The Holy Grail Press
Proudly Made On Earth By Earthlings
Sex slaves FROM VENUS
and other poems
by Michael Soetaert
© Copyright 2026
Holy Grail Press, Portland, OR
Bad Poetry
It’s not easy writing bad poetry,
but at least I do it well,
unlike those who write the other stuff
where it’s often hard to tell.
​
Sex Slaves from Venus
Nigel came from the third moon of Venus,
which, like the other two moons
was also called Venus,
just to avoid confusion.
The third moon was the most invisible of the three,
but not nearly as invisible as the fourth,
only the fourth hadn’t been discovered yet,
so it couldn’t very well be counted now, could it?
“How do you know it’s even there?”
asked Leon, trying very hard
not to spill his beer.
“Same way we found the first three,”
answered Nigel.
“When we looked up in the sky
and didn’t see a thing,
then we knew they had to be there.”
“Oh,” said Leon,
convinced that even if he understood
it would still be over his head.
And then he paid for another round of beers,
since Nigel had left all of his earth money
back in his hotel room in Akron.
Besides, Nigel never dreamed
that he’d actually have to pay for beer.
On Venus it bubbles out of the ground
at exactly thirty-three degrees,
a fine light pilsner
that never slows you down.
Nigel had come to earth looking for men.
“On Venus,” he had explained,
“the women outnumber the men
one hundred-and-forty-eight-thousand
to one.”
“Wow,” said Leon.
“Fine women.
Foxy women.
Women with imaginations.
And they don’t mind sharing.”
“Cool,” Leon replied.
“And you never have to work,
because the women take care of you.
All you have to do
is sit around and drink beer, watch TV, and have sex.
All day long.
Forever.”
“Cool.”
Carl couldn’t believe
that his best friend Leon
had given over three hundred dollars
to some stranger he met in a bar.
“He had to buy a bus ticket back to Akron,”
Leon had tried to explain,
“‘cause that’s where his transmitter is.
He has it in Akron
‘cause nobody there will notice
when he calls the mothership
to come get him.
And get me, too.”
“But you’re not in Akron,”
Carl felt obliged to say.
“No shit!”
Leon felt obliged to reply.
“You see, I’m supposed to be standing
on top of the house
tonight at nine,
with my toothbrush,
my swimsuit,
and a towel.
Nigel’s going to swing by and pick me up
before heading out of town.”
Carl only had one thing to say:
“You’re an idiot.”
“You can come, too.
Nigel said it would be OK.”
Since Leon obviously hadn’t understood Carl
the first time,
Carl said it again:
“You’re an idiot.”
​
But just the same,
when the evening rolled around
Leon was up on the roof waiting.
And nine o’clock came.
And nine o’clock went.
And there was no Nigel,
nor any mothership from Venus.
But still Leon waited.
And at a quarter ‘till ten
Carl climbed up the ladder
to coax his friend down.
“They’re not comin’, man.
Comon down.
We’ll call up a few babes,
get us a twelve pack,
and catch the late show.”
“No, man, he’ll be here.
He probably got tied up in traffic
or something like that.”
Carl knew it was pointless to explain
that if you’re on earth
in a flying saucer,
traffic is not much of a concern.
He just climbed down,
went inside,
and made The Call.
​
And when the men arrived,
Carl wasn’t surprised to find
that they really did wear white coats,
and they really did have a straight jacket
and big hypodermics
filled with all sorts of interesting stuff.
And that they’d even brought a net.
It was then, though,
that the mothership really did come.
It really had been tied up in traffic.
And Nigel really was onboard,
and they really were going back
to the third moon of Venus,
which really was invisible,
and it really was over-populated with women
and under-populated with men.
And the beer and the work
and everything
was really true.
And, of course,
Leon went with them.
And Carl did, too.
And the guys from the hospital
could’ve gone as well,
but they stayed behind,
because you’d have to be crazy
to believe in such things.
​
Practical Predictions
Madame Sosostris,
Madame Sosostris,
tell me something new.
I know that I
someday must die,
and there’s nothing I can do.
I could care less
about life’s trials and tests,
my neighbors and their fates.
