Daggers and skulls make him a man.
Rose thorns and angels wings (she’s so hot!).
I’ll get a light bulb top of my bald head,
and hope it makes me brighter.

To cure a ganglion,
folk medicine tells us,
hit it hard with your Bible.
Really whack it!
Try that with a Kindle.

workday morning late again
old convertible my summer ride
radio loud, muffler louder
sets off the boss’s car alarm

Paurl On His Side

Snow begun to swirl, just getting to be dark. Cut enough wood for one day, my brother Paurl and me. Been cutting along the ridge that divides the old farm in two. His hundred acres on the back side of the ridge and my hundred in front. He took the truck and I started walking back with my saw and Maize, my wife’s old dog. Real quiet, nice out there along the ridge like that. I’d set the saw down to answer a not particularly urgent call of nature and the dog gone exploring when I heard her voice.
“Well look who’s out here watering’ the flowers.”
…… She’d been dead now for years, Lurleen had. Wasn’t sure I heard right. I zipped up at least before turning around. Sitting on a stone wall, there she was. Wearing a little blue dress with yellow flowers on it, smoking her Pall Mall.
“Yeah, it’s me alright, back from the dead you could say, but I’m not back… just visiting.”
I must of stood there like a fish with my mouth open, blinking away and trying to clear my throat. She was pretty as a summer day, with her hair done nice and that smart aleck grin of hers.
“Oh, come on Tommy, loosen up a little! I just wanted to say hello before I went to see him…. How is he…. How’s he doing now?”
“Paurl?, okay enough I guess, but since you left he just stays close to home. I mean, I got a town job and all, but not Paurl. He been alone back there just sitting since you died.”
They’d been married, I don’t know, four, five years when she took off. Not another man mind you,  just wasn’t of a mindset to live way out here, be poor, be a farmer’s wife. She’d gone west, had some kinda waitress job when she got killed. Car accident.
“Truth to tell Lurleen, he’s not so good. Took you leaving hard. Real hard. Still does. Keeps to himself and workin’ his side. He’s my brother and all that, but a I gotta say, I just wish he’d find another woman or get a hobby or some god-dammed thing and
stop moping. Do something! Nobody gives a shit what!”
We were both quiet after that. Maybe I said too much, but I started feelin’ uncomfortable (uncomfortable with a ghost mind you) and thought I should change the subject.
“I gotta ask, Lurleen,  what’s it like being dead?”
“Alright,” she sighed. “No better than livin’, just different. Never cold, never hungry, and not bored like you’d think. Remember those View-Master things we had growing up? You could put in a little cartoon or somethin’ about state parks, it’s like that, only you don’t get to push down the lever… it just happens. Things keep changing, never know where you’ll end up…..but I wanted to set things straight with your brother. Not sure when I might be back.”
“ I don’t know,” I said “it’s good to see you and all, but Paurl, well, you know how he can be, he’s different.”
“Different!” she laughed, “Ya think? Thought maybe I pop up out of the damned fireplace and give him a fright, but that won’t solve the problem. I need to  explain, explain it wasn’t him.”
“Lurleen honey, what can you ever say that’ll patch things up? Paurls’ sitting back there feeling sorry for hisself, and your dead! Nothin’s gonna change any of that!”
She looked down, nodded some. Then it came to me.
“Course….., you could take him with you.”

by-Doug Mathewson

Here is a photograph of my Great Grandfather, Albin Scarlsborugh. That wasn’t his real name, it was just what my Great Grandmother Alma told him to tell people who got nosey. This picture was taken (by me) on his 90th birthday. You can see my shadow in the foreground. I was about seventeen and though wearing one of my Great Grandfathers hats was cool because it went well with my creamsicle striped bellbottoms and fringed vest.
Stories about our family’s Tomten were told to me by my Great Grandfather. He spent many nights drinking homemade potato vodka out in the barn with Our Tomten. But drinking or not, Our Tomten guarded the farm and watched over the children and livestock. He was only three feet tall (sometimes less), and his crazy grey beard made him look all of his two or three or who knows how many thousands of years old, but to cross him could cost you your life. When my branch of the family moved to America in the 1880s, being bound to the land, Our Tomten stayed behind.

