901

CURTAIN RODS

On the first day, she sadly packed her belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases.

On the second day, she had all her things collected by the removal company.

On the third day, she sat down for the very last time at their beautiful teak dining-room table. She put on some soothing background music, and feasted by candlelight on a plate of shrimps, a jar of caviar, and a bottle of spring-water.

When she had finished, she went into every room and deposited a few half-eaten shrimps dipped in caviar into the hollow centre of the curtain rods.

She then cleaned up the kitchen and left the house.

On the fourth day, the husband moved in with his new girlfriend, and at first it was all blissful harmony.

Then, slowly, the house began to smell.

They tried everything: cleaning, mopping, and airing-out the whole house.

The vents were thoroughly checked for dead rodents, and all the carpets were steam cleaned.

Air fresheners were hung everywhere. Exterminators were brought in to fumigate the whole house, during which time the two lovers had to move out for several days. They even paid to have the expensive wool carpeting replaced. But nothing they tried worked. The house still reeked.

Suddenly, people stopped coming to call.

Repairmen refused to do any work in the house.

The maid quit.

In the end, they could bear the stench no longer, and decided they had to move. But a month later - even though they'd cut the price in half - they still couldn't find a buyer for such a smelly house.

Word began to spread, and in time even the local realtors refused to visit or return their calls.

Unable to wait a moment longer for a purchaser, they had to borrow a vast sum of money from the bank in order to purchase a new place.

Then the ex-wife called the man and asked him how things were progressing. He told her the grim story of the stinking house. She listened quietly and replied that she was missing her old home terribly and would even be prepared to reduce her final divorce settlement in exchange for having the house she loved.

Knowing that she could have no possible idea of how disgusting this smell was, he accepted her offer and settled on a sale figure that was a tenth of what the house had initially been priced at ... but only if she signed the papers that very day.

She concurred, and within two hours her lawyers delivered the completed paperwork.

A week later the man and his girlfriend stood smiling as they watched a moving company packing their possessions to send off to their new abode.

And to spite the ex-wife, they even took the curtain rods.

I just love a happy ending, don't you?

902

[Here's the US pledge anagrammed five ways to suit the five different views. Enjoy!]

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[From Dr. Seuss's angle]

Cured plans

I long to be jolly
I want to be glad!
I'm searching for patience
I don't wish to be sad.
Handing difficulties
Is a futile deal,
The truth in that force,
I need to reveal!

[From Leonardo da Vinci's angle]

THE IDEAL CONTENT

I will be jubilant around the sweet aromas of thought, logical in sight of better discovery, spirited in scale, and peaceful in the land of dignified art.

[A paraphrase of the Preamble to the US Constitution]

We, inhabiting Americans, to fulfill a solid region, hatch justice, profit placidity, defend, be good and well, and steer in free evolution, signed that rich tablet to the USA.

[From the US Presidents' angle]

Birth of the Elected

I, Washington,
I, Garfield,
I, Cleveland,
I, Taft,
I, Wilson
I, Johnson,
I, Reagan,
understand the helpful, doubtless attitude of good American liberty.

I accept.

[God's creation of Earth plus a short note from Man.]

Let there be a jolly picnic of space
And let there be a laughing council of life,
Let there be air and water,
And no nation adding strife.

I must do with God. This old visit fit us.

903

Kids watch with glowing souls, at this rising
Up from brown slush, to look down on clouds or
Mountains or tops of tracks. It’s surprising
And odd how illusions look if you soar.

Right now you can look at this world both ways.
It’s cold and harsh, but still a torch will burn.
Today it’s dark, but wait for distant days
And glory will show you that it’s your turn.

So climb to find clouds that will bring us snow.
High up, in this unforgiving thin air.
Victory blurs with loss. And now you go;
It’s fast and cold to burn out. It’s not fair.

Living is placid win and loss. But still
It’s all you know until it’s all downhill.

To a victor abroad,

Skillfully you wow us, and looking high
I find a song unwillingly grow loud.
Amid all lulls, triumph lurks. Win, don't sigh.
Hubbub halts. Win! A champion is proud.

No insidious worry. Scrub it out!
Bollocks to lugubrious stops, I say!
Will a slowdown slow us down? This is not
Too tricky. I insist that all should play.

Odd winds blow forth. Victors stand. It is fitting.
A sorrowful cross to carry? Shit, no.
On town outskirts, all us fans--indignant, gritty--
Withhold sad tidbits, control words. And so

Vibrant transatlantic fans now light in truth.
Thought is not hollow for us icy youth.

-A kid

904

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And stricken I could not visit of both
And be one traveler, long lost I stood
And looked down one as anybody could
To where it bent back the undergrowth;

Yet took the other, as definitely fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

Both on that new morn courtly lay
In leaves no step had trodden up black.
O, I noted the first for a better day!
Yet knowing how a way leads on to a way,
Was dubious that I should ever come back.