And I don’t care to know
who will come to blows
when they’re dividing up my estate.
Madame Sosostris,
Madame Sosostris,
tell me what I haven’t heard,
like who will place
in today’s race
at Oak Lawn in the third.
​
Christmas Cards
I send Christmas cards to total strangers.
I don’t know why.
It’s just something that I do.
It’s really not that expensive,
maybe a buck.
Especially if you use the cheap cards.
I just open up the phonebook
and randomly pick someone,
and then I start sending them cards.
Every year.
There are pictures of the pets
and one of those form letters
where you tell about how well your kids are doing in school,
even though they’re not.
It’s not like I’m being weird or anything.
There’s a return address.
I sign my name.
I guess what I’m really hoping for
is that somebody will think they actually know me,
so they’ll start sending cards back.
Maybe, after a while,
we could send birthday cards,
and maybe even a Valentine.
​
Mrs. Einstein
Albert Einstein reads his books
while Mrs. Einstein sews and cooks.
He sits and thinks deep, deep, thoughts
while Mrs. E. darns his socks.
And while Mrs. Einstein scrubs the bath,
Al sits downstairs working math.
She takes out the garbage and washes the floor,
cuts out coupons and goes to the store.
She mows the lawn and does the wash;
she fixes the roof out over the porch.
She scrubs the toilet and unclogs the sink,
and all the while Al sits and thinks.
And when Al finally comes to bed
with abstract concepts still filling his head,
he’s ready to tell the Mrs. his thoughts so deep,
but Mrs. Einstein is sound asleep.
​
Maggie
Maggie was a cat.
She was a good cat.
She did what cats are supposed to do well.
She slept, she ate, she laid around,
and she caught mice.
Maggie was good at catching mice.
She ate them, too,
which her people found rather disgusting,
but they were willing to ignore it,
because they really didn’t like the mice.
Maggie’s life was good.
But it wasn’t enough.
So Maggie decided to go to college
and major in philosophy.
Well, sure, most people in her undergrad classes
noticed that she was a cat,
but the further she went
the less anybody seemed to care,
until she got in grad school,
and then nobody noticed at all.
The trouble began
before Maggie finished her Ph.D.
She started to question things, like:
Was the unquestioned mouse
really not worth eating?
Was any mouse worth eating?
Were there really any mice at all,
or were they a collective illusion?
Perhaps Maggie herself
was an illusion of a mouse.
And the more Maggie thought,
the more she came to realize
that she could never stop.
The logic followed QED:
If you meow,
and therefore you are,
then if you don’t meow,
then, therefore, you’re not.
But perhaps she wasn’t anyway,
for after all,
how could you ever know anything for sure?
And Maggie became totally useless as a cat.
Of course,
it took the mice a whole three minutes
to realize that not only was Maggie
not going to chase them anymore,
but Maggie wasn’t even going to move,
even after they discovered
that the quickest way to the kitchen
was going over Maggie.
And in marginally less time
than it took the mice to realize
that Maggie was less than useless,
the mice had overrun the entire house.
It was about that time
that Maggie got the boot.
She was replaced by a tomcat
who was so stupid,
that he thought his tail
belonged to somebody else.
He had the mice whipped into shape by nightfall.
Maggie might’ve starved
had she not made her way to the University,
where she came to stay,
spending the rest of her days
in the Philosophy Department.
Well, yeah, she was just as useless there,
but nobody there noticed the difference.
​
Two Bears Pizzeria
Once upon a time
there were Two Bears
named Carlos and Boris
who decided to go into business
making pizza.
So they opened Two Bears Pizzeria.
They only made one kind of pizza –
salmon and anchovy
with bell peppers, honey, and olives...
green olives.
It was awful,
but nobody cared.
They weren't going for the pizza.
They were going to see Two Bears make pizza.
And the Two Bears did very well...
for about two weeks,
until a family of Badgers
opened a Thai place
down on 122nd and Division.
It was lousy Thai,
but nobody cared.
They weren't going for the Thai.
​
​
Lightbulbs
Pretty amazing, huh? I took out these walls here so the whole house would have that gallery feel. It'll look a lot better once I get the walls patched. I got all the shelves from IKEA. The foam on all the shelves – you can get that in bulk online.
