North Chattanooga

In view of the recent oil spill, I am reposting a poem I wrote several months ago.

North Chattanooga

Chicken wrap and fries
Six ninety-eight
All the lard you can eat
Fries clogging arteries
Of drivers as they clog
Traffic arteries burning
Oil and gas

Lawyers argue in Washington
Claiming their clients have
Already paid enough for
Letting a drunk run
Hard aground in
Prince William Sound
Oil polluting ocean water
Instead of Chattanooga Air
Where drivers burn oil
To get to Coolidge Park

A dragon kite flies mimicking
Fixed wing vultures though
The wooden slats give it a
Bat like appearance flying
Above pigeons and a gorgeous
Redhead throwing a Frisbee
Over her boyfriend’s Head
Beaning an innocent pigeon

The Park comes alive as lawyers
Prowl the sterile halls of justice
In Washington, stop to wash
And sanitize their hands
But can’t remove the oil
Of Prince William Sound as
It sticks to the money
In their wallets


They argue to limit damages
Paid to Alaskans twenty years
After the ship in the Sound
Ran aground killing herring
Killing the fishing economy
For twenty years as young men
Reach middle age and middle

Aged women reach retirement
But can’t sell their commercial
Fishing license with the economy
Gone to hell and who can tell
Them to switch to tourism
Since the oil killed the whale

New Voices

New Voices: Where hot improvisational jazz meets the power of the spoken word: Pasha Coffee House, 3914 St. Elmo Avenue, the third Saturday of each month, 6:30 to 8:30 PM.

Meet The Undoctored Originals. They improvise transition music between speakers and continue improvising during the intermission. Their improvisations show changing rhythm patterns, melodic phrases and real time synergy that takes the audience to new realms. The instrumental interplay with spoken words culminates in an astonishing conclusion.

The Undoctored Originals include Dr. Jim Woodford, Keyboards, Dr. Bob Vogt, Saxophone, Billy Lowry, Drums, Ian Kibby, Euphonium, and Jack Gaillard, Congas. The June 19 event will include special guest Dr. Rich Fastiggi on guitar.
Participating Writers from the Chattanooga area have included Bruce Majors, E. Smith Gilbert, Veronique Bergeron, Julie Alexander, Mary Wier, Bob Dombrowski, Ray Zimmerman, N.L. Diwan, Ninian Williams, Mike Bodine, and others.

Rubbyat

Awake, for morning in the bowl of night
Hath flung the stone that puts the stars to flight
and low the Hunter of the Est hath caught
The Sultan's turret in a nose of gloden light

Omar Khayyam of Ancient Persia
This is the first of 88 Stanzas

A special place

A Special Place
Ray Zimmerman
© 2010

There is a special place in Hell
For people who design
Online forms.

The single mother, whose
public terminal shut down,
just before she completed
the unemployment application,
will dance on your fingers
as you dangle from a cliff,
from which you never fall.

If you designed a phone system
to intentionally prevent
the caller from speaking
to a human, you will forever
push buttons, that lead nowhere.

Para Español, marke el dos.
Lo siento mucho,
no habla español.

To obtain credit
for time spent in Purgatory,
press three.
If you have lost
your travel visa for Heaven,
press four.

Your call is very important to us.
Please be patient.
All demons are busy assisting
other Hell bound customers.

Bumper Sticker

I recently saw a bumper sticker that read, "Socialism: a good idea until you run out of other people's money." By this definition, most financial endeavors in our society are socialist enterprises. Think of it, banking, finance, insurance, and the stock market all involve generating profits or loss (mostly loss these days) by taking unwarrented risks with other people's money.