End of Imprisonment

I have been haunted lately by the ending of King Rat, an old novel by James Clavell. It was a movie too, but I read the book first, so that's what stands out in my mind. 

The book is about a young British officer in a terrible Japanese POW camp. He's not the King Rat. That's an American wheeler-dealer who kind of runs the internal POW economy. What haunts me is the ending. They get rescued. They are miserable, in a state of near-starvation, in a terrible way. 

Even that's not what strikes me. What strikes me is that their rescuers are not interested in how things were in the camp. Their rescuers are ready for the former prisoners to move on with their lives. All the power structures and conflicts from the prison camp... simply vanish. The people who were important are now nobodies, and everyone is expected to go back to normal. Not all the prisoners are ready to go back to normal. 

 I sure am. But a lot of people around me seem to be suffering from some strange malaise that's a bit like Stockholm Syndrome, a bit like Institutionalization, and a bit like Agoraphobia. They don't want to stop wearing their masks. Okay, keep wearing them. But please don't tell me you are still Following The Science. Because The Official Science took a sharp turn in the other direction. 

Well, terror can be traumatic. We had a year of media-fueled terror. It's going to take a lot of people a lot of time to get over it. I'm sure there are some who will not live long enough to ever feel normal again. 

It is the appointed hour.
We do not need to cower.

De Clutter

If I have a big pile of flyers, 

Some of which have expired, 

For classes on throwing things away... 

Tell me, what does that say?

Python

I assumed that the language, Python, 

Was simply named after a snake. 

You can see where that would be 

An easy assumption to make. 

But checking various sources, 

I found that the actual scoop 

Led back to a very silly 

British comedy troupe.

Return to Normal

Here in the States, it seems that all the vaxing

Is causing all the rules to start relaxing,

But now they want me to come back into work!

Can I say no? I don’t mean to be a jerk. 

It’s true that I miss seeing all my friends,

And maybe it’s time for pandemic panic to end,

But I have grown so fond of my commute:

From bedroom to my desk for remote-compute!

Edifice Complex Wrecked

Today I went by the address where my first three full length plays were produced. I was feeling sentimental, wanting to see what they’d done with the old moldy building. What they’d done is tear it down and put up a new building! 

 I can no longer say: 

“If only these stones could speak!” 

I guess I’ll just pray 

The basement no longer leaks.

Planetary

Because we didn't really know her birthday, 

We simply had to pick a date for Earth Day. 

Saturn somehow gets a day each week - 

Saturday in the language that we speak.

Every Minute

I paid a guy five bucks.
For a gullibility test.
He disappeared. This sucks!
You fill in the rest.

Calvinball

If you think Calvinball 

Has rules that are strange, 

Don’t worry at all 

They will rapidly change!

Distance

I was invited to write a play for an online 10-minute play festival. It's always nice to be invited! So I agonized in the way I usually do, and wrote one and sent it in. I hope they like it, because otherwise I will probably feel the need to write another one. The main stipulation is that the play should be designed as what I would call a "Zoom-native play". Each actor appears on a screen, and there's no pretense that they are "really" in the same physical location. The story somehow must involve people relating at a distance. Like a "telephone play" but with visuals.

 
It may be silly, but one of my worries, when writing for a short play festival, is that my play not be too much like the other plays in a festival. It's a danger when there's a shared theme.

Of course, the immediate inspiration for this is the way so many of our relationships moved online with this Covid crisis. But they specified that they were not looking for a negative take on the technology of long-distance interaction. They said they would be happy with the celebrations of our ability to communicate vividly over distance.

We've been living an existence
With an extra wall of distance.

 

Just Wait

If you have momentous news 

And you’re feeling fit to burst 

I still recommend you choose 

Some day other than April First.

Going for the Gold

I'm seeking an Olympic win 

In jumping to conclusions. 

I'm putting an aggressive spin 

On breaking-news confusions. 

The stories that you hear Day One 

Might change a bit Day Two, 

But red hot takes are so much fun 

Whether false or true!

Equality of a Sort

I'm just getting over the changing clocks, 

But my mind has fallen prey 

To this puzzle: Why call it an equinox
Instead of an equi-day?
I'm sure there's a very good reason,
But what it is, I can't say.
Welcome to the next season -
Let's celebrate anyway!

Little People Investments

 Leprechauns hold

Their pots of gold

As hedges against inflation.

They’re starting to tiptoe

Their way into crypto

With hesitant trepidation.

Edward, Originally

e e cummings 

liked lowercaseness 

regarded punctuation regulations 

as basically baseless

DST Short for DISTRESS

Why not spring forward one minute - 

And do it for 60 days? 

It works out to be equivalent, 

And spares me a horrid haze!

Characters

Not one, not two, but three alphabets - 

Japanese is the best language yet! 

Excuse me, now that I recollect, 

“Alphabets” isn’t really correct, 

Maybe I even said that for laughs - 

They’re syllabaries and logographs!

Elegant Antelope

An impala's horns point toward the back, 

Which seems to suggest that I'm safe from attack. 

But I'm avoiding them just the same 

On account of "Impale Ya" is right in their name!

Metamorphoses

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 

People get turned into birds. 

In Kafka’s Metamorphosis, 

Conversion-to-cockroach occurred.

In Ovid such changes are typically wrought 

By some offended god’s word. 

For Kafka no explanation is sought, 

His world is simply absurd.

Intellectuals

Sometimes intellectuals 

Seem rather ineffectual 

But over the longer haul 

Their efforts affect us all.

First Monday in March

Many ask: just what is Pulaski Day for?

We honor a Polish nobleman who died, 

Leading cavalry for the American side

In the original Brits vs. Colonists war.