It's the world's largest collection of burnt out lightbulbs. Technically, a lightbulb is called a "lamp," but most people don't know that, so if you call a lightbulb a lamp it's just confusing.
Over here... these are some of my favourites. This one. This one was my first. It’s from my nightlight when I was a kid. This is the left turn signal bulb from the first car I ever owned. A 1964 Chevy Impala. This one is from the streetlight in front of my childhood home. I'm not saying how I got it.
This is the automotive wing. These are all car headlights. Ford here. That's Chevy. Chrysler. Dodge. Foreign. Exotics. Check this one out. It's from a 1992 Ferrari F40. I paid $38 for that, including shipping. It would've cost considerably more had it not been burnt out.
These are all my fluorescent bulbs, by width and length. A lot of folks would argue that fluorescent lights really don't use bulbs. And they have a point. I mean, I don't include neon, and I know it's pretty much the same as fluorescent. I dunno. I just had a lot of them, so I thought, "Why not?" The way I figure it, it's my museum. I can curate it like I want.
These are all novelty lightbulbs. See? When you turn this one on, it's a smiley face. And the light's yellow. Pretty cool. This one, it's a blacklight bulb. Most blacklights that aren't fluorescent really aren't blacklights. They've just been filtered to look that way. But this really is a blacklight. It's a lightbulb-shaped fluorescent light with a little charger right in the base. That is cool. It still works, too.
A lot of folks think I'm... you know... a bit off for collecting burnt out lightbulbs. But check this out. I bet you've never seen a bulb like this. 1924. It's an antique. See how much more fragile that is? They made lightbulbs before 1924... but who kept them when they burnt out? I'll tell you: Nobody. Old ones turn up now and again, in old buildings and what not. But for the most part, they're all gone.
Technology is moving away from lightbulbs. Soon, it'll be all LED, and who knows what after that? The classic lightbulb. The lightbulb you remember from when you were a kid. Soon they'll be gone forever. And that's because nobody saves burnt out lightbulbs. Except for me.
​
The Ballad of King Bob and His Horse Bill
This is the story of Wise King Bob
and his stead and companion Bill.
They rode not to pillage and rob.
Rode not to murder and kill.
They rode through country and county.
They rode o’er hill and dale
in search of the sacred bounty,
in search of the Holy Grail.
They traveled through wind, snow, and rain,
through mud and sleet and hail,
through locusts and plagues, untold of pain,
Chevrolet lug nuts and two-penny nails.
Through blackened night and driving sands,
blizzards and buzzards and hoary frost,
through Krsnas and Vishnus and bad rock bands,
and cold spaghetti without any sauce.
For seventeen years they traveled this way,
until finally Bill had had enough.
He sat down on the road to stay,
and said, “Boss, it’s time to get off.”
Said Bill, “My hooves are tired. My back is sore.
I’m ready to go back home.
If you want to carry on some more,
you’ll have to carry on alone.”
​
Good King Bob would not falter.
He continued on his quest.
So Bill laid down his halter
and returned to his home in the west.
When Bill arrived at the castle,
how the subjects did dance and sing.
Being without a king was a hassle,
so they made a horse their king.
King Bob traveled on many a year more,
‘till one day at a church rummage sale,
in a discount pile on the floor
Good King Bob found the Holy Grail.
Good King Bob, his quest complete
returned the way he came.
Bill gladly gave back the Royal Seat.
To the people it was the same.
And the Holy Grail... it came to rest
beneath a leaky window pane.
And there it does its very best
to collect the falling rain.
​
Unicycle Bob
Unicycle Bob was the most amazing circus act
that I have ever seen.
Unicycle Bob couldn’t ride the unicycle for squat.
I mean, he could hold his balance most of the time,
but he was always running into things.
Come to find out,
Unicycle Bob was just this guy from my hometown
who didn’t even travel with the circus.
I think he was an investment banker
or something as equally exciting.
He just wanted to be in the circus,
if only once.
So he talked the circus owner
into letting him ride his unicycle
on a tightrope
over the lions’ cage
with no net.
