Thread: As it appeared in my 'end of night report'

Now I`ll hie away
`Ere break of day.
This nights banding done

For daylight`s dawning
Could find me yawning
And dreaming of flights more fun

Oh banding`s a task
For a great time past
Though can leave the hands some hurtin`

But with the morrow`s Sun setting
One thing I`m betting
There`ll be more banding for certain.

Tired of crappy 'end of shift' poetry yet? Here`s some more in case you aren`t.


When all is lost in a haze
Deep inside a plastic maze
And your eyes begin to glaze
It`s SPRAY GLUE

When it`s deep inside your brain
and it`s feeling like champaign
but you should be feeling pain
it`s SPRAY GLUE

When you`re dreaming of a pool
but it`s really just your drool
and they`re calling you a fool
it`s SPRAY GLUE


Some of the reason I write this stuff is sort of a protest against the crappy work I am having to do right now. Thinking maybe it is just too subtle though. It is, however, classier than just saying 'This crap sucks'.

Then there was the story I started writing a little bit back. Nothing to do with work really. It just started coming out over coffee one morning.



People grieve the way they need to.

One time this friend of mine lost his Aunt. He was pretty close to her. She seemed to take care of him like another parent sometimes. Other times he told us about how she had helped with problems he just couldn`t discuss with his Mom and Dad. It seemed like a pretty neat arrangement to me. An adult who cares like family should, who can get you the things only adults have access to, yet can not lay punishment down. Pretty sweet deal, if you ask me.

It was sudden. Car accident really messed her up. The lady lived for three and a half days at the hospital, but she never woke up to say goodbye. That seems sort of scary to me. Not death so much. I mean, hers came quick for her. Not a long time to linger over the details of whether there ought to be lillies at the funeral or whatever. Everyone dies anyway, so it isn`t like we get cheated out of something.

She didn`t get to say goodbye though. That`s gotta suck. No last time out to give a little word of encouragement or something to those who will remember you. No moments to apologize for that stupid argument about drinking out of the orange juice carton. No transition. One moment you see someone who cares about patting you on the head, next time, all you see is wrecked flesh with tubes running every which a way. You don`t dare to touch anything because you have no idea how solid the connection is. Maybe you just lean over to get a closer look at her face and unplug a kidney or something.

Sometimes I wonder, when people die quick like that, is there even a last second of synaptic fusion? If there is, do people ever wonder, ‘like Hey, who turned out the lights?’

I guess that is what the funeral is all about though. Chance to say goodbye for someone that can`t actually say it themselves. Went with my friend that day. Seemed somber and respectful and all, but it also seemed sort of cartoony. Like everyone present was going through a role. Sort of choreographed, complete with music. I didn`t completely get it. Seemed to me like people have different ways of saying goodbye. Herding them all through a mill seemed somewhat disrespectful of that. Maybe some people need this sort of goodbye though. I could allow that someone might be feeling the sort of loss of the illusion of control we all seem to cling to. Maybe a step by step process puts up the idea that the World is not really as whimsical and capricious as it has demonstrated by killing off our loved ones.

The viewing really blew it for me. Don`t get me wrong, it was amazing that they even had a viewing. I had heard car accident and envisioned some scene from a splatter flick. Blood and guts all over, mayber her head over here, maybe not even her whole head. Cars are big and fast. People are small and squishy.

Not the way it was though. She was just laying in the coffin, business dress, little flower thing, and so on. Her face was wrong though. I don`t mean mangled and rebuilt wrong. Just over all wrong though. Wrong shades of make-up, not quite applied the way she had worn it. On top of that, something was just missing. Maybe muscle tension plays a role in the face we wear from when we awaken, to when the lights go out. I don`t know. Something just seemed a little off.

My friend was tough. He was pretty down, but he never broke that I saw. Couple times I managed to get him alone and get him to smile at a joke. Seemed pretty tired though, so I tried not to mess with him too much. Just sort of hung out and sipped cocoa. Didn`t really know anyone else there. Managed to eat a couple cookies too.

Crazy how they had food there. I mean, this might be a quiet party, but someone really knew how to put on a spread. Not many people really ate though. A few friends of friends had come along. Maybe they actually came for the food. It did look really good. Couldn`t eat though. My own stomach just felt sort of knotted up and hot. Really I wanted to make up a giant plate and wrap it to take with me. My stomach has felt like that before and when it un-knots, it`s always dead empty and I`m starved.

It really seemed rude though. Who in the World would take advantage of people dying just to stuff their face with shrimp and muffins? Talk about sick and wrong. Like imagine it -

"Hi hon, what did you get at the store?"