Our Tomten and the Fox

Was Our Tomten really as unpredictable and cranky as my Great Grandfather says?
My Great Grandfather drinks more than he should and says lots of things I’m not sure about. Since I was “old enough” my Great Grandfather has been telling me stories about back home in Sweden, and life there on our family’s farm. Some stories
have a moral, or a dirty joke, but the ones I like best are the ones about Our Tomten.
Tomtes are old beyond time and appear to be small bearded old men wearing red caps. Please do not mistake a tomte for some Christian sanitized version of a gnome or one of Santa’s Elves. They are ancient sprits of the earth and date back to before Odin, or Thor, or Loki, and Frida. Older still to before the very first Gods who predated humans in the North. My Great Grandfather says this story was just the way it happened, except for the parts he made up or forgot, and should be a lesson to us all about being polite and considerate to old men. Considerate like buying them a drink for example.

Very late one clear night, just a bit before the moon was full, Our Tomten was sitting in the farmyard smoking his pipe, trying to clear his head after drinking with my Great Grandfather since dusk. He was watching the sky for the next days weather when he
heard quick and nearly silent paws run behind him. His pipe smoke formed a fox, and he knew who had come. “Good evening, my young red sir. Whatever could bring you here. ”The fox was amused. Who was this ancient little shriveled man to ask? “ Oh Grandfather, it seems I can not sleep, and have come looking for a late night snack.”
Our Tomten was never very patient and a night of heavy drinking had given him a terrible headache. So back and forth they chatted, each trying trip-up the other with
seemingly polite conversation. The fox was clever as is the way of his kin, and Our Tomten was happy enough for the conversation, even if the fox’s motives were  transparent. Finally Our Tomten yawned and said, “It is late my red tailed friend, and I am tired. You are far too clever for me to outwit. I wonder if I were to eat you would I become as nimble of speech as you?” The fox made a rude noise through his nose and said “You old fool! The only eating there shall be tonight is of chickens. I have sat with you long enough and I too have become tired. Go on your way old man, and leave me
to my meal.” Our Tomten thought this was perhaps the most arrogant, condescendingly
inconsiderate rude fox in all of Sweden! Our Tomten had been polite. He’d even gone out of his way to speak the common forest language, and not that of man. What little patience Our Tomten ever had was gone. With a snarl he turned himself into a thirty foot tall mountain troll, grabbed the fox and swallowed him whole. Our Tomten screamed his rage to forest and roared his anger into the sky so that all creatures might hear; so that all creatures would know you must be polite to old men in red caps who you chance upon in farmyards or risk being eaten. Tails both red and grey where quite low as the brothers and the sisters both fox and wolf quietly moved Here is a photograph of my Great Grandfather, Albin Scarlsborugh. That wasn’t his real name, it was just what my Great Grandmother Alma told him to tell people who got nosey. This picture was taken (by me) on his 90th birthday. You can see my shadow in the foreground. I was about seventeen and though wearing one of my Great Grandfathers hats was cool because it went well with my creamsicle striped bellbottoms and fringed vest.
Stories about our family’s Tomten were told to me by my Great Grandfather. He spent many nights drinking homemade potato vodka out in the barn with Our Tomten. But drinking or not, Our Tomten guarded the farm and watched over the children and livestock. He was only three feet tall (sometimes less), and his crazy grey beard made him look all of his two or three or who knows how many thousands of years old, but to cross him could cost you your life. When my branch of the family moved to America in the 1880s, being bound to the land, Our Tomten stayed behind.