What did the owner have to lose?
I must’ve been all of eleven,
sitting there in the stands.
And here comes Unicycle Bob,
wearing a bright yellow shirt
and a yellow derby hat.
Where do you get yellow derby hats?
So Bob climbs up on the pole with his red unicycle.
He must’ve been fifty feet off the ground,
and below him all these lions are starting to take notice.
​
Bob bows to the crowd after the big introduction,
and everyone goes quiet,
except for the lions.
They were really getting into the show.
And then the drum roll starts,
and right on cue Bob takes off.
He actually made it about two feet
before he fell head first into the lions’ cage.
It really didn’t matter if the fall would’ve done Bob in.
That was pretty much the circus
for that Saturday afternoon.
I can’t help but think Bob would’ve been better off
if he’d learned to juggle torches,
or maybe if he’d learned to ride the unicycle better,
but I guess we’ll never know.
​
Pictures
I’ve taken pictures
of everything I own.
It’s so easy.
I use my telephone.
I’ve taken pictures
of everything I’ve ate,
along with detailed notes,
be it good or be it great.
I’ve taken pictures
of everywhere I’ve been,
careful to catalogue
with whom and when.
I’ve taken pictures
of everyone I’ve ever met.
I have a list,
so I won’t forget.
But every once in a while... I wonder
just what I’ve been taking these pictures for,
and how much differently life might’ve been
had I taken less pictures
and lived just a little bit more.
​
Ahh… Sisyphus
At least Sisyphus
gets more exercise than I do,
pushing that obnoxious rock up the hill,
and he gets regularly scheduled breaks,
what with the trip back down.
There are no surprises,
no demands that he work overtime.
He never has to fill in for a sick co-worker.
No one expects him to push two stones
until McMurty gets back from out of town.
He never has to fake enthusiasm for his boss,
smile at the office party,
or buy presents for the secretaries at Christmas.
And I bet nobody expects him
to donate a share of his salary
every year to some pathetic charity,
just so the office can have 100% participation,
and prove that he’s a part of the team.
Quality Management.
World Class Customer Service.
A regular stand-up kinda guy.
He never has to worry that it will get worse.
And he never has to wonder if what he does
will really, truly ever make any difference
anywhere in anything.
Of course, he is in hell.
So I guess there is a downside.
​
Bad Fortunes
I’m a Chinese food junkie.
Carry out.
3 to 4 times a week.
Egg rolls, moo goo guy pan,
cashew chicken (Springfield style, of course),
and fortune cookies.
Especially fortune cookies.
So here’s the deal.
I started noticing
that something just wasn’t right with the fortunes.
You know, the ones you read and then say,
“What kind of fortune was that?”
Fortunes like,
“I’m trapped in this dead end job!”
“Send help!”
“Is this the best I can do with a college education?”
and “I expected more out of life than this.”
You get the idea.
And the more of these I read,
the more I realized
that they were either a pathetic cry for help
or a unique way to get published.
But either way,
it doesn’t really matter.
Because just as suddenly as they began,
they ended.
​
You know,
they became stupid stuff like
“Beware of paper dogs running backwards”
and “Fear the man who claims to know.”
I imagine the guy got canned.
I mean, you could pretty much see that coming.
But the bad thing is
now I’ll never know
just how his story might end.
​
Charley the Choo Choo
Charley was a big, red choo choo.
Everyday he’d go from Hiville to Loville
and then back again.
Charley would take grains and cereals from Hiville,
and he’d get all sorts of good things to eat from Loville.
Charley was so busy going
to and from Hiville and Loville
that he never even slowed down
at all the little towns he passed through,
or even tooted twice to all the little girls and boys
who would come out and wave every time he passed by.
Charley chugged on, day after day,
and probably would’ve chugged on forever
had it not been for what happened one sunny day
while Charley was at the roundabout in Loville
getting ready to make the trip back to Hiville.
While they were loading Charley
with all those wonderful things to eat
a little bird flew down and sat on the wire
that ran right beside the tracks.
And the little bird asked,
“Doesn’t that just bore you to tears?”
And Charley replied, “I don’t understand.”
