Thursday, March 5, 2009

Equinoxious











Spring has certainly sprung, how can I tell?
Tolling of a bell, 60° hell?
Absence of ice or a blizzard of snow,
Moonboot prints as far as the eye'll go?
Gasp! No! something far more insidious,
Vilest demon haunting each of us!
A puff of smoke, a whiff of gas that kills
First flowering buds, birds on window sills.
Servant of the state, what on concrete lie?
Three or four butts, wrappers, clean that pig sty!
Infernal grinding, black cacophony
Of filth in our eyes, morn's dark misery.
Grimy combustion, gusts kicking up dust,
Lord, our bane has returned! thy words we trust:
Run, run from the Beast, faster, not slower!
The Devil's creation, the leaf blower!

22 comments:

anita said...

whoah! you've clearly been paying attention in your Elizabeth poetry classes! I'm going to have to start calling your "Randal Dowland" or "Randal Sackville, Earl of Ohio" or perhaps even "Edmund Graves" !!

Hmmm ... well, maybe Anonymous might work as well.

;)

Life As I Know It Now said...

and what is wrong with a rake? doesn't eat up power is what is wrong with rakes I'm guessing. when you have to actually exercise while working well, what is the world coming to?

Randal Graves said...

anita, I love me some Dowland, but I'm thinking I could enjoy being an Earl of something. I don't have to wear one of those frilly collars, do I? They look less comfortable than a necktie.

liberality, oh, it's worse than that. This leaf blower is used on the concrete walkway in front of the library. No leaves around save the occasional one.

Ubermilf said...

The sixth line is one syllable short.

Randal Graves said...

übermilf, certainly not. Vi-l-est. I've got my government issued poetic license right here.

Dean Wormer said...

Leafblowers- the bane of all that is good and holy. That's why pope Charlie IX excommunicated them.

Mary Ellen said...

I would have been here to comment earlier, but I was blowing leaves with my Minuteman Parker Hurricane Plus Blower . I made sure I started at 6:00 a.m. so the neighbors would wake up all cheery and ready for their day.

...ok, I lied. I slept in late today.

You're right...the leaf blower is the devil's creation and I prefer the old fashioned rake, it's good exercise.

Anonymous said...

Love it....not the leaf blower but your post. I grew up in Michigan, we moved our own lawn, didn't have a gardener, in Los Angeles, they are everywhere...and I always laugh because the leaf blower just blows the leaves to your neighbors yard. Here in France, we don't have gardeners either.

Randal Graves said...

dean, true, but do you think that the words of The Great Whore, Rome, will stop a diabolical cadre of heretics?

nunly, holy shit. "quick and efficient cleanup," more like quick and efficient slaughtering.

Seven hundred bucks? Spend twenty on a rake and the rest on booze or porn. Sheesh.

OJL, hell, I don't even see the point of raking, really. I like the look of fallen leaves.

Oh, I'm sure some Loire château dude employs a gardener or three.

puddy said...

wtf randal? how the fuck are the rest of us supposed to keep up if you're gonna do this kind of shit? keep the talent to a dull fucking roar, sylvia plath...

(j/k - great post mate)

Utah Savage said...

Puddy and I agree. I've gone dull, why should you grow brilliant? Are you stealing my brain when I sleep, like the sound of the leaf-blower next to my bedroom window at 8am Saturday morning? Bastard. Time traveling as well? Does you talent grow so monstrously?

Tom Harper said...

If somebody had never seen or heard of a leafblower, and took a quick glimpse at that picture, they'd be thinking "what the hell are those guys doing over there???"

Suzi Riot said...

One of the perks for those living in neighborhoods where half the houses have been foreclosed on is the sweet, sweet silence.

Commander Zaius said...

Neat thing about yard work for me is that my thirteen year old son has a girlfriend and wants money. All I do now is watch him cut the yard while I sip a beer. I'm screwed when he goes to college, I won't even know how to start the mower.

Anonymous said...

A leaf blower can be seen
as a symbol quite phallic,
at least to the mind
of a ribald smart alec.


As the late Jimmy Durante would say in comic exasperation, "Sheesh, everybody's gotta get in on the act!"

Jess Wundrun said...

I can pass up such modern inventions as the leaf blower. But if they come out with a dog-doo sucker upper I am in!

Luddites.

Randal Graves said...

puddy, Plath? Aside from not being near her level poetically, I have no plans to off myself unless I end up with a debilitating and morbidly painful disease, then bring on cyanide capsules!

utah, 1.21 gigawatts! That's too fucking eerie. I think I might have time traveled, but what I'd do is steal all the best verse, go back a bit further, publish them as Randal, the Wizard Earl of Northumberland and live off the riches of my "ancestor."

tom, you know, it does look to be a disturbing activity.

suzi, lucky! We've actually had a couple of people move in on our block. Guess I'll find out if they're Horrors of Suburbia or Normal.

BB, heh heh, now that's a good scam you've got going. Perhaps by then they'll have solar-powered grass-cutting robots. If not, you're screwed.

SWA, ha! Now that's good! Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.

jess, isn't that what children are for, to pick up dog poop?

Missy said...

There once was a man from Ohio
who invented a cleaner leaf blow
whether sucking in or blowing out
it would serve all about
and give great joy thru it's airflow

(ugh. that was worse than bad. I bow to your talent.)

Randal Graves said...

missy, hey, it's the limerick that counts!

Mauigirl said...

This was excellent!

We haven't quite gotten to the leafblower stage of spring but it is around the corner I'm sure.

Dr. Zaius said...

Now Randal, the leaf blower is your friend. You see blowers all the time on "Meet the Press," you know.

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