Philip Wexler

 
Jumpy                           
 
I don’t know why she was so jumpy, but it got to a point where I couldn’t say a blessed thing before she’d be at me.  This morning took the cake. “Well, my dear, you do look lovely today, lovely as dawn.” and what I got was, “I’ll give you lovely, so all of a sudden I’m lovely, after years of ignoring me, not paying me the slightest compliment, deceiving me with those underage tramps, refusing to part with a couple of dollars, like last week, so I can buy a new pair of stockings, so why, tell me why, out of the blue, am I lovely?  I’ve heard it all, now really heard it all.”  “But my dear darling.”  “But, but.  You’re always with you but buts.  How much more of this do you expect me to listen to?  How much more can I take?  And your calling me a cow the other day!  What unbridled nerve!”  “My sweet, you misunderstood.  I know I may have been too forward in my reaction at the time of our disagreement but all I said was the I’d rather not be cowed.  But my honeypot, what’s making you so jumpy?” And here she let it all out.  “Jumpy?  I’ll show you jumpy, you failure, you dirty tissue, you undercooked woodcock.”  And at that she began to physically jump.  “So, you want to see jumpy, do you?”  He was stunned by her vehemence and couldn’t guess what brought on such a tantrum.  He stepped forward, extended his arm to calm her, to offer solace but tripped on her skip rope. The minute she saw him down, flat on his back, she jumped on his belly, taking the wind quite out of him, and didn’t let up, up and down, up and down.  “But, pumpkin,” he gasped.  “The nerve, calling me jumpy, you lout, you poor, poor excuse for a trampoline.”  And she kept at it until the cows came home.

**

Any Moment Now                  
 
The conference ballroom jam-packed, anxious expectation in the air, 5 minutes to showtime.  What would he say?  How would he stir their souls?  But showtime came and went and the stage remained empty.  A massive blue screen displayed, in an ornate but miniscule, and almost unreadable, font the white-lettered words, Program to Begin Momentarily.  After 15 minutes of nothingness, we began looking at each other uncomfortably.  Had something happened to the speaker? A young kid with a mop over one shoulder came up to adjust the mic.  Aside from annoying buzzing sounds and echoes and his coughing into it, intentionally it appeared, he brought no news about the missing speaker.  People gradually started to leave.  After ½ hour, only ½ the audience remained in their seats, fidgeting. The lights were finally dimmed, and everyone applauded, assuming the show was ready to begin but through the sound system, a distinctly Irish-accented voice boomed, asking people to hold tight for a few more moments.  The exodus continued.  Figuring I had nothing to lose, I jumped up on the stage, “Welcome, friends,” I said, “forgive the delay.  I was just making some last-minute notes.”  ½ the remaining people applauded and ½ booed but I was not deterred and continued at length about The Great Alternative, the advertised subject of the evening.  The heretofore apathetic crowd began perking up their ears, nodding their heads, interrupting me frequently with applause.  How outsiders different from the people who abandoned their seats got wind of what was happening, I don’t know, but the ballroom filled up again, and to overflowing.  Although I thought I carried it off passably well, I was astounded by the favorable reception I received.  I was rushed by well-wishers.  My wrist is still sore from giving autographs and my shoulders from being slapped in congratulations. The bouquets of roses were more than I deserved but I gladly accepted all.  On my way out with several hangers-on who insisted on feting me at a five-star restaurant, the announcement on the screen changed to We are Ready to Begin.  We all had a good laugh at that one. 

**

Winnings     
 
Seated around the table with an empty spot at its head, four players anxiously awaited the tall no-nonsense shuffler, a welder’s visor concealing his eyes, who finally arrived and slid into his designated spot without delay.  He was accompanied by a young boy with a leather satchel over his shoulder.  The boy removed and opened a collapsible stool and took a seat next to the shuffler who impassively said “red.”  The boy pulled out a fresh deck of red cards.  The shuffler ripped the seal off the package with his teeth.
 
He shuffled slowly before gathering steam, quickening the pace, and interleaving the cards so quickly that no more than a blur was visible.  The players eyed each other nervously.  All at once, he squared up the deck and slapped it smack in the center of the table, reverberating from the impact.  Up went his visor.  “Cut,” he ordered.  No one knew whom he was addressing.  The confusion was laid to rest when the boy cut the cards.  “Ready, gents?” he asked, though there was a woman in the group.  Silently but in unison they gulped and, all of one mind, started to bolt for the door.

“Pansies!” he derided them, “get back to your positions,” and they did.  “The boy will deal.”  He relinquished his seat to the youth, and everyone relaxed.  The game proceeded as he retired to a workbench in a corner where he sharpened and honed an ultra-sharp, case-hardened knife.  “Won’t be but a moment” he shouted over the din and sparks.  Everyone was dealt two cards face down, instructed to look at them, put one in each hand, and place their hands behind their chair backs.  Lickety-split, the boy circled the table and handcuffed them all.  
 
