The café had four octogenarian Irvings. Two have passed; one is infirm. The fourth, now 92, sat on a bench outside the Cheese Board. We spoke of every day being a blessing, of every hour.
Bob Levin
Things Seldom Turn Out for the Best: Three Rounds With Edward Gorey
man in feathered fedora, mirrored shades
shopping cart of empty bottles and dreams.
pieces of morning punctuate each look’s
recognition/incorporation/ingestion
chemicals for better living.
great grey beard, great grey coat dripping,
to mid-calf, above which, incidentally, cut-off shorts.
They had arrived early for the reading.
“This review is driving me crazy,” Goshkin said, pen poised above manuscript draft.
“Oh,” Ruth looked up from her Kate Atkinson.
They sat at their favorite table, she facing the espresso machine and Goshkin a floor-to-ceiling window. Sometimes passing people seemed poems and sometimes performers entering and exiting within an existing-for-an-instant play. He would have meditated, but when a piece was percolating, his mind reformed sentences and weighed ideas.
“It’s All Yours, Lestrade.”
“(T)ruth is just not a matter of discovering objective facts.
Wikipedia. “Philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard.”
Restrictions had been off for a week when Goshkin returned to the café. The tables were spaced. The front door and windows were open. Less than a fifth of the chairs were taken. Few customers were masked.
“The Republicans want so’s you can’t discriminate against the unvaccinated.” Murray looked up, worried, from his Times.
“So they’ll die.” Large Victor bit his croissant.
“Guys. Shekit,” Goshkin said from the next table.
If Bob Dylan Says “Home”
Out our front door, Marin is so steep the mountain goats need crampons. But the Hispanic fellow, early 40s, GE Appliance truck, curbed his wheels and popped out. Adele had the garage door open and he’d spotted the Mustang. “Can I take a look?” .
He walked around it. Twice. “I’ll give you thirty-five, Cash.”
“Let me get my husband. He’s the one who drives it.”
I’m Not Looking for Trouble But…
On the day Stanford beat Arizona for the Women’s NCAA Basketball Championship, its coach, Tara Vanderveer defended women’s basketball in the New York Times. “I don’t think anyone says, ‘Well, professional basketball, they’re bigger and stronger, so I’ll just want to watch professional basketball.”
Actually, I say that.
Off the Wall
“Is that a fucking thumbtack?” Fritz said to the Skeleton-and-Roses poster behind me. Some of us regulars from the café were zooming. “It ought to be behind glass. In a vault.”
We Are All One
If not that, two.
Gentlemen[1] (Author Keeps Punching)
The basement had bare concrete floor. bare plywood walls. Ceiling beams lay exposed. Pipes showed here and wires there. Storage cartons rimmed the perimeter, reliquaries for the bones of books Shemp’d authored. Dust a more likely outcome than university archive.
The Bag I’m In
Things being as they were, when it became clear COVID would close the gym, I started hunting something new to punch. A heavy bag, I should say, besides being a fit way for any sentient being to respond to the world, aids your average septuagenarian’s anaerobic condition, hand-eye co-ordination, and balance – so’s he don’t fall on his nose when going down the hall for the night squirt.
The Great Exaggeration
The other night I read my obituary.[1]