Preface
All events in history have mothers that birthed them

History is a link of many sausages
Birthed in the high forties
My age is in the low-fifties
Therefore I am a child of the Sixties
(& these crow's feet mean my eyes can fly away
From anything they don't want to see.)

February 1964

The Beatles arrive in America.
We regard it as more important
Than the second coming of Jesus Christ.
No complaint here
For Jesus never played the Hollywood Bowl.
She love you Yeah Yeah Yeah,

But it never could have happened without
Lee Harvey Oswald & the grassy knoll gunslingers.
HISTORY IS A LINK OF MANY presidential SAUSAGES
& events without mothers have no birth.

No Kennedy assassination
No American psyche in a deep-freeze
No need for four funky mop-tops from the Motherl&
To show us life can be fun again.

No magic bullet
No ten gallon assault on Viet Nam
No necessity to Suspect The System
& we'd still be listening to Fabian & Frankie Avalon.

No executive doubts
No Watergate revelations>>>no Nixon resignation
No end to the Sixties>>>No one ever stops smoking pot
I'll have a frappucino & a side of sensamilla

(I survived the Sixties so I can pretend to know everything)
No Nixon resignation>>>No peanut gallery presidents
One was a Ford & the other was Mr. Skippy
No Jimmy Carter>>>no Iran Hostage crisis>>>No Ted
Koppel & No Nightline
No central-casting President, that is
Ronald Reagan with his Hollywood six-gun pointed right at Ayatollah
& the Evil Empire starts trembling in the tundra

Rocking-chair Reagan passes the baton to Bush the
Elder
The cold-war gets deep-fried
& Down goes the Berlin Wall
& up goes the global village>>>up goes the internet
& in comes Bill Clinton, the corn-fed Kennedy, with
his creative cigar
& now>>& now>>Is it Bush the junior
Nor a burning Bush
A barely flickering Bush:
The asterik President.

Control
Fear & Thought had a race
To see who would control that place.
I speak of the vast terrain
That we call the human brain.
If Fear wins & lays all thought asunder
The mind becomes a vast tundra.
But if Thought wins the contest
The mind becomes an enchanted forest.

More Control
Hope & Illusion had a race
To see who would control...
Never mind. This one was no contest.
Hope leaves Illusion in the dust. Hope wins by a
country smile. The crowd cheers. Hope is hoisted onto
the victory stage. Speeches are made & promises are
promised. Roses are wreathed a-round Hope's neck
& in the palm of Hope's hand is the crowd.
Plus all the honors to be bestowed: book contracts,
movie deals, a month in Malibu, an hour with Oprah...

But it's all an illusion.

Altared Egos (sic)
You left all those egos at the altar
Then disappeared without one look
But never scratched their names
From your little black book.

Twenty-four/ seven
They are always on call
Whoring for your purposes
To make you short or make you tall.

There's only one question
That is true
It's not "Who are they?"
But "Who are you?"

Feud For Thought
Ledee & Ledum
Were in the backseat
They snapped their fingers
They tapped their feet.

But the music from
The front of the car
Was "salvoes" fired
From Pa to Ma.

It was the Sunday
Afternoon family drive
The car turned left:
The time did arrive....

For the Ma & Pa Tweed
Fight of the Week.
(At all other times
They were friendly & meek.)

No physical punches
were hurled or thrown
Just stupid loud words
From Pa's mouth were flown.

Ma: The sun is yellow
Pa: It ain't yellow it's chicken.
Ma: I have a nose for knowledge
Pa: You have a nose for pickin'

Ma would hurl a feather
Sic Pa, a paper stilutto.
But Ledee whispered "cole slaw"
& her brother, "prosciutto!'

From the beat of the backseat
Came "ham" & "cheese" & more
But not one of these words
Was a non sequitir!
For when this fight was over
It was always the same
Pa Tweed never "said" I'm sorry
Never admitted to blame.

In time to the backseat
He would tap his belly
& drive the family car
To the Corner Copia Deli.

Cold cuts & condiments
Salads & cake
A festive resolution
For the family's sake.

The table was then set
All nice & neat
Ledee, Ledum, Ma & Pa
Now all tapped their feet.

& all tapped their forks
They were ready to eat
The music now played
To an edible beat.

One more thing
As every Tweed knows
Pa would give Ma
A sparkling red rose.

All of the above poems (excluding Sausages) are excerpted from The Neither/Nor Journal, currently available only at the Figmentary Bookstore in Lake Mirage. Just take the Chimerical High- way to Invisible Avenue & ask for Gus.

^

Biography

Paul Oliverio is a chalk-chucking, number- crunching, lifer dog. TRANSLATION>>>15 yrs teaching Math at Jefferson HS in South-Central Los Angeles. He is a colleague and protege of Rex Swihart. But Math is meaningless without words and sometimes Mr. Oliverio lets those words take on a life of their own and whiplash their own logic beyond the classroom.