Oops App

Pudgy fog trudges

Into the bay and

Lingers above the links.

Mist rises in odd shapes,

Some forms similar to question marks;

Others tease as they drift,

Like rainbow cotton candy

Eluding sticky fingers at the fair.

In the distance various birds

Blather in the trees,

Their sketchy tweedle duty driven,

Rather than fueled by angst.

They’ve seen this film.

To the east hints of the sun

Peek through the swollen haze.

The morning’s first group arrives

At the 5^th, a water hole, the tough one,

Where par turns an average round

Into legend and triple bogey

Shoves hope into a back pocket.

A tubby customer in a baseball cap

And skin the hue of a Clemson football helmet

Strides to the tee,

Armed with hubris and a 4 iron.

He gazes at the drooping flag on the green,

Lurking some 200 yards away,

And takes a mighty swat.

His Titleist heeds no creed;

It’s a self starter and sails wide of target

Into the gloom of the beckoning murk.

Helmet Boy fusses, fumes, chagrins,

Then plops a fresh ball on the tee.

“This one counts,” he says,
Skulling one low and lean

With such force and luck

That it skips twice across the sludge

And bounds onto the putting surface

A few steps from the cup.
“That’s what I’m talking about.”
Another elastic par on Fantasy Island.

The house lights dimmed

On cue, the cast found

Their places.

Faces ripe and keen,

Sensing, flexing, centered.

Everything an echo

Of the blueprint created long ago

And studied for weeks.

One of the light poles

Shivered on the set,

Swaying back and forth.
Why?
Who knew?

Then, as the narrator

Found his center mark,

A Color Changing Fresnel

Attached to that nervous pole

Blinked in the manner of a stutter

Before going dark.

The pole swayed again,

Then shook loose

From its mooring

With the lethal snap

Of a rattler’s strike.

The apparatus dropped from the sky

Like a bomb

and knocked the narrator

Into the front row.

Two English teachers

From The Maine Girls Academy

Shrieked when the actor’s frame

Fell into their collective lap.

Blood trickled from the

Narrator’s head, and his body

Shook with the vitality of a damp sock.
Several cast members, three techies and

A nurse, who was as close to a doctor

In the house anyone could find,

Gathered round the prone thespian.

Meanwhile,

The assistant stage manager

Retrieved the understudy

From the Green Room,

Where he’d just polished off

The remnants of a birthday cake,

Feeling confident his duties on stage that day,

As always, would be slim.

Ah, the curse of assumption.

A lanky sort with a tiny role in the chorus

Who kind of knew the narrator’s lines,

Took uncertain steps toward his dream,

Perhaps his destiny.

But with so little preparation

And even less warning,

A happy ending seemed a stretch.

Still, the show must go on.

Momma said

There’d be days like this.

When you pour orange juice

On your cereal …

When your umbrella snaps

In half just before a hard rain …

When you write the wrong amount

On your last check after a big dinner at the restaurant …

When you think you can make it

With your car’s gas empty light warning …

When you give the finger

To someone who has a weapon …

When you decide it’s time

To do something about North Korea,

Then realize, “Dang, didn’t mean

To launch 15 missiles.”

Some devices are better than others.
Take the iPhone45 for instance.
It has a special feature.

So did Obama’s iPhone44,

But Obama never used it.

Bush misplaced his device

The weekend of Katrina,

Or, perhaps, iPhone43 would

Have dialed in the mother

of all mulligans.

That’s all we really need sometimes.
A do over.
Another try on a tough par 3.
A wiser rehearsal tactic.

Or in some cases,

A dial we can press

To make it all right.

An Oops App.