I shall be uttering this, done with a sigh
Tomorrow or ages and ages hence:
Both paths diverged in the woods, and I,
Took to wander the road less traveled by,
And regret not at all the difference.

905

ANARCHY IN THE UK
By
The Sex Pistols

Right! NOW! ha ha

I am an anti-christ
I am an anarchist
Don't know what I want but
I know how to get it
I wanna destroy the passer by cos I

I wanna BE anarchy!
No dogs body!

Anarchy for the U.K it's coming sometime and maybe
I give a wrong time stop a traffic line
your future dream is a shopping scheme

cos I, I wanna BE anarchy!
In the city

How many ways to get what you want
I use the best I use the rest
I use the enemy
I use anarchy cos I

I wanna BE anarchy!
THE ONLY WAY TO BE!

Is this the M.P.L.A
Or is this the U.D.A
Or is this the I.R.A
I thought it was the U.K or just
another country
another council tenancy

I wanna be anarchy
and I wanna be anarchy
Know what I mean
And I wanna be anarchist!
Get PISSED DESTROY !

BURNIN' UP THE CITY
By
Trash

Hi! Hi! ... I'm here!

I am an urban Brit
I am on benefits
I know what I want and
I know how ta get it
You smash a window of a shop.

Take what ya want; a new PC
A mobile phone, flat-screen TV

Anarchy in the streets, riotin', yeah, tauntin' police,
They can't do anythin' to me,
Cos I got Human Rights ya see.

I'm an urban shark, watch me...
BURN THE CITY!

So many ways ta get what ya want
Join a gang, who ya can
Hang about with, meet

And hit da streets!

Burn a car, rob a stranger
LAUNCH YOURSELF INTO DANGER!

Is this red wine I see?
Or is it a Scotch Whisky
Or is it cissy sherry
Ha! who cares about this,
Nick some, run away, get pissed!

Yo! It's excitin' no cash paid
No need to hide away
We're in this union
Unseen by anyone
Ha, ha ha! YOU CAN'T CATCH ME!

906

Some of the many special holidays celebrated by people in August 2011:

Month-long Celebrations:
American Artist Appreciation Month
Foot Health Month

Special Weeks:
National Apple Week
Elvis Presley Week

1. Francis Scott Key's Birthday
MTV Debuted
Picnic Day in Australia
Respect for Parents Day
Switzerland Founded

2. First Income Tax Assessed
First Lincoln Penny Presented
National Ice Cream Sandwich Day

3. Columbus Set Sail on the First Voyage
National Watermelon Day

4. Coast Guard Day
National Chocolate Chip Day

5. National Waffle Day
Neil Armstrong's Birthday

6. Alfred Lord Tennyson's Birthday
National Mustard Day
Garfield the Cat's friend Odie's Birthday
Wiggle Your Toes Day

7. American Family Day
Friendship Day
Sea Serpent Day

8. Dollar Day

9. Betty Boop's Birthday
International Day of the World's Indigenous People
National Rice Pudding Day

10. First Steam Locomotive
Herbert Hoover's Birthday
S'Mores Day

11. Hulk Hogan's Birthday
Play in the Sand Day

12. IBM PC Announced
Middle Children's Day

13. Annie Oakley's Birthday
International Left-Handers Day
National Filet Mignon Day

14. National Creamsicle Day

15. French Cuisine Chef Julia Child's Birthday
National Relaxation Day

16. Roller Coaster Day

17. Archeology Day
Frontiersman Davy Crockett's Birthday

18. Bad Poetry Day
"Wizard of Oz" Premiered

19. Bill Clinton's Birthday
National Aviation Day
Orville Wright's Birthday
Potato Day
Mr. Snuffleupagus's Birthday ("Sesame Street" Character)

20. International Homeless Animals Day
National Radio Day

21. Wilt Chamberlain's Birthday
Be An Angel Day

23. First Photograph of Earth Taken From the Moon
National Sponge Cake Day

24. National Peach Pie Day
Strange Music Day
Waffle Iron Patented

25. Kiss and Make Up Day
National Banana Split Day

26. National Dog Day
Women's Equality Day

27. Mother Teresa's Birthday

28. Dream Day: the day Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech
National Cherry Turnover Day

29. First Scout Camp Opened
Speedy Gonzales' Birthday

30. National Toasted Marshmallow Day

31. Alan Jay Lerner's Birthday
National Trail Mix Day

Here is a really full schedule addressing joyful days, holidays, grim and crazy days of September 2011:

Month-long fall highlights:
Women of Achievement Month
National School Success Month
National Hispanic Heritage Month