“All right, chaps, let’s have at it,” announced the shuffler.  It was a festive scene as he went from one to the next, slitting throats and watching them slump forward on the table and drop their cards behind them.  He flung away his visor and emptied their wallets one by one.  As he added up his winnings, the boy crept up behind him and used a length of copper wire to strangle the shuffler.  He tucked the ace of spades behind his right ear, pocketed the cash, wished everyone a pleasant eternity, and whistled with youthful delight as he shuffled off.
 
** 
 
The Pineapple Under the Umbrella or He’s Shy     
 
I was concerned, as any sympathetic passerby would be, seeing the slightly dented and off-balance pineapple on the ground, under the open but bent, tattered, and leaking umbrella, the both of them unprotected from the pouring rain flooding through the abandoned elevated tracks.  “What’s the news, friend?”  I asked the pineapple, “you look soaked to the bone.  You must be chilled.  I’d rescue you, you know, but I’m homeless myself.  Is there anything I can do to help?  I can spare you a towel.”  The pineapple didn’t say a word.  “Don’t hesitate, please.  I see you’re losing your juice.  That must be painful.  Should I call 911?  Please, say something.”  The pineapple was silent.  “Tell you what.  I’ve got a pal.  He’s got a tent.  Let’s me sleep in it now and then when it’s not filled with the junk he gathers to sell.  I bet he could find a spot for you.  Just give me your okay.  Why don’t you say anything?”  At that, the umbrella interjected, “Don’t take offense, sir, he’s shy.”  I scooped it up and held it against my body, under my frayed raincoat.  Inside the dry tent, it gained enough courage to thank me and even ask why I didn’t bring along the umbrella while I was at it.  It’s true, I put a lower value on the bumbershoot, a manmade construct, and also assumed it was comfortable in its element but answered sincerely that I would have rescued his friend just as well.  I wondered why the umbrella didn’t ask for my assistance.  “Well, you see,” the pineapple stuttered, “he’s shy.”

**

Squirrel Dilemmas     
 
A dead and a live squirrel were conversing.  From the branch of the maple, the live squirrel shouted down to the stiff, splayed squirrel next to the storm drain, “How did it happen, friend?”  “Food poisoning,” I think, answered the dead squirrel.  “This kid threw me a peanut butter cracker.  God knows what it was laced with.”  “You must mean Freddie down the street; I’ve been wise to that 10-year-old for quite a while.  “I wish I had the sense to resist,” said the dead squirrel, “but you know how it is …” “Anything I can do for you?” asked the live squirrel.”  “I guess a proper burial is too much to ask for?”  “I’m afraid so, given our cultural climate,” said the live squirrel, “but I should be able to manage something.”  So, he climbed down, off the tree, and nudged the dead squirrel into the storm drain.  “My eternal thanks,” he heard its voice echo on the way down.  Just then, Freddie was meandering down the street and casually taking peanut butter crackers, one by one, out of his coat pocket and dropping them onto the street every fifty of so paces. “But I’m so hungry,” reflected the live squirrel.

**
 
The Teeny Tinies               
 
They were neither people nor animals nor anything one could grasp or lay hold of, neither spirits nor sprites, but real, nonetheless.  An individual one is too small to see with the naked eye. It’s in their conglomeration as they glob together, one overlapping another, and spread out, in their multitudes, and swell in their vastness, only then do they turn from teeny tiny to just tiny.  At that point, if certain meteorological conditions are favorable, they turn visible, but just barely with the help of an electron microscope.  And yes, their movement, when viewed with such an aid, is not entirely negligible.  Indeed, to them, at their diminutive level, though you wouldn’t know it, they might be swirling with devotion.  And wait, is that music they are cavorting to?  The audio equipment seems to be detecting a faint buzz suggesting, on top of everything else, that they may be desperately trying to communicate from their teeny-weeny cosmos.  They may be in danger, threatened, on the verge of collapse or extinction or, maybe, they just want to say, “Greetings, we come in pieces.”
 
**
 
Philip Wexler lives in Bethesda, Maryland.  Well over 200 0f his poems have appeared in magazines. His poetry books include The Sad Parade (prose poems), and The Burning Moustache, both published by Adelaide Books, The Lesser Light by Finishing Line Press, With Something Like Hope (Silver Bow Publishing) and I Would be the Purple (Kelsay Books), the latter three all published in 2022.  Bozo's Obstacle is due for release later in 2024 by In Case of Emergency Press.  He also organizes and hosts Words out Loud, a monthly spoken word series convened at the Compass Art Center in Kensington, Maryland.