Ricky Garni

The Funnies

ooo! I bought a carnation.
suddenly, I had a new job

   here I was,
   picking more carnations

than ever in fabulous,
formal gardens

  little dogs scramble
 in the flower beds

getting their little
paws moist

  telephones ring
   in the distance

they're so far away
they might be invisible

  like THE INVISIBLE MAN
  starring: claude raines

  or THE INVISIBLE GIRL,
  who was married to MR. FANTASTIC

with fantastic grey hair
at the temples (the rest was comic book

   brown.)

how powerful they were!

  battling incomprehensibly
  terrifying super villains

who give little boys
bad dreams

   but winning great victories
   in a wholesome way

which gives little boys
good dreams

  while mommy and daddy
  make love quietly in the sun parlor

ssshh!

  she says, yes, I will
  ssshh, he says

victory is ours!
says mr. fantastic

    assuredly, it is
    says the invisible girl

who is blond

   let's make love
   in the sun parlor

just you and me
says the invisible man

  by h.g. wells, where
  did you come from?

asks the invisible girl,
temporarily alone and bereft

   of her devoted and distinguished
   husband, mr. fantastic

 oh, around,
 says the invisible man,
vaguely

  at which point you must
  ask yourself:

why are my paws
moist?

   where are the world's carnations?

why must faith
be so invisible?

  why is

life this

  comic book?

 

The Life of a Squirrel

as you sit in the park you may wonder: what emotion is it that governs the life of the squirrel? simple: it is fear. for fear is the only thing that would drive an animal to leap from one tree branch to another, linked by a breathless moment suspended in air, masking, if ever so slightly, the light of the sun. if the fear is greater, so is the leap: you might find yourself able to scramble an egg and put a little pepper and tabasco sauce on it while the squirrel remains suspended in air, masking the sun. jumping from one fear to the next, and so beautifully: thinking you can fly, if even for a moment, or perhaps not thinking you can fly, but witnessing fear as it compels you to pretend you think you can fly and so everyone who watches you, fearfully, pretends that you won't die if you try to fly: it is too terrible and yet it is beautiful; it is animal; it happens all the time; we seldom take time out of our busy days to sit and watch; some argue about this: in bars, homes, in community centers in towns and large cities. they think that it's not a good thing: do you?

 

Fear

if you know someone long enough, you discover their fears. "I need to sit down" someone once told me, on the very long escalator at dupont center in washington, d.c. this is called: escalatophobia.

"don't leave me! I will die without you!" I heard a young woman tell my friend once. she was wearing the prettiest green dress might be mistaken, but I seem to remember that her skin smelled like chestnuts. and yet, she suffered from alonophobia.

phobia is an interesting suffix. as you know, it is derived from the greek "phoebus" (apollo) who was not a fearful god. he was, according to the legends, the god of good manners and tidiness. so fear, really, at its heart, no matter how it manifests itself, is simply the desire to have things orderly and in their place and not at all rude.

I often think of this at night when I cannot sleep, fearful that, when I awake, someone will have turned off the fan that blows so gently upon me in the night. and then, what if the fan is still running, but I don't wake up? luckily, you cannot suffer from both of these fears at once.

 

Holamismo

HOLAMISMO!

this is the
hello of right now

you know the
feeling: you
have a boxer and
it has been
napping...

suddenly it needs
to go on a walk

¡holamismo!

or you have been
struck in the
face by a boxer,

say, cassius clay.
"call me
mohammad ali!"
he says,
punching you squarely
in the face

¡holamismo!
or you are
feeling a tad

punchy. you planned
on going to the local
discotheque, hoping
to fall in love but
instead...

bought another
patrick o'brian novel
and stayed up til 3:00
a.m.

in your mind,
on some frigate,
near corsica,
looking for
napoleon. what

an ¡holamismo! waste
of time!

or you are
a napoleon.

chocolate and
creamy eclair

dropped on the
ground. no you're
not.

don't worry:
everything's O.K.
¡holamismo!

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