"Nothing. Today was a freebie at the funeral home. I put a bunch of baggies in my pockets and went shopping there instead."

"Oh really. Who died? Put it all here on the table."

"Umm, hmmm, don`t know really. Look at this. It`s like pastry with cheese and herbs, and itty bitty stuffed tomato dealies, got a bunch of stuff wrapped in bacon, I think the dark ones are liver bits…"

See what I mean? Sick and wrong. People wear clothes and live in houses. We farm food instead of tracking it down in the boonies, but some behaviors… Well, a vulture is a vulture, even if you dress him in a suit and put him in a house.

I didn`t actually see that though. Sometimes my imagination runs off when I don`t know what else to do. Usually it is a sign that I am tired though. Went over to my chum. He was staring a hole in the floor, so at first I just waited to see if he`d come out on his own. He didn`t though, so then I touched him on the shoulder and said, "Hey. Yah-ahrr-ite?"

Just so you know ‘Ya-ahrr-ite’ is one of our jokes. Sort of like a contracted word made up of the phrase ‘Are you all right?’ Some people mistake it for ‘yea right.’ Sometimes now we use it that way, just to mess with people. If you make an ‘ah’ sound with your mouth, you barely have to move to say the whole word, until you hit the t at the end. First thing my chum had ever said to me.

Back in jr high in gym class. Never was much into sports at school. Sometimes I played soccer with my friends, but I just never got the whole ‘competition’ thing. Aside from that, I was the short kid. Anyway, I was standing in a far back corner when the ball just sort of rolled up to me. Stopped rather than let it go out, and was going to just kick it away. Didn`t even have time to look up though. I just trapped the ball and SLAM, I`m laying on my back. Hear this voice saying "Ya-ahrr-ite?"

Kid had a huge grin and held out his hand. "Yea, I think."

He said, "You might want to watch for her. She`s been chasing that ball all period, and I think she`s pissed that it`s been going faster than her."

"Yea, ya think?"

Geez, I had been knocked over by a girl. Granted, she was about a foot taller than me and built like she should have been playing football, but that wasn`t going to take any of the sting out of the locker room comments over the rest of the week. Dude that helped me up hadn`t goofed on me though. He actually gave me a warning. Just because you`re standing in the middle of a field trying not to touch anything does not mean something is not going to come get you. Maybe I had made a friend. Jr. high school might not suck so bad after all.

Right and wrong actually. I had made a friend, and jr. High school did suck.

"Ya-ahrr-ite?"

He smiled, "Yea, right."

I smiled, "Ahrr-ite. Listen man, I gotta roll. You need anything though, call me up, ok? I`ll be around."

"Ok man" a long pause, then "You know it`s just … so messed up right now. I don`t even know what I need."

We both paused and looked at the casket. We knew what we really needed was for the Universe to relent for a day.

"Yea. Well Drew, you think of anything, Sam`s the man. Remember that."

"Hmmm, did you say A-ny-thing?"

I paused, then smirked,"Well, I don`t know if I can afford to rent you one of those, but I could try. Really though, on my budget, we`re probably talking an inflatable sheep and stealing some cooking oil from your kitchen."

He started shaking his head and smiling, so I ran with it, "Actually, on my budget, weeeelllll, the sheep may be, ahem, slightly used. Gently used, even. You know what? Let`s not say used. Let`s say Experienced"

"God, you`re so wrong.", he said finally laughing.

"Not the worst I`ve been called today."

"Sick?"

"Not even close."

"Demented?"

"What are you? A car salesman?"

"How about psycho-nutball who`s slightly off kilter?"

I pretended to think about that a minute. "It depends. What`s a kilter and why is it cool to be on one?"

We laughed some more. "Get out of here wacko. I`ll call you later."

Yep, probably wrong to laugh at a funeral. Hated seeing anyone I cared about hurting though, and I had no idea what to do to fix this.

It was a couple days later that I got tired of waiting and called him. The guy sounded so tired I almost gave it up, but went ahead with telling him I had way too much pizza to eat by myself. Drew said he wasn`t too sure about the eating part, but that coming over sounded like a pretty good idea




Yea. Had to quit writing to go work. Having a hard time getting back into the mood now.

Say, I had a thought. If anyone would care to comment, how do you find this mood to write again? Whence commeth thy muse? When I do find the mood, I can seldom hold it long enough to crank out more than a few paragraphs before being interrupted by something, usually what I have to do to fund my eating habit. This pretty much only puts me in the mood to write drivel, as though it were causing my brain to leak out of my anus.