistake, since now, every spring, when the wind blows through the garden, it whispers those secrets to every one of my neighbours.

Inspired by Food for Thought. Image by Image Creator.

Food for Thought

Phil and I were texting about hispi cabbage. Seconds later, the offending vegetable appeared on his Insta account.

     “Like, chill guys,” he said.

They won’t. Last year after a few Misko admonishments of ”None of your sass, Jordan.” I got a Ticketmaster ad. Currently, I’m flooded with knitting, Deadly Uncle memes, and uber atavistic period pants. Period Pants? Since I’m also targeted for incontinence products and thigh shapers, I guess it means I’m not completely profiled.

     So how about I throw them a bone? 

     Siri, where can I buy:

     — Caged glass

     — Vintage Tool

     — Merino Balaclavas

     — Mary Beard

     — World Peace? 

Inspired by Eat, Live, Whatever. Image of Nipper and His Master’s Voice by Francis Barraud.

Eat, Live, Whatever

I relish new culinary experiences, but I found cooking Kraft Dinner and pork ’n beans in one pot a disappointment. I ate it anyway. When I lived without refrigeration in Africa, I learned that piri-piri chilies can mask the taste of rotten meat; also, that overcooking is your friend. Those were good times. While backpacking in Scotland, I discovered canned haggis at Tesco. The ingredient list was off-putting, but the product was passable, if overly grey. Recently, watching me cook, my daughter asked, “Are you ‘live to eat,’ Dad, or ‘eat to live?’” Poor lass. She already knew the answer.

Inspired by Ode to Bread. Image scavenged from Reddit.

Ode to Bread (or Gluten-free Toast Tastes Like Slightly Warm Rice Loaf)

The evening before I took the blood test for Celiac, I pigged out on bread—a crusty warm-from-the-oven slathered in real butter sourdough. Toast had been my comfort—morning, noon, and night. Whole wheat with banana, eggs on rye, grilled cheese, Montreal bagel with cream cheese, pain au chocolat, baguette, pumpernickel—all turned against me, churned my stomach, made me choke on acid reflux, hurt my head and fogged my brain. I knew I had Celiac before I took the test, and long before my doctor confirmed it. But like a junkie, I had to have just one last fix.

Inspired by Superhero Diet. Photo by Nancy.

Superhero Diet

3:00 p.m. rise

3:05 Mountain Dew while on Insta, X

3:45 tiktok

3:50 another can of Mountain Dew, vape

4:05 cup coffee, vape

4:15 tiktok

4:16 Mountain Dew, vape

4:30 tiktok

4:54 tiktok

5:05 tiktok, X

5:11 Mountain Dew, vape

5:30 grape soda

5:45 tiktok

6:00 CBD to take the edge off the day

9:00 start commenting on tiktok seriously

10:00 THC

11:00 Mountain Dew, tiktok,THC

11:30 tiktok, etc.

12:00 commenting on TikTok, X

12:05-6:00 a.m. THC, coffee, vaping, Cheetos, vitamin C powder, continuous pornographic movies

6:00 bath tub - Mountain Dew, Lindt chocolate balls, Popeyes chicken leftovers

8:20 sleep

─────────
Inspired by Hunter S. Thompson's Daily Routine and Le P. Photo by Fred Ni.

Le P

Dinners out with my aunt and cousins in the early ’80s are memories that linger fondly. Eating at a restaurant was a rarity for us—my then 33 year-old single dad with three kids under the age of 12.
     It was woody, dark and cavernous with tacky saloon doors and an over-powering aroma of gravy.
     I barely remember the dinners, but I do remember the desserts. Holding my cafeteria tray, I would stare in awe through the finger-smeared plexiglass at the deluge of choice. Mostly jellos of various artificial colours with perfectly placed globs of chemical whip cream.
     Ponderosa. 

Inspired by Voss. Photo by 2womenwithapast on eBay.

Voss

Wrapping up the company, we needed some expenses to offset our sales, and so I’m sitting in the Harbour Sixty steakhouse asking for just water.
     “Sparkling or still, sir?”
     And although I’m about to indulge in The Most Expensive Meal Ever, part of me is hanging back at Swiss Chalet with my mother, who always considered beverages an unnecessary expense when the water was free and, figuring that “still” is just fancy talk for “tap,” makes what I think is the most frugal choice . . . and ends up with 800ml from an artesian Norwegian well and another $12.00 on the tab.

Inspired by A Causality Dilemma on Roncey. Image by Voss.

A Causality Dilemma on Roncey

A couple cans of beer
A tablespoon of fishy blancmange in a tepid yellow sauce
A potato pancake
A small bowl of beets
2 playing card-sized slices of pumpernickel
And a sliver of apple pie . . . $82
And the music. My God.

That’s 41 words and coincidently my share of the bill. 

