~~~Magpie 26~~~"The dog-gone dog-earred days of summer"

The dog-gone dog-earred days of summer
too hot to read a book
swat a fly
catch some zee's(zeed's in Canada!hint: Canadians say Zeed not Zee!)
Sweltering now
never surrendering ever
beach bum bleach of impenetratable heat
burns skin so raw so crow raw red
freckles and pickles to follow
as sun bears down like a hammer
As the doldrums has not winded down
anytime soon and clocks hum rather than tick
in a sychronizatized tinnitis-like cicadas in polyphonic drone
reminding one of time and how long it took to make the loam
come back home from it's coccooning state under Lake Nippising
Red motif palm trees heat up the day on Bermuda shorts
Heats the Psyche to with go with everything hot like a religion
in the triangle area
sizzles hot penetrations of aloe vera (usually Noxema in the 60's)
to allay
to delay
to put-off at the putt putt the burn when you ouch
that peel which would pass the time seeing how
large a patch would be left of my dead snake skin
to play a game like Clue with a real rope and pewter
pieces smelling of ancient summers with Colonel Mustard
in the Drawing Room where the sun don't shine
drawn and shuttered in like heat is deadly
it can be
there seeing some boys eat their sunburned skin
as if they felt that gave them bragging rights
made me heave boys why are boys so like that
as so
slowly going like backwards in time
counterclock spin of the summer sun
keeping summer forever as a wish made in heaven
but wise to know how defying time itself
makes one live forever too
as passing cars to the cottage sound like locked in forever
in this swish swish of recall time
as only noticing the grass grow silently
watching the grass grow back when in the
back 40
or the unwanted hair growing precipitously
As the hazy ripple of a mirage
out of nowhere pops into view
as row on row bikini'd beach dwellers dwell
like immortal sun gods
past the bumper to bumper
Traffic in Toronto is Terrific
as to have stored energy in the tarmac of time
single engines planes of existence must float too
as time and heat gather to make everything go slow
to backward to recall those fun times
like a glitch a witch made one day for a stitch
groans like an all-day A/C left on electrical over-load
we only had fans to cool us down
or take a hike
or walk in the woods
or jump in the lake
stuns the status non-Einsteinean brains into this way
Genius for a Day!
of not thinking just being one breath away from feeling faint to
barely existing
and sweat in all the wrong places
as this melt-down of particle decay
in this unwanted but always expected
Bow Wow Bowser of a Summer 2010!!!
(remember Bowser from Sha Na Na?)

Midsummer Sweltering Sweat
caught in my Halter Top once wore now sworn
off String Bikinis and
purple speedos teenagers
on the beach of way back then
cruisin' The Bend or doin' the Bend not quite the same
Hoping to cool down to Rollerskate to Brown Sugar
glistening like Hawaiian Tropics in Cancer
dumbed-down we submit our earliest submissions
prostate and praying for a wiff of a breeze
a cool down from the cooler that is soon to be
another melted down casualty
and the coconut-smelling cuties walking by
Radio's blaring, french fries smelling
you've just got to "do the Bend" at least
one time round when
you can
can you?

The beach who's sand is too hot to touch
burning the bottom of unsandalled feet in 2.5 seconds
on the 1/4 mile strip of lava rock walkers
So too the dogs look more like me as shaken
A whole lot of shakin' goin' on!
nothing left to shake but what's left is fine
as those dogs of summer with their
limp wet fur rags with sandy spread between toes
and oh how they love to roll
in dead seagulls reeking dead fish
sandflies coverage and sticky everything beside
dirty all day draggy diapers at the beach
and my baby's dirty face from the day at the beach
once free floating from their water weight gain
only on fur
they should try carrying this weight around all the time
at least til I get back to the cottage for a snack
they cake you with a gift as a pleasant present
as the four-legged thought you'd like
on your birthday that waterlogged sand bath
as rippled sand from the bottom of the sandbar
under feet only a few feet the sandbars go on and on
seemingly well almost forever too and then so
warm like someone just had a hot spot
but it really gets like soupy hot water because of the heat
the only lake in Canada that get like bathwater
the lake is now hotter than the black dog fur
we've just played tag
with the Beach ball that blew out from shore
"Im not getting that!"
watch out
boy with squirt gun grins
"got cha!"
as you turned to run
back to get that long lost ball
which turns into the next game
beach volley ball in the water
blurp blurp, water up my nose!
diving driving dolphin like game
and rubberized smelling plaid air mattress
as I must have fallen asleep
Hold on! The water's cold now
I'm out to far! Hold on!!!
