Quick! What Rhymes With Maggie?

OK Maggie, I'll tell you how I spontaneously combusted, but I have to confess the teaser is far more gloriously amusing than the telling, at least for me.


But first, and since I'm trying to bring my act a little more blogger mainstream, you have to read my poetry first...


hehehe Aaachoo!

Oh! God Bless me!








--Little Bird Lost--

You were a soft
swatch of stone
in the harsh rocks.
Dainty