“I mean,” said the little bird,
“you just do the same thing,
day in and day out,
going back and forth and back and forth.
You never get to see a distant grove of trees
or find out where the river begins.
You never get to see the sun rise
over a far away mountain
or feel a tropical breeze on your face.
You never even get to haul anything different.
That would bore me to insanity.”
And then the little bird flew away
before Charley could ask it anything more.
But still, Charley thought about
what the little bird had said,
which was something Charley
had never thought about before.
And the more he thought, the more he realized
that maybe that little bird was right.
And Charley came to realize
just how unhappy he really was.
And he got to thinking
that maybe he’d never been happy all along.
So Charley the big red choo choo
made up his mind right then and there
that he was going to see the rest of the world.
The first place Charley went
was into the town of Loville.
He went right down the middle of the street
looking into all of the shops
and theaters and dance halls,
and at all the strange people
who hung out on the street corners
wearing big hats and flashing gold-capped teeth.
But before Charley got very far at all,
a policeman stopped him and said,
“You can’t drive down our streets.
Streets are made for bicycles and cars, not locomotives.
Your sharp steel wheels will leave ruts in our roads
and make it too lumpy for people to drive on.”
So Charley had to leave.
The next place Charley came to was the country,
where he went past a farm.
There he saw horses and cows playing in a field,
and chickens and ducks playing in the barnyard,
and dogs and sheep playing in the meadow.
And Charley wanted to play, too,
only the farmer came out and said,
“You can’t be here.
Farms are made for animals.
Your chugging scares the chicks and ducklings,
and your smoke makes the grass turn brown.”
So Charley had to leave.
The next place Charley went was the forest,
where he saw deer hiding in the thickets,
and birds flying through the branches,
and bears playing in the grassy glades
while honeybees flew busily about
and fish flipped playfully in the little stream
that tumbled over the rocks
as it wound its way through the woods.
And Charley thought
it would be a wonderful place to stay,
only Charley couldn’t stay there, either,
because a forest ranger came up and said,
“Forests are no place for locomotives.
Your big wheels crush the wild flowers
and your noisy whistle scares the bunnies
and woodchucks.”
So Charley had to leave.
In fact, everywhere that Charley went,
whether it was the mountains or the prairie,
the beach or the desert,
it was the same thing – Charley had to leave.
Finally Charley ended up right where he had begun,
at the roundabout in Loville.
But there he found that they no longer wanted him.
Charley had been replaced by a sleek, new diesel,
which the builder had been careful
not to give a personality to,
so that it never got bored.
Since Charley had no place else to go,
he chugged over to the old trainyard
where they put all the broken trains,
and there Charley chugged his last chug.
And it was there that the same little bird
came and found the rusted hulk
of what had once been Charley.
And since Charley’s old smokestack
was such a perfect place,
she built her nest there.
And that is where she returned
year after year to build her nests.
And when she grew old and died,
her children continued to come back
and build their nests there, too,
and so did their children after them.
And I suppose they still do.
​
Time and Temperature
It came as an epiphany.
The bank’s time and temperature wasn’t wrong.
It was actually telling what the temperature
was going to be
tomorrow at 6:17 p.m.
It was a window into the future.
Perfectly useless for most aspects of life,
except maybe planning a picnic,
but nevertheless,
a chance to see what had not yet happened,
what was going to happen
28 hours and 16 minutes from now,
any now.
So instead of going to work one day,
I just sat in the bank’s lot
and watched as it cooled off tomorrow evening,
down to an overnight low of 63,
before it started to warm up again at sunrise,
day after tomorrow.
It was only after I’d been there for over a day
that I noticed the parking lot was full of other cars
with their occupants doing nothing else
than watching that digital readout.
One guy here,
two guys there,
even entire families
sitting in rapture
over what tomorrow’s weather was going to be.
I think it was finally hunger
that made me abandon my spot,
which was quickly filled by one of the cars
circling the lot,
hoping for someplace to land.
At times I’m tempted to go back,
just to see,
just to know.
But that intersection has become so congested
that it would add a full thirty minutes
onto my commute,
and I don’t want to leave any earlier,
and I can’t afford to be late.
