Sunday, April 30, 2006

I try my hand at a comic strip

posted by Carl Bryant @ 7:04 PM   4 comments Literary Shirts



Saturday, April 29, 2006

A tshirt design, in honor of national poetry month

posted by Carl Bryant @ 5:59 PM   7 comments Literary Shirts



Friday, April 28, 2006

Hell
Internet poetry
is Sisyphus at a computer
pushing his lost sleep
into Microsoft Word
and finding it again
fallen on his desk
each morning.

posted by Carl Bryant @ 11:13 AM   5 comments Literary Shirts



...and heaven
when god speaks

these days
he mumbles

a million little things
like it's cold outside

and have you turned off the stove
and isn't that baby beautiful

and on
and on without end

as if you'd notice
a million little things

posted by Carl Bryant @ 10:38 AM   4 comments Literary Shirts



Thursday, April 27, 2006

Grief, and Pressure
It's been a rough day at work again. Yet another death in the company this morning (four in seven days, and counting.)

They said it was a heart attack, and I'd like to believe that... but I fear I might be next.

Anyway, I'm working a lot harder. I don't know how much longer I can keep it up, but I'm sure as soon as I slack off... the company "heart attack" will get me.

posted by Carl Bryant @ 1:10 AM   2 comments Literary Shirts



Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Photograph
Photograph


On Mother's wall,
below the photograph
of Father before the cancer:

Against the baseboard,
his Sunday shoes remain -
like he kept smiling and backing up

until his heels touched the wall
and he disappeared
in a brief Hiroshima of light.

posted by Carl Bryant @ 9:57 AM   1 comments Literary Shirts



r-e-s-p-e-c-t
I saw the image of God in my bowl of cornflakes this morning,
but I was hungry and ate it anyway.

I guess it was a miracle and I should have saved it, but breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Besides - I'm an imaginative guy and the box is still pretty full... so it could happen again.

Come to think of it...

I bet Jesus only did that "walking on water" miracle once because He didn't want the disciples to pester Him every time somebody dropped a paddle.

I suppose we assume that rare occurences are things to be respected - kind of like me writing a decent poem. And now you know why I rarely write a decent poem.

Paddle with your hands, people.

posted by Carl Bryant @ 12:39 AM   4 comments Literary Shirts



Monday, April 24, 2006

Shades of Gay
A while back, a friend and I were discussing attitudes and the gay community. For some stupid reason I'm wondering what the Baptists think, and I'm online reading an article detailing the various church attitudes about homosexuality when this bubble pops out of the tar:

"Homosexuality is an imperfection like colorblindness. It is not quite the fullness of God's blessing. There is no personal culpability, but the condition involves some risks and disadvantages (just as colorblindness can cause some problems -- as I know since I am color-deficient...)"~ Michael L. Westmoreland-White.

I'm left with this shattering observation: Mike's not gay, and he's color-deficient.

Now I'm not PC enough to be "color-deficient," but I am mildly colorblind. Like Mike, I'm also not gay. Don't get me wrong - I'm not fiercely "not-gay," and I'm comfortable enough to be curious. My little gray Vienna sausage of a brain is skipping full-speed down a colorful San Francisco street.

No disrespect to Mike, but I'm wondering if all heterosexual gay-bashing religious zealots are colorblind. I start Googling "Jerry Falwell + colorblindness." No mention of Falwell, but Google thinks I should click hopeforhomosexuals.com.

Jesus Christ on a colorwheel… this ugly-ass site is coded completely in black and white.

Okay, Google: What about Fred Phelps? Yep. Ugly website. Black and white, with just a touch of repressed blue.

Is it that simple? Maybe so. Religious nuts are notoriously simplistic. I expected that. What else? The tiny brain is taking notes.

A lot of men are colorblind.
A lot of men are not gay.
A lot of men have no sense for color coordination in fashion.
A lot of gay men have great fashion sense.

I have to ask. Can a man be gay and colorblind?

Evidently, the question isn't unheard of. Google leads me to a gay rights forum where a member posted a few years ago asking if there was a gay man in the forum who was colorblind. Three years later, not one colorblind gay man has outed himself with a reply. Not one.

My head is swimming, and there's no tanned lifeguard on duty. Life as we know it could change in ways we could never predict.We should definitely explore this. Money should be spent.

Where's the government when you need them to waste millions on frivolous research? Google says they're probably at a ball game, watching men tussle, posing for photo ops, and wolfing foot-long hotdogs. Google assures me they're wearing suits of plain gray.

I can avoid it no longer. The most penetrating question worms its way out of the sausage. I'm a poet. Are most male poets, umm…. not "color-deficient?"

So now I'm asking about poets and colors. Google thinks for a second, then shows me poems with pink bougainvillea and chartreuse walls, warm reds, soothing greens, nurturing blues. The screen is a big pink poodle lounging on a couch of color and contrast. Sheesh. No wonder my friends think all poets are gay.

Great monochrome God... What if they're right?

What if I'm gay, too?

Sure... it was the wife who taped that picture of Tom Cruise to the ceiling, but I've tossed my head back and accidentally looked at it a few times. Criminy.

What if I'm in denial?

Wait! I can't be gay... I'm colorblind! Sweet black and white Jesus, that was a close one.

Another chilling thought, and Internet Explorer grinds to a stop.

When they cure colorblindness - and you know they will - we will all be gay.

There's a cure for heterosexuality. Extinction is inevitable. The last time God killed the world, there was a rainbow on the horizon. Click the browser's back button. Repent.

The end is coming, looking at Tom Cruise.

posted by Carl Bryant @ 1:47 PM   9 comments Literary Shirts



Sunday, April 23, 2006

blogging myself insane


The Pie Not Taken

Two pies seduced in a yellow fridge
And sorry I could not eat both
And be on Atkins, I stood a smidge
And looked down long on the crusty ridge
and gave foul Atkins a vile oath;

Then took one from the fridgidaire,
And meeting perhaps the diet claim
'Cause it was thinner, stuffed with pear;
Though as for that the syrup there
Had made them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
with crusts no knife had tried to hack.
I kept the peach for another day!
Yet knowing how children eat away,
I worried I'd not get that snack.

I shall be telling this with huge thigh
Covered with hungry grandkids hence:
Two pies seduced in a fridge, and I--
I ate the thin one - the tiny pie
first, and it made no difference.

posted by Carl Bryant @ 3:57 PM   4 comments Literary Shirts



Friday, April 21, 2006

Oh God... I'm gonna die


I've attended several church funerals this week, so I'm again considering my own mortality. I can find no comfort in religion, but I don't fault those who do.

I think that we all fear death and the unknown - so much so, that we must stick them into an inscrutable box to hide them away. We can stick all sorts of things into such a box. Some use it to hold their failures, their horrors, their pain, and their inability to comprehend the awful complexity of being that threatens to swallow us whole.

If someone chooses to label their inscrutable box "God" - so be it.

We all have our boxes, and we'll all end up in one.

posted by Carl Bryant @ 2:01 PM   6 comments Literary Shirts