Daniel's Being a Worm, (and I don't mean that in a good sense.)

I was gone at the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin college in Grand Rapids, Michigan from Wednesday to last evening.  I'll write about it in more detail later- today, my goal is to get the poem(s) I promised for Mondays out, and to share what's going on in my life at this very moment, which is that... 

Daniel is being so, so, so mean to me. 

So far, he has told me the following:

"Go back to Michigan so Joyce (his beloved aunt) will come over again."

"You're still here?  I thought you were going back to Michigan."

"Maybe you should just live in Michigan."

"Why do you always put my stuff away where I can't find it?  I hate that."

"Joyce makes peanut-butter-and-jellies better than you."

"Here are the people I love:  Dad and Ben and my teachers and my blue doggy and Joyce and Grandma and Grandpa and THEN you."

"Where's Michigan, anyway?" 

I'm trying to be stoic and not dissolve into a puddle of self-pity and hurt feelings. 

On the first day of the conference, I had the pleasure of hearing Aaron Belz, and I can't quite find the words to describe him.  His deadpan performance was as enjoyable as his bizarre images.  Here are two of the poems he read:

Worms

Cyclists, as a rule, think bikers are cheating,
because they have engines. Pedestrians, in turn,
think cyclists are cheating; they use wheels.
People in wheelchairs think pedestrians
have a leg up, for obvious reasons,
but pedestrians think the same thing
about people in wheelchairs; they use wheels.
What makes people in wheelchairs unique
is that they also think cyclists and bikers
are cheating. Their disdain is uniform.
The wheelchairists' hypocrisy lies,
however, in their use of automobiles.
Everyone uses automobiles except worms.
Worms think they're better than everyone.
Worms think they're more authentic than everyone.
This is why people say worms are self-righteous.
To worms' credit, however, they aren't hypocritical,
except the ones that glide down the sidewalk
on hundreds of tiny legs, blithely ignoring
their wilted, sun-blackened comrades.
Those worms are called millipedes.
Those worms are really bad apples.


--Aaron Belz


The One About the Ectoplasm and the Osteoblast


Aaron Belz

Some ectoplasm sits next to an osteoblast
at a bar. The ectoplasm asks the osteoblast,
“Why do you form bones?” And the osteoblast
responds, “Why are you the outer relatively
rigid granule-free layer of the cytoplasm usually
held to be a gel reversibly convertible to a sol?”
And the ectoplasm is like, “Wow, that is such
an awkward question.” And so the osteoblast
goes, “Seriously, why are you? I form bones
for the same reason.” The bartender, an osteoclast,
asks them what they want to drink. The ectoplasm
asks him what he recommends that’s on draft,
and he says the Dead Guy Ale, it’s a fresh keg.
They both break into fits of laughter. “Oh my gosh!”
says the osteoblast, “Dead Guy is a German-style
Maibock that’s deep honey in color with a malty
aroma, rich hearty flavor and a well balanced finish.
Now does that sound like the kind of beer we drink?”