it's ok I'll just paddle back to shore
Phew even though I'm
all petered out not even the latent-most energy left
and feet dangling over the side of the air-mattress
mimic kicking I dont care if I ever get back
undulate into the canvas'd hammock of the rented
cedar-smelling cottage of the Reynold's
a dream cottage really in my mind now only
and so by the Bay as to fall in
and so I
wait under the shade of the ol' pine tree
hoping beyond hope
you'd wait for me
that this two oclock oven on roast will stop
Everything moist from happening
yet this drenching humidity hangs
it's sombrero hat on my world today
loose, flopping, flatlined
like a dead dog's tongue hangs
out of my dry empty mouth I search for water
maybe the snow we melted from winter
to drink as the birds to weak to peep
siesta for the rest of the day in the treetops
and I'm too lethargic to eat or do much else
to hot to sleep!
but suck on a mr freezie or a
popsicle of Red White and Blue
chocolate always a favourite
and dream of you
my friend I'm going to invite you
to the cottage and give you a treat
maybe whatever you want I'm having a
Cremesicle dream today
or a Jet(which I only have in my mind now; they don't make those anymore)
Eskimo Pie (good mix of chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream) or
swig back a Tahitian Treat or Mountain Dew or some other sticky drink
Hoping it'd be a Margarita version of the same next year and I did yes we did
and then when I got older I could without stearn look when I'd grab a rye and coke
with crushed ice to quench my thirst.
water I should have water; glacial ice water!
as an older version of self just the same
to feel it's time to take a trip to the corner store
and buy a 25 cent Archie comic book or graperoo gum
25 cents a day I could live!Shopkeeper always new my schedule!
but it's not time yet as the sweat keeps me pasted like silly glue
which isnt so silly when it's stuck on you!
Sweat drips from every pour and on you slide down the waterslide
and sit you wet self on the
massive executive now kind of stucky chair but you wouldnt care
if it made a pass at you unless it was a 2500 watt fan
that took the beaded pearls of salted crystaline-form liquid dna
that umbrous fluid retention that makes me
feel like Jabba the Hut on a saltine diet in this heat
sand in the crackers not a pretty sight or crunchy when eaten
better than nothing
when's dinner?
Or Graham Greene's wife in some southern clime novel
I'll never drown! Like a whale today I'd be like a boat
and do the
bloat float and I'd still be alive could float all day!
to save your skinny soul I'd teach you to float too!
if it hadn't been for the incessant heat
and the melted sticky soft ice cream cone
melted all to hell
that does a Country Playhouse summer rendition
returning yearly for your pleasure as Bobby Melrose
Summer Stock Theatre of the Surrealistically Absurd
As all that Salvador Dali melting of things
The rain in Spain must be hot like it is
in the summer when it pelts wet in your face after this heat
and as the cones and left in the backwindow
of the 64 Chevy our favourite records sounds wind down as they
melted into one incongruitous heap of plastic melt down
I've ever seen
I'm I ever gonna get it
Sis says so anyway
left in your Mom and Dad's Chevrolet Impala
in this heat what was I thinkin? oh yah, I wasn't it was too hot to think
and from way back when to then to now
you remember Allenwood Beach, Wasaga's part-time Girlfriend
this summer as every other
for one more thing
A jump into the Lake
from the old gray spotted rock with seagull droppings on it
like my mother told me to do
"Jump in the Lake" literally! and figuratively!
I just got my Poetic License!
and then when it got too hot
i'd look for coral shells to make into a necklace
or colour with crayons that would also melt
and I felt fine looking back now
loved the sweat, sweating and to be sweaty
because we were all together like that
heap of 45's in the back window
these memories help cool me down
when the going got tough
Even in this moment of never ending
summer on summer melted as one in the hot summer midday sun
There is a time to quiet reflect upon
yesterdays lazy hazy crazy days of summer
and outdoor BBQ's with all our old friends
in my mind they are there so it must be real
not a mirage
not an illusion
not a fantasy brunch
and a whole jar of cherry's I admit now I did in fact eat (yup I ate 'em all up!)
(got into trouble for that too!)
way back in the 60's you'd think I'd be sprung by now
How long is life anyway?
the ever dull haze that left us glassy eyed
On the opposite side of the poles
past the black and white
and fantasy colours
this day the earth
with all those wallabees, and kangaroos
Kawala's got it too, yes they've got eucalptus to eat
maybe like Vicks Vaporub they like thatsmell
but why would they need the rub
they haven't a winter's cold
hey, wait a minute...
it's way too cool down there
way too cold, Aussieland down under this heat
are you kiddin'? In Australia it's mid-winter
and they've got "The cat-gone cat-earred days of winter"
Now, which weather, do you think, is better?

jj