​
Finding Paradise
Three good friends died and went to heaven,
and when they stepped through the gates,
the youngest of the three, in awe and amazement, said,
“Damn!”
And just like that he was gone.
Upon seeing his young friend vanish,
the middle of the three exclaimed,
“Shit!”
And he, too, was gone.
Finding himself all alone,
the oldest and the wisest of the three proclaimed,
“The hell with this!”
And that is how the three
came to be together again.
And it may have been heaven,
or it may have been hell,
but none of the three cared.
​
Cycles
Autumn takes away the birds
in long lines trailing South.
And with them
they take the leaves,
leaving nothing
to stop the snow.
And the snow
falls from the sky,
until all the pieces of clouds
are piled on the roadside,
and there’s nothing left behind
to stop the sun.
Snow to slush
Slush to streams
Streams to rivers
Rivers that flow into quiet pools
that reflect skyward
Where wings return,
bringing with them the leaves
that they will leave to their own
until they are ready to return.
​
Howard
Every Saturday morning,
and sometimes Sundays,
Howard played disc golf with the guys.
They’d been playing together for years.
Howard loved playing disc golf,
but he just wasn’t very good at it.
It’s not that he was horrible,
or even that bad.
You wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen with him.
But he just wasn’t very good.
I mean, he should’ve been.
He’d been playing long enough.
Sure, he could sink an amazing putt now and again,
or make a really good drive,
between the really bad ones.
But when everything was tallied up
Howard always came in last.
Not that any of the other guys gave a rip.
Howard was the only one keeping score.
Sure, the other guys talked about getting better,
or remembered when they actually might’ve been better,
but nobody actually got better.
Instead, they spent their time telling bad jokes,
making up silly songs about playing disc,
and smoking the occasional joint,
while shanking their drives into the water,
hitting every tree possible
(and a few that shouldn’t’ve been possible),
and missing five foot putts.
And, yeah, they’d complain about their games
(especially missing the five foot putts).
But what it came down to,
the only thing they truly cared about
was hanging out with their friends
on Saturday mornings,
and sometimes Sundays, too.
Don’t get me wrong.
Howard liked hanging out with the other guys.
He always looked forward to playing on the weekends.
But it especially bothered him
that he wasn’t as good
as he thought he should’ve been.
So he hired a disc golf coach.
A trained professional.
He actually paid money –
quite a bit of money –
to have that trained professional
examine every aspect of his game.
Not just the mechanics,
but everything:
What time of day he played,
what he had for breakfast,
the ambient temperature,
what clothes he wore,
the colour of his discs.
And who he played with.
And what that trained professional discovered
was that there was nothing fundamentally wrong
with Howard’s game.
The problem was who he played with.
Sure, they were a great bunch of guys,
but because none of them took the game seriously,
then as long as Howard played with them
he could never take his game seriously, either.
He would never improve.
If Howard ever hoped to be better,
to be good,
really good,
to compete,
then he couldn’t play with his buddies.
Ever again.
And that’s what Howard did.
He stopped playing with all of his friends.
At first he made up excuses,
like he wasn’t feeling well,
or he had to help out around the house.
He figured if he didn’t improve
he could go back to the group,
and they’d never know the difference.
But he did improve.
His drives got straighter and longer.
His up shots were spot on.
He was routinely sinking 30 and 40 foot putts.
He could weave in and out of the trees.
He could roll when necessary,
and skip on purpose, even off the water.
Aiming actually made a difference.
In short he became good.
Very good.
He even started playing in tournaments.
And he often won.
Well, maybe not overall,
but in his age group he routinely finished in the top five.
And sometimes he was in the top five overall.
He won things,
like discs and bags and even money.
And that meant turning pro.
Well, yeah,
he was never going to get rich playing disc golf.
Nobody is.
But a local pro shop gave him free discs
for wearing their shirts at tournaments,
which is more than most players ever do.
Seriously.
The guy was good.
Other disc golfers,
guys he’d never met,
knew who he was.
And somewhere in there,
he stopped trying to make up excuses
for not playing with his old friends.
