Comet Tales March 2020

Maxwell Reister & Eric Splittgerber

Tuesdays at Midnight

Note from the authors: This poem was created by two friends with a shared passion for Dr. Seuss and the song ‘Shore Leave’ by Tom Waits

Tuesdays at midnight by the Saigon Still

guttersnipes gathered to guzzle their swill

Huddled ‘round barrels of sulphurous heat

this clan lived a life of soot and bare feet

Festooned in trappings, threadbare and stained,

where wire-brush beards were a fashion sustained

This was a tribe of an itinerant sort

who lived beyond reason and were happier for it

Each with a story as long as my arm

which they told with great gusto to keep themselves warm

The first one to speak was a plump little man

with a bellowing voice and a very dark tan

He had on a robe and a silken top hat

and alligator shoes polished with fat

He said to the vagabonds that loitered around

Omar Epps is my name, I tell of a warrior renowned

A champion of brawlers, paragon of his kind

was Henrik the Scrapper, now- more than half blind

He fought for his honor, and for all of our clan

in the Bloodworks Arena, lined with cardboard and sand

A man beyond morals, a beast without shame

his tactics were ruthless and completely insane

With thumbs blunt from use, he’d go for the eyes

he’d leave his foes sightless, a grisly demise

Till one day he fought with Eyeless Eileen

she was blind from birth and had hearing quite keen

When Henrik tried to thumb off her ears

She pirouetted his grasp to the hoots of her peers

She fastened her mouth to his ocular slot

And sucked out his right eye with an audible pop

After giving the orb a chomp and a chew

She spat the remains in his left eye -Pitoo!

Henrik forfeited and Eileen was crowned Chief

And now they are married and never know grief

But not all who fight in the arena are lucky

Most end up dead as a very dead ducky

‘What becomes of the dead?’ you may very well ask

In the business of death, there’s but one for the task

A shadow approached the dim smoldering fire

Adorned in an outfit of eclectic attire

Upon the right foot he wore thirteen socks,

And the boot on his left foot squeaked when he walked

His legs were equipped in a similar fashion

With equal parts style, good taste, and strong passion

A pair of old snow pants and some faded pink shorts

Pin-striped Speedos and a belt made of quartz

He had on a shirt made from manatee leather

a vest of fine mohair, and an old polka dot sweater

Three separate neckties, and each one he bore

Tuesdays at Midnight beautifully dimpled with a perfect Windsor

An eye patch, a monocle, and three pairs of glasses

protected his eyes from hazardous gasses

He was the hobo mortician, and he didn’t shirk

gruesome death was common in Mortimer’s work

If a transient passed, and began to decay

It was Mortimer’s duty to erect the display

He’d rest their remains on a sled from the luge

and practice the art of post-mortem rouge

Using sauce from old pasta, applied in extreme

he created a fl attering waterproof sheen

Whiskers were trimmed and thoroughly washed

using mystical soaps regardless of cost

As payment for labors, the custom was clear,

he took one piece of clothing to add to his gear

Then all of the paupers and princes of panhandlin’

parade past the corpse with chalk and a dandel’in

The chalk is for tracing hieroglyphs on the clothes of the slain

Some meaning ‘Safe travels on the ole gravy train’

Some recommended a good place to dine

Like Pete’s Pickled Pigeons and a bar called The Brine

The blooms would be piled at the feet of the mourned

and the clan would tell stories to keep their hearts warm

END

Comet Tales February 2020

Works by Lorna Rose

Arizona

When my boyfriend Andy mentioned going hiking, I thought it sounded hard. Climbing over rocks, walking uphill, getting out of breath. I wasn’t sure it was for me. “C’mon,” Andy said, “It’ll be a new experience for you.” I shrugged. I was willing to try it, since I lived in Arizona now.

Andy and I had dated in college, and he moved to Phoenix for work as a stockbroker. I graduated a semester later and followed, my mind filled with thoughts of pending engagement. I was 22. I had reasoned that a husband would provide me stability in a sexy sort of way, that the road to forever was filled with romance and sex. It was boring when friends and others got engaged, but my being engaged - it’s when my life could really begin. Andy had given me a key to his apartment. “Don’t abuse it,” he had said, and laughed.

To prepare for my first hike, I drove to a sporting goods store.

Inside a salesman approached me. “What’s your hiking boot size?”

“I don’t know. This will be my first pair of boots.”

“What’s your shoe size?”

“Seven and a half.”

He led me to where the hiking boots were, against a carpeted wall at the back of the store. “So you’d probably wear….” His voice trailed off as another customer approached him. He held up his index finger at me. “I’ll be right back to help you.”

I waited and stared at the hiking boots for a few moments. He never came back. No one else came to help me either. I found boots I liked in my shoe size. I paid for them and left, thinking about my hike up Camelback Mountain in a few days.

###

The sun punched down on my back, and I could feel my unprotected skin start to sizzle and shrivel. I was wearing a workout tank top and workout shorts and a perfunctory layer of sunscreen, my hair ponytailed. I didn’t think it’d be this hot in March. I didn’t think the sun would be this pushy and unrelenting. When the breeze blew it felt like a hairdryer in my face.

I sweat-slogged up Camelback Mountain, taking big strides as I walked uphill, panting, mouth dry, stones crunching beneath my feet. My hiking boots were really more like shoes, thin and rising just below the ankle. I looked at the short shrubs and flat cactus plants beside the trail. Prickly pear they are called, Andy had said. I looked ahead several yards at Andy’s beat up army backpack on his tan, tank topped shoulders. If I listened closely enough, I could hear our water bottles sloshing around in his pack. I dreamed of water. My heart jumped and jerked in my chest, and sucking in the warm, dry air did little to slow it.

Before long I could feel my upper back grow raw and red, like a stovetop accidently left on, where it cooks nothing but itself. My feet felt squeezed inside my hiking shoes, and my toes hurt. I tried to keep up with Andy but found myself farther and farther behind. I panted on.

Finally he stopped at a rare flat spot and stopped to rest just off the trail in a clearing. I caught up to him.

I summoned enough saliva to form words. “Hey, can I have some water?”

“Sure. How ya doin’?”

I caught my breath. “I’m ok.”

We drank. After a couple minutes he put the water bottles back in his pack, swung it on his shoulders, and hiked on, me scrambling to keep up with him. Within a few minutes I was sucked dry again.

I called to him. “Andy?!”

A few yards ahead of me, he stopped and turned. “What’s up?”

I caught up to him. “I think I’m done.”

“But we’re not even halfway to the top.”

“I know, but it’s so hot.”

I could see he was sweating too, his face pink and his blond hair wet. “But you live in Arizona now. This is what it’s like.”

“Can we just go back?”

“C’mon, just stick it out.”

“My feet hurt.”

Andy rolled his eyes and sighed.

We hiked down in silence. Was Andy mad? Was he disappointed in me? He didn’t offer any water on the way down.

Three days later the blisters on my feet popped, my back stopped glowing red, and the skin began to peel and itch, and I had promised myself that once I found work I would buy bigger hiking boots to allow for expanding feet during a hike. I also began to think I should carry my own water.

The Disorder of Things

Birthdays, holidays, Mother’s Days hang heavy. They feel cold and damp. Reminders of days past.

Conversations with your oldest are hard. “Mom, am I still a big brother?” It’s ok to explain.

Baby showers are bittersweet. You’re happy, and yet - that used to be you, celebrating a budding belly. It’s ok to grieve.

You love others entirely in honor of the absent. It’s ok to heal.

Know that you will see him again someday, hold his little hand. You will be together, and natural order will return and forever remain

It’s ok to believe.