I will now leave the remaining space, where fifty-nine words should be, for quiet self-reflection over my most recent money piss-away. What came first? The ridiculous concept of “Small Sharing Plates” or the entitled foodie-stooge willing to pay $16 for a pickerel quenelle the size of a Queen olive? 

Inspired by A Postmodernist Hundred. Photo by Noblige.

A Postmodernist Hundred

First Fred goes away and takes a pass on his turn. Then Nancy does, and I’m unexpectedly due to post next on the Corpse. But it’s Thanksgiving (Canadian, that is), and everyone’s visiting, and I’ve also got some work to finish. Really, I’ve no time, nada, to drabble, but I hate missing deadlines, and it’s only a hundred words. So, what should I write about? Someone suggests AI, but that’s depressing. I consider doing one on Trump, but he’s even money or better to win, and that’s truly depressing. So what’s that leave me? Three, two, one. There. I’m done. 

Inspired by circumstance. Image by Laura Chick.

Pride & Prejudice

The Church Lady on Garden still hovers.
     I brought her mixed nuts but she refused. Another day she offered me $5.00 and politely asked to buy her a “medium black coffee with a raspberry danish from Hot Oven Bakery.” She was that specific. She rejected the sugar. And implored me to take away an unopened bottle of Polish grape juice.
     I was humbly and sheepishly reminded that everyone can have a preference despite their life circumstances. During this weekend’s delivery, I truly wondered how her body continues on, but it does and so does her will, as she asks when I’ll be back. 

Inspired by Thanksgiving.
Photo by Wendy Whelan.

Did he fall or was he pushed?

Just as I suspected: trees can control when they drop their leaves . . . and maybe even if. In fact, it appears they don’t so much drop them as push them away. Of course, I base this entirely on an observation of the single tree in our front yard, upon which, after all its leaves had fallen this year, I noticed a single dead, dangling branch with every leaf intact. They were also all dead, of course, but still sticking fast. The tree had probably wanted to get rid of them too, but couldn’t.
     Is there a metaphor here that I’m missing?

Inspired by The Return of Little Gerry. Image by Image Creator.

The Return of Little Gerry

L.G. is 14 years old.  He grew quickly, then left home to live with Angelika when he was six. This summer he returned to us because he was feeling poorly.
     “He's better,” I said to her. “You should take him back.” But she refused, so he lived outside.
     The fall nights are getting colder, obviously he had to come in.  But now he’s a hefty sixty pounds, and it’s very hard for him to get up the stairs, thus we emptied the back room.
     For a plant.
     We’re squished like sardines. Gerry got an $850 chair to keep him company. 

Inspired by Mums. Image—Can I pee on it?—by Laurie.

Courage 2

A spring evening in Krakow, a long lineup at a local restaurant. I invite the elderly man behind us to join us at our table. He is friendly, his English halting. He was an engineer and once lived in California. I ask how, in communist times, he could move to the United States. He explains that he built a radio transmitter for Solidarity during martial law. When Radio Solidarity was busted he escaped and lived in exile until the regime fell. All this in an unassuming, almost shy voice. You must come visit my house, he says when we part.

Inspired by Courage in the face of authoritarianism. Photo of the Solidarity memorial in Warsaw by Ron Thompson.

Mums

I so want to buy those overflowing pots of mums. Lots and lots of them to bedazzle my house with yellow and russet. But they don’t last long and then I’d be stuck with dead flowers and too many plastic pots. Instead, I try to notice them. To appreciate their ephemeral pop of colour in the Autumn sunshine. To watch the trees in their glory and bear witness when the last of their jewelled leaves fall. To be fully present when the world turns and nature succumbs to November’s relentless grey. To be still hopeful a cleansing snow will follow.

Inspired by Urban Escape. Photo by Nancy.

Urban Escape

How to escape the urbanity of artisanal beards and authentic gym-made muscles by working the land, working the earth then be rewarded with callouses, whole body aches, trickles of blood—which sound like discomfort, yet are still more tolerable than ails garnered from a desk job because it makes sense to wince when branches of prickly ash whip across my face or wild rose thorns jab through clothes into skin whereas I can't solve the mystery of why my lower back aches from sitting in front of a computer. Unlike purchased authenticity, the real thing often makes you bleed.

Inspired by La feuille d’or. Photo by Fred Ni.

La feuille d’or

Dear yellow-orange leaf, there you blow.

It pains me to see you, such resistance I have to your change. 

I know you will flood me with warm days and cool nights. 

With sights and colours that leave me in awe.

But on this sweet September morning, I don’t want you to be there. 

This hazy breeze will soon be no more. 

The childhood freedoms that recirculate through our veins will recede again.

The serious Fall and fridged Winter, they twinge my heart. 

You will fall dear leaf but you are not dead.

Resting in a deep sleep, awaiting your rebirth.

Inspired by Out the Window. Photo by Wendy Whelan