All the days in the month, listed sequentially:
1. "Mary Had A Little Lamb" Offered

2. National Blueberry Popsicle Day

3. National Skyscraper Day
Birthday of Uncle Sam image

4. Father's Day in Australia
Newspaper Carrier Day

5. Labor Day
National Cheese Pizza Day

6. Read a Book Day

7. Neither Rain Nor Snow Day

8. International Literacy Day

9. Teddy Bear Day

10. Swap Ideas Day
TV Dinner Day (sponsored by Swanson)

11. Make Your Bed Day
National Grandparents' Day
Patriot Day: remembrance of the appalling World Trade Center fall and local valor

12. National Chocolate Milk Shake Day

13. National Peanut Day
Positive Thinking Day
Cartoon rascal Scooby Doo's Birthday

14. Clayton Moore's Birthday (the brave Lone Ranger)
First Department Store established by Alexander Stewart

15. Make A Hat Day

16. Mexican Independence Day.
Mayflower Day
POW/MIA Recognition Day
National Working Parents Day
Stepfamily Day

17. Citizenship Day
National Apple Dumpling Day

18. First "New York Times" Headline Circulated
Bicyclist Lance Armstrong's Birthday
Mushroom Picking Day
National Play-Doh Day

19. National Talk Like a Pirate Day

20. First Railroad Station Built

21. International Day of Peace
Miniature Golf Day
World Gratitude Day

22. The Band-Aid Invented
Dear Diary Day
Ice Cream Cone Invented
First US Post Office Opened

23. First Official Day of Fall
Great American Pot Pie Day
Native American Day

24. First Toy Store Built
National Punctuation Day

25. Journalist Barbara Walters' Birthday
The pain-challenged, yet fearless Christopher Reeve's Birthday
Good Neighbor Day
Charismatic Will Smith's Birthday

26. Johnny Appleseed's Birthday

27. Crush A Can Day

28. Chinese Mid-Autumn (Moon) Festival
Rosh Hashanah Begins at Sundown.

29. Scotland Yard Formed in London
Telly Monster's Birthday ("Sesame Street")

30. Safety Pin Invented

31. (As it's a short month, that day does not exist)

907

[The poem Aoi Sorawa (Skies of Blue) by Jim Mason is inspired by the lyrics of the Hiroshima Song which he heard during a three-month march (January 15-April 21, 2002) from Seattle, Washington to the Arlington Cemetery, Virginia. His poem has motivated me in turn to create an anagram about the dropping of the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945, followed by the detonation of "Fat Man" over Nagasaki on August 9. And to echo that horrendous act, the anagram contains a hidden constraint of two sets of side-by-side letters dropping down from top to bottom.]

AOI SORAWA [SKIES OF BLUE]
by Jim Mason

Let us leave our children skies of blue
That burning August morning even shadows burnt away
That weight of fathers mothers brothers sisters lives
We carry and we hold.
Let us leave our children skies of blue.
That night the essence of thousands vanished silent into space
The weight of fathers mothers brothers sisters lives
Now float like lantern lights to sea
Let us leave our children skies of blue.
Put out the fires of war from every nation in the world
May peace and love and liberty and life glow
in our handshakes
In our voices
in our songs
Let us leave our children skies of blue.

THE BLOODIEST HORRORS OF HATE

Blinded now by our hollow selves,
At times we are the ghosts, barely alive.
A lesson for the future of our children;
A book on how the brave survive.
My honest heart cries as instincts suffer.
Hiroshima is shaken, it seethes and burns;
Lost in our hardened indifference
While our guiltless, tough world turns.
Small acts of intentional kindness for
A fate, though we don't justly deserve.
It makes us long for the essentials we
Can't keep, the love we can't preserve.
A Nagasaki cloud of foolish cruelty,
Again barbarous, is in plain view;
As August thoughtfully reminds me
Skies will never ever be this blue.

908

[Oscar Wilde's "The Grave of Shelley" anagrammed into a memorial poem to Mick Tully]

Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed
Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;
Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,
And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.
And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,
In the still chamber of yon pyramid
Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,
Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.
Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb
Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep,
But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb
In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,
Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom
Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.

He Died Of ...?

As helpless life's conclusion breezes nigh,
No power charm comes rolling to this bed.
As mourners get absorbed before I die,
Gray content gets known deep in this hard head.
Remotely fresh to crunch me to the Death,
And why the hell at healthful sixty-one?
My elder face takes one mere, feeble breath
My desperate head prepared to ask a ton;
A splendid warmth of strength was up a sleeve
To enter life with rather mirthful birth.
It now depressed me - that's what I believed -
So was it worthwhile, dwelling here on Earth?
The product looks too dreadful here to think,
So just clutch up the harmless glass and drink.