Trash, Treasure & Little Fishes

Richard Hansen and friend

TRASH AND TREASURE

—Richard Hansen, Sacramento
 
When I was kid
there were large fires in front yards
with junk cars, broken refrigerators and rusty tractor parts
women that were not pretty and fat
in dingy dresses ‘n mussed up hair
walked into the yard carrying trash
to dump piles by men with poking sticks
yelling “git!” at kids zooming in
to steal a prize
anything they could find
that’d be held up high
and claimed as “Mine!”
To Throw in the Fire

I wanted to play there where
fire wasn’t dangerous
But we had an incinerator
and my brother was a teenager so:
He had the matches only mom or dad could give
which were to be returned after he finished his chore
burning household trash

It was the BEST job in the World!
we enviously gathered around him
if he had anything to say to us
we did what we were told
and sometimes he’d actually show us the matches
that could burn a forest or light a firecracker
"Wow!"
"Let me see!"
“How many are there?” we’d ask 
but he’d never count them rather
staying on task
we all stood back as he
Unleashed the Power

I was probably the only kid
to realize this:
The neighbors with the junky yard
had more fun than we did
because
We burned trash but they had fires
makin’ every bit of trash a Treasure Highly Desired

____________________

CLASSIFIED: PERSONALS:
DWM seeking companionship

—Richard Hansen

The successful candidate will be cheerful, personable, and sensitive to my needs.

Membership in the Cognitive Elite preferred.

Owning a truck preferred.

Attractive female preferred,

although gender, age, race, sexual orientation, the presence of disabilities, whether you are pretty pretty or pretty ugly or somewhere in between is of no consequence.

NOTE: if you are a gay male there’s absolutely no chance of physical intimacy.

NOTE: if you are an attractive female with that entitlement/pretty-girl-syndrome thing going on don’t apply.

I need someone to talk to, period.  Anything beyond that is undetermined.  If you need someone to talk to: FINE!  Although, your needs cannot be demands that interfere with my goals.

The successful candidate will not be alarmed if they catch me sobbing at my computer.

The successful candidate will appreciate Bob Marley and the Wailers; especially these songs: Natural Mystic, Cry to Me, Ambush in the Night, Concrete Jungle, Could You Be Loved, Kinky Reggae, the entire album: Uprising.  Also Jimi Hendrix: Little Wing, Still Rainin’ Still Dreamin’.

The successful candidate rarely watches TV except: (the original) Star Trek, Major League Baseball, selected PBS offerings.

If you are “insightful”, creative, artistic, possess a secure identity with the ability to Love intact, appreciate the profoundness of life, love and happily interact with children of all ages, then even your worst moods will be tolerated with empathy, compassion, and respect.

If you fit the above criteria and have fully extrapolated the additional unspoken “conditions of companionship”, please purchase or rent a house within easy walking distance from mine.

TONS OF LITTLE FISHES
—Richard Hansen

tons of little fishes
  swirling in tight circles
tons of little fishes
  swirling in tight circles
that blow apart in radiating particles
all
over the place !
meandering wiggly squiggly
till they see fins and tails
wiggling quickly just like themselves
searching
for space to be
just around the next fish’s tail they see
a vacancy
  constantly
moving very rapidly
hurry !!
get your place just up ahead
   just around this fish’s head
others are moving in
side by side tail to face
tons of little fishes
  swirling in tight circles
tons of little fishes
  swirling in tight circles
that blow apart in radiating particles
all
over the place

___________________

Our thanks to Richard Hansen for today's pics and poems! Artist-Writer–Poet-Musician and The Honorable Founder of The Groovy People’s Association (GPA), Richard Hansen, who, because of rarefied aesthetic acuity and insightful if not daring editorial policies, is published in print and currently online at primalurgemagazine.com, grew up in an insidiously savage wilderness raised by wolves disguised as Christians.  Having moved to California in the late '50s and despite being socially awkward, Richard attended and graduated from numerous distinguished institutions of higher learning only to fail at nothing except life’s most important things.  Though the source of his existent grooviness remains a mystery to all (including His Grooviness), Richard, having already founded the GPA years earlier, became a Writer in 2005 and lives and works happily and humbly in Northern California. [Richard, a person and a poet in his own right of course, is not to be confused with the co-owner of The Book Collector in Sacramento, who recently left us and moved to San Diego.]

__________________

Today's LittleNip(s):

ENDURING FINALS: DECEMBER 12

—Michael Cluff, Corona

Even though finals have us by the neck
soon they will be just a speck
of a past successfully endured
and from which all have matured:
students to reach their high goals
professors bringing knowledge to foals
that will make the world better
and pay the bill for any Irish Setter.
Next week sleep and frolic will be the norms
so just endure this week's storms
remember, finals are not like fiscal cliffs or cancer
next week concentrate on Comet, Donner and Dancer.
 

TARGET
—Caschwa, Sacramento

If hitting the nail on the head
is a good thing,
all of you are nails.

__________________

—Medusa, wishing you a fruitful and edifying 12/12/12