Small world

In

the

line at

Kentucky

Fried Chicken: Naked

white globe in crown of tousled hair.

– Len "Bad Food" Blumfeld

I admit it, I went to KFC for lunch. Well, all the people I usually have lunch with are either on vacation or were out. Still I looked over my shoulder to see if anybody caught me.
Before I entered, I spent a while reading up on the footnoted ingredients they use at KFC. Quite a list! Flavor enhancers in various combinations with phosphate and colorants, to name just a few. Even their corn cobs are artificially colored. Having slung down my flavor- and color-enhanced chicken product, I came to the conclusion once again that neither I nor anyone else should be caught at KFC – dead or alive.

Anyway: When waiting in line, the hindhead of the gentleman in front of me inspired me to the above fib.

A Kenneth Patchen Love Poem for Poetry Thursday

Oh now the drenched land wakes;
Birds from their sleep call
Fitfully, and are still.
Clouds like milky wounds
Float across the moon.

Oh love, none may
Turn away long
From this white grove
Where all nouns grieve.

– Kenneth Patchen

(from "The Love Poems of Kenneth Patchen", City Lights Books, 1966)

Posted for one of the last Poetry Thursdays to take place.

Note
To readers not familiar with this great and underrated American poet and novelist, I recommend the Wikipedia page on Patchen as a start.

So what fib no. 1

Lunch
with
sausage
and Indian
spice was good. So what?
you ask. Where is your gratitude?

– Leon B.

Note
As the number in the title indicates, more of these are intended to come.*
The idea goes back to Richard Brautigan and his green pepper/salad bowl so what poem quoted in Poems like untucked shirts.

*Readers are left with three or more options: joy, indifference, horror, ...

Darshini David’s wardrobe

Dedicated to her

She
loves
her big
buttons and
collars and has sets
of them: mauve, beige, red, turquoise, etc.

– Leonard Blumfeld

Notes
This is in reference to BBC news presenter Darshini David, who seems to have a distinct predilection for tops with oversized collars and plastic buttons. She has at least four of these in different colors. Where does she get them?
Can “etc.” squeeze through as a one-syllable word? I hope so. (It certainly would have one syllable if it were pronounced “ets.”) If not, the purity of the venerable fib form is compromised here.

Blood, sweat and tears

Not
quite
so bad:
Sweat, no blood,
no tears. Just dry eyes
from screen slog. For daily bread. For
others, yes and no.
Daily toil.
No end.
Yes,
no.

– Leonard the Screen Gazer

The merest touch of her

Poetry came by again last night
to drop something off.

I spend too much time
without Poetry but don’t

want to be too insistent
in calling her over.

What did she drop off?
A locket I can’t seem to open.

But I’m not worried. It
sits on my desk with

a silvery half-smile
and reminds me of Poetry.

– Leonard Blumfeld

Note

This is my belated contribution to Poetry Thursday's invitation of August 2.

I was working hard on inspiration (see previous entry To squeeze tears out of a rock) and found it in a line read on Poetry Thursday itself:

“Poetry keeps me company and sings me lullabies. Poetry is making moments, little moments, into brushstrokes.”

To squeeze tears out of a rock

Can it be done?

Or is it a mission impossible?

(I'm trying to come up with a poem for Poetry Thursday – currently vacationing and without topic suggestion – and feel quite rocky and unpoetific.)

Doesn't necessarily have to be tears, either.

Office still life

The face of the house across is brightened to a stark near-white by the sun coming in from the southeast.

Yes, it's that house with the leisure area on the garage, the terracotta pot array supplemented by three bright green plastic watering cans.

There's a bright red Fiat Cinquecento on the window sill.

If I crane my neck, I can see some bright red flowers on corn stalks.

Corn stalks?

– Len B.

An orange nudge

I don't think the weather knows about the forecast.

– Len the Weatherman

It's true; it was supposed to be bright and warm today (and was preparing to be until 10 minutes ago), but now it's greying in, and I can even hear distant thunder in my imagination.

It's lunch time ...

and I'd rather be across the street where, on the garage roof, there is a cozy arbor with a comfortable-looking white plastic table and chair set among terracotta pots with various flowers and plants, including, as far as I can tell without binoculars, bamboo and pink hortensias.

It's a still life. Nothing moves over there, unless you count a slight tremble of leaves from barely noticeable air movement.

There are voices through the connecting door from the office next to mine.

I am in two worlds.