“Such a night,” said Our Tomten as shaking his head, he changed back into the form of a three foot tall (or less) breaded old man. “Such a night.” With a smile and a chuckle he added, “Well I may feel no wiser after my snack, but I must thank that fox for giving me a full belly.”
My Great Grandfather said Our Tomten laughed at his own joke every time he told the story and eventually was so delighted with his own wit  that he did credit the Fox for the improvement

by-Doug Mathewson

you exhale long
and I, in your arms
inhale deeply of
oxygen depleted exhalation
and get so dizzy
lying close.

by-doug mathewson.

for my wife with love.

My workaday internal journey is long. In my seven to seven (do you remember nine to five?) I travel by tiny coracle from my right ear to my left. First I must shrink down from the towering size I imagine myself to be to the ever diminishing
sub-atomic particle size the world perceives me as. Being this small I am invisible even to my self! Then I can row my neutrino sized coracle with easy. Every day I drop one bottle over the side. They are filled with reports, requests, and memos containing my analytical insights and reviews. The bottles come in two colors, green and amber. I always alternate the colors. What happens to these encapsulated communications is entirely unknown to me. The A.D.D. afflicted, Blackberry addicted Poseidon who signs my check won’t make eye contact. Around me harpies shriek at writhing sea-snakes who hiss in return, but I just tip my hat and paddle by. Marketing nudibranchs in colorful jogging-suits speed-boat by constantly, each time with an amazing new plan. The sea churns with slowly with unemployed remoras hungry for a corporate host.
Nemo’s very own great squid was summoned. It’s management consulting prowess deemed mighty. Staffers were interviewed most sternly and called to task. Costs were upwardly up, profits  were downwardly down, and heads were sure to roll. I must have been anchored midway, becalmed in the spot between maybe yes and maybe no for a year or three and wasn’t missed.
Midpoint means half way home, the tide has changed, and the wind has risen. The setting sun shires through my left ear on the horizon. This provides a lovely golden aura for most the enchanting of mermaids who had arranged herself just so upon my worn ossicles. She brushes out her hair and smiles as she waits for me to come ashore. Ashore with my tales of a long day at work traveling to get where I began.

by-Doug Mathewson

My great grandfather told me “You need to travel for three whole days before you come to someplace else.” His idea of adventure was to ride a plow horse through Sweden’s western farm lands circa 1880. This morning I left my fortified suburban enclave and traveled thousands of miles in just hours. Nothing changed – I haven’t gone anywhere
at all.

by-Doug Mathewson

Baxter Bunny was thoroughly pissed-off. Indignantly he grumbled, “Moved all the way out here,
went in hock for an ear job. Worked my tail off year after year, and for what? The goddamned runaround! “I’ve had it” he complained, “with this town and this whole stupid industry! Fuck cartoons.!”

Let’s plan to occupy the executive washroom.
I’ll bring a cooler and my George Foreman grill.
Blue collar, pink collar, flea collar, no collar.
Free chicken and beer!
Wear a suit and act like a dick? Sorry, none for you.
Hack the PA system and we’ll all sing cowpoke songs.
The Scouts, both boy and girl, and 4-H kids can tell marathon ghost stories.
A helium bottle and bull horn for every middle schooler,
With the stern instructions, “Okay, you’re all bunnies, and you’re all crazy!”
Invite the neighborhood to take over the hall ways!
Roller skating hockey players.
Old men playing bocce, spitting and cursing in a language unknown.
Chalk drawn hop-scotch and hipsters pushing strollers.
Murder bike on the stairs!
Competitive eating contests in the Board Room,
“Calling the baked beans and pineapple chucks contest, no utensils class.”
Marbles in the air-ducts, rappers in reception, laundry hanging in the lobby!
When things are running like they should, then I’ll go and place
My fuzzy little behind where only lizard boss reptile haunches have been..
And re-read all the novels I’ve meant to for years, let’s start with Moby Dick.

by-Doug Mathewson