Sig's Final Catch

Sig Nificant a career left fielder, almost made the bigs. He was finally called up the night the immortal Rodrigo Clandestino was benched with an astigmatism. The rain delay turned into a rainout. A miraculous recovery on the off day sent him back to the minors where he was remained until not renewed at age 47.

He happened to be at the parade only because his aunt had taken ill in New York. As the president approached on foot Sig noticed it. And only he would. A moving speck in the sky. A speck wider than it was a nanosecond ago. Instinctually he jumped the baricade. "I got it!" he screamed, still not sure what "it" was. The secret service agent was expecting a cry of martyrdom or something, but not "I got it." Sig shoved the agent aside. With rage in his eyes he shouted "it's mine!" at the president and shoved the commander and chief to the ground. He planted on his spot so hard he winged the edge of the manhole lid and it popped open beside him.

In the next few nanoseconds it became obvious the speck was a bundle and the bundle was cloth and the cloth held a baby who's face he could see as it spun. A baby tossed from atop the Empire State Building falling at 32.185 feet per second squared. Many couldn't tell what it was. Many had not yet even reacted enough to look up. But Sig calculated this was his chance to be a hero.

A secret service agent rushed him, but a last second effortless elbow deflected him. It was Sig's catch. He slammed his right fist in to his left hand rhythmically, timing it so that last hit was not his fist, but the catch.

However the angle was not a ball trajectory. The tower was four times as tall as the distance from the plate to the left field fence. A sphere the size of an orange didn't flap. Or spin. Or wobble. The hand was open. The slap anticipated. But there was a void.

Sig missed. The bundle went straight into the manhole and splashed hard into the muck below.

What Sig did not know was that the baby was not a baby, but a doll with a bomb inside. It had been tossed by a terrorist from the observation deck. This became evident a moment later when the baby went off. A mushroom of brown sludge spurted from the hole It winged the president with muck as he stood. Sig ever the gentleman handed the president a hanky.

Another muffed catch. A hero. A parade. A head held high, but not with pride. Sig hawked the ticker tape. Looking for the one speck in the clouds that he wouldn't catch him off guard again.


©2009 J. Kevin Wolfe. Photo: iPhone 3Gs processed with Shake Pic and Blurred Photo

Nobody somebody would notice

Was he a nobody that somebody had mistaken for a somebody? Was he a somebody that somebody had mistaken for a nobody? Or was he a truly a nobody's nobody that not a single nobody had overlooked at all, but a hero they wanted not a single somebody to know about? A martyr-to-be every nobody wanted to keep close for fear somebody would recognize him?

Then somebody got suspicious and asked where he came from, where was he headed and why at this exact moment in history was he here now? Nobody knew. And nobody wasn't talking. As far as anybody was concerned, that said it all.


c2009 J. Kevin Wolfe photo processed with Shake Pic and Photo Sketch for iPhone

What we pack

The pair of them, he and she, were entrusted as the new Adam and Eve to move to the end of the cosmos. To start again in a place where there was no war, no suffering, no materialism. So they soared completely across the known universe. And there at the end they found a door, a gateway to the cosmos that lie beyond. They opened it.

Instead of a vastness that can only be described as forever and a healing light that could sanctify the human race and God snoring unashamedly, they found a small, dark place. "The infinite cosmos is no bigger than a shoebox" he admitted "hardly worth the trip. Should we go back and tell them?"

She paused. "No. We've come this far. We should stay and see." He puzzled. "See what?" She said reverently "see if they're really nice shoes."

c 2009 J. Kevin Wolfe all rights reserved. Photo: iPhone 3Gs processed with shake pic

Picasso's Dora Maar and the Village Idiot

I like your picture Dora Maar.
I would know you from it anywhere.
Your green-red-rose, pale-white skin
a flawless union
awash in morning yellow.

"I don't look normal."

Your forehead is unafraid
of your steelgreen hair.
Obedient in front
and disciplined behind your shoulder.
It is the choppiness of the Mediterranean
against a long deep pier.

"You are a handsome idiot."

Handsomeness is an attribute of idiocy.

"All I ever wanted was beauty."

You may have mine.
I would rather observe
the conversation of your eyes
that stare into each other.
One salmon, one white
as if you have two souls.

"Only an idiot could find me beautiful."

I find you perfect as a picture.
Traipsing red nails on rigid fingers
direct me to your lyric clef ear
like an invitation.

"If one finds me beautiful
no other critic matters."

When I first saw your picture I wanted
to kiss it's strict nose with two left nostrils
and free you from your sleep of canvas.

"I long for your dumbstruck, perfect lips
pressed against the one blandness of my face."

Obtuseness is all that's worth kissing.


I stumbled onto my name recently on the web on Mothla from NZ's list of favorite authors. This poem was what put me there. It unsettled me as if I were happily living in a strange land and one day realized just how far away from home I was and that I'd left the kettle on. So it's fitting this first post of my ill-fated story project here should be this poem, which I dedicate to Mothla.

This rendering of Dora was created with Pocket Artist for iPhone.