He just stopped showing up on Saturday mornings,
and he never answered any of the text messages,
even though he was still part of the group.
It was at a tournament a couple of states over,
maybe a year later.
All the players got bottled up on that one hole,
like they do at every tournament.
And there Howard had been sitting
for about half an hour
with his turn still fifteen minutes away.
Everybody else was so focused on the game
that if Howard even tried to talk to them,
much less tell a joke,
they’d ignore him,
or outright tell him to shut up,
expletives included.
Of course,
that was no different from how they always acted,
at every tournament.
At every game.
In short,
they were all assholes.
And it was there that Howard realized
he was probably an asshole, too.
And it was there that he realized
when you play really well
it becomes really boring.
It was boring
to make every throw straight down the fairway.
It was boring
to put every up shot on the dance floor.
It was even boring
to hardly ever miss a putt.
But more that that,
worse than that –
way worse –
it just wasn’t fun anymore.
It wasn’t fun to play with people he really didn’t like.
It wasn’t fun to play with people who never told jokes,
who never sang songs,
who never smoked the occasional joint.
And when it was finally Howard’s turn to tee off,
instead of continuing on with the game,
he walked off the course,
and he went home.
And that Saturday
he joined all of his friends
for their weekly round of disc golf.
And, sure, they all knew where Howard had been.
But they didn’t care.
They were just happy to have him back.
And Howard was happy to be back, too.
He didn’t even complain
when he missed the five foot putt.
​
Form Poem
The writer regrets
that you will not want
the enclosed contribution.
It is, however,
being written anyway
so that it can be returned,
with thanks for a roundtrip through the mail.
The writer regrets
not being able to write
an actual poem,
but extensive submissions
force him to conserve time
for the business of reading rejections.
When it seems called for,
he will jot a poem below.
​
Falling Backward
Why couldn’t you have been gone
in the spring?
Then I could’ve turned the clock ahead
And that would’ve been one hour less
that I would have to live
without you.
​
A First Class Funeral
We gave Uncle Adolf one helluva send-off.
The ladies that had known him
before he was ninety
just had a wonderful time crying,
and we all got to take our turns
walking by and wondering
how in just three days
Uncle Adolf could be made to look
like somebody no one knew.
Father Bauer did it up, too.
All in starched white,
not the ordinary Sunday stuff,
swinging a fresh supply of incense
and saying the very best of prayers.
He had practiced.
Even the Altar Boys were top rate.
You could tell it wasn’t the first
really first class funeral they’d ever done.
It’s those little things,
like not dropping the Holy Water
just short of the Father’s reach,
while everyone looks on in terror,
and then having to go running back for more
that they’ll probably get out of the drinking fountain
because they’re too scared
to touch the real stuff
without having been properly blessed themselves.
And they didn’t even sit on their heels
when the Father dragged on,
saying wonderful things about Uncle Adolf,
who wasn’t even there,
because we had all decided
that the funeral home had goofed
and sent over the wrong guy,
but no one was brave enough to admit it,
at least not out loud, that is.
Even the pallbearers were a class act.
No one let on for a moment
that the casket was really heavy,
undoubtedly the deluxe model.
Made to last.
And not a one stumbled
while carrying that casket to the car,
where they slid it in without a hitch.
No broken feet.
No hernias.
No busted lid that refused to stay shut.
And I had this really wild idea,
that at the very same time across town
there was this other funeral
where Uncle Adolf really was,
and no one there would admit
that the funeral home goofed, either.
But somewhere on the way
both lines of cars would get all mixed up,
and we’d get the right coffin
under the right headstone after all.
But it never happened.
At least, not in real life.
Someone had called a cop
who knew the right way
to the right graveyard
and never once acted the least bit concerned
about getting lost.
​
The Zealot
There once was a man
who devoted his entire life
to writing the Bible backwards
– both Old and New.
And he went to his grave
Satisfied
that it all was a bunch of gibberish.
​
Yippee Yi Yea!
There comes a time,
that moment of realization
when you’re standing there
in front of the bathroom mirror
with the shaving cream hiding those first few lines,
and your hair still wet from the shower
so you can’t really tell just how gray you really are.
