“Hazmat” Excerpt (Source: Geo Davis)

What?!?! Have I totally lost the plot, you’re thinking, right?

One might well wonder lately if we’ve all lost the plot. Tempestuous times. Wacky ways; weird days. Too much vitriolic verbosity. Too little tolerance. Too little curiosity…

Beware the tox-
ic rumor mill,
which sits unground,
on dusty sill.

The lines above come from a reflection on toxicity and tolerance and combinatorial creativity. Written a few years ago, these thoughts seem almost prescient today. Or at least still relevant. And the image of multi-colored peppercorns, visible through a glass grinder, comes to mind. Green, red, yellow, black in the glass hopper like startlingly small, spicy gumdrops. Ground together they blend, adding flavor and richness.

Perhaps I’ve lost you? Sorry. I’ll defer to the poem, “Hazmat” (included in Midlife Crisis Postponed) read by yours truly in fuzzy, awkward audio here: