Dedicated to Harold Smith

Headline: Invest upstairs

Jim Banholzer

(2006)

An investment in Knowledge pays the best interest -Ben Franklin – Poor Richard’s Almanack

Chugging along in traffic behind grand-mamma’s jalopy, I started grumbling amidst the slow moving merger. Then, I caught myself, nailed between a carpenter truck and a van stuffed with gee-gaws to increase the dog’s elevation. Teetering in this see-saw I considered most of us are cogwheels, caught in ways, contributing to this valleys vast machine.

Prying open the gorge so that more will thrive here

My colleagues and I fine-tune sparkly guides into the wee hours, and then diaphanously dish them into translucent trays about town. By what right do we have to complain about traffic? We're letting the secret out, inviting international readers hovering in cyberspace and skies above, to surf convincing infowaves, about how dang tootin’ swell, it is here, with a side angle of buy and sell.

Prying out layers of seldom scene stories. Listing fascinating reasons to thrive here -all along the watchtower calendar brimming full of everlasting gob-stopping events. What grounds do I have to complain about timmering traffic when I’m winking that Idaho trails are confirmingly super? None it seems. It’s as if I’m driving ten passenger buses myself.

One winter, I delivered some firewood to the house of a man rich on paper. He needed ten times more wood than I. Did he expect that he would become that much colder than I? “Hi, I’m Bob” he said, “I own seventeen properties in the same breath.” Hello there Bob and weave this thought:

Have you ever considered that we teetering bulbs of dread and dream are merely guardians of these fine estates and acreage? That may have not actually been mentioned in the disclaimer ad. We are mere caretakers, short temporal renters, trying to polish up the odds of earning the next pearly powerball leveled ticket, tenderly set through standards over the blessed grounds we garden. Bob, when you were fencing off undesirables did you ever put your ear to the earth to catch a different vibe? With your head laying down there and the fungi tugging your curled hair, you might glance up at the light and notice rainbows crystallizing toward you through the eternal waterfall. A tracking system more advanced and with better vibrations than the NSA.

A friend had a heated discussion with his sister about Real Estate. She sells spinning beachfront seashells. Unlike a mouse, she shreiked, “Mike, you really oughter to invest in a house.” He was going for his doctorate and said, “What’s more important than investing in my head? What’s more vital to the future?” Outstanding point I thought.

Why is it that no one asks, "When is the new Poetry guide going to hit the stands, Jim?" A few requests like that and then we’ll really know that this valley has reached the next level of enlightenment. All I can say for now is that we’re working on this Buzz. We’ll think big while starting small. Maybe Ferlinghetti will wink and share that secret handshake with me, after all.

Poet living in ghetto seeks to ascend out of current situation. Helpful and interested parties need apply.

An ad for that should be listed fast under “Home Improvement”. Seems like some of us put thousands $ fixing up our homes, but less sense nailed into improving our interior beings. The next wave of words streaming out of some people’s mouths is predictably magnetized with negative polarities.

But then I discover when fixating on that,

Often I’ll find that I’m wrong once again,

For soon when I start thinking less of a friend,

I’m blown around by some great breath of change

Yes, that’s the story of my life, the second I think I’ve come to a solid conclusion, more parameters abound, turning me hard into a listener of ground. But no matter how tight you press your ear down, some things are never heard again. Today’s thoughts are the oldest yet. Parents transmogifying into grandparents are sated, finally seeing we readily whooped snappers tasting varied sunshine colors they hobbled through, before attaining golden ages of honored fiery cups, which we gaze at in ancestral skies.

They did the best they could,

With the tools they had,

Why did I always mouth off bad?

Cam Dagget that’s sad!

Quite tight, we used to blindfold the Professor and spin him brightly about the library in his lengthy Copernicus costume. We would direct his sightless hand to one of two thousand books. Nine times out of ten, he would know the books

name by feel and without opening a page tell us a story from within it. His natural selection gifts were on par with those of athletic librarians.

There never was an asterisk below,

The sanctified guide book,

Showing whose land this future was once,

Now for sale, which we took

Dog-eared Pamphlets tossed on a trail of tears

Title assurances, to not fear but be fair,

You’re fenced in proper by your silver gold hair,

TV Goblets wobble on edge from GPS air

Cheerily pick some fruit from real estate basket,

Ceremoniously move in with christening task set,

Stock market experts if they really could foresee,

Wouldn’t waste time telling you what’s free.

Link: Lawrence Ferlinghetti - Poetry as News