And you look in your eyes.
I mean really, truly look,
and you see yourself for what you really are:
Someone whose life is about to pass them by.
Someone whose dreams
have been slowly slipping away.
But that slipping has turned to sliding,
and that sliding has built up steam
and become a runaway freight train,
and if you don’t grab onto it now – Right now! –
if you don’t reach out and grab that ladder
while it pulls you off your feet,
and your arms feel like they’re going to be ripped off –
if you don’t reach out,
you’re going to be left behind,
standing there on the tracks shuffling your feet
with your head down
and your hands in your pockets,
because you know that train
ain’t ever coming back this way again.
At least, not close enough to grab on to.
​
If you’ve never had that feeling
or think there may never come a day when you might,
then you might as well stop here,
because there ain’t no way you’re going to understand
the sheer terror that Art Cligglio felt
when he thought about lying awake in bed
and hearing that far away whistle
and imagining that those big old steel wheels
were bouncing down the rails saying:
“Clickity Clack. Clickity Clack.
Train’s done gone.
It ain’t comin’ back.”
That’s why Art Cligglio
wiped the shaving cream from his face
before the steel ever had a chance
to pull against his whiskers,
walked into the kitchen,
and announced to his wife
over the splattering bacon
that he’d done taught his last day of Social Studies
at Crossgrove High School,
and by God, he was going to do it!
He was going to become a Singing Cowboy!
There was a little bit of an interim.
Well, that bit of time it took Cora to stop laughing
after she realized that Art wasn’t kidding.
And then there was the pleading and the begging
and the pathetic sniveling.
And when Art finally left the house at a quarter ‘til eight
Cora was really convinced that he was going to work.
Of course, she knew better
when Art came home that evening
covered with more sequins than Elvis,
and he was trying to figure out just how to hold a lariat.
Cora was a resourceful person, though.
She called up Mr. Herschfeld,
the principal at Crossgrove,
and convinced him her husband wasn’t at all too well,
which wasn’t far from the truth,
at least as far as Cora was concerned.
Cora was patient, too,
even though Art refused to see Dr. Waxman,
especially after all the trouble she went through
to get him in on such short notice and all.
Cora was patient, patient and calm.
She stayed calm when Art stood on the coffee table
and knocked over the lamps with his lasso.
She stayed calm when all the neighbors complained
because Art was yodeling
out in the backyard at one a.m.
She even stayed calm
when Art ruined the brand new upholstery
with his spurs.
The horse, however, was too much,
especially since Bullet wasn’t housebroken.
So Cora packed her suitcase, took the cat, and left.
Art thought he made one helluva deal.
He traded everything – the house, the furniture,
and even the garden hose out back –
for a fairly decent pickup and an almost new trailer.
He cashed in the CDs and emptied his account,
and headed for LA,
singing the whole way:
“Yippee yi yo!
Yippee yi yea!
Ki yi Yippee yi!
It’s a wonderful day!”
Of course,
Cora was more than willing to drop the divorce,
even to forget
she’d brought the whole deal up to begin with,
when Art really did become a Singing Cowboy.
Five million up front, fifteen percent royalties,
and a healthy hunk of the video profits,
not to mention a movie and a certain sequel.
Sweet. Sweet. Sweet.
Heck, even the neighbors seemed to forget
that they’d ever been kept awake,
and the guy that got Art’s old house
ended up feeling that somehow
he’d gotten the worse deal,
although he really wasn’t certain
why he should feel that way.
And Art?
Art took back his wife,
and he took back the cat.
And he even forgave the neighbors.
Art didn’t care.
Why should he?
Hell, he got to be a Singing Cowboy!
​
On the Shoreline
​
Oh! Say not to the oarsman
when the journey is done,
that getting there
was only half the fun.
​
Michael Soeteart is responsible for everything here, except the misspellings. He blames former politicians for those.
Among other things, Michael Soetaert has made televisions and tarpaper, sold jewelry, taught school, and written a lot of stuff. In his spare time he likes to go birding, play disc golf, and go convertibling in his Spitfire, on occasion combining all three. Fortunately, he has a lot of spare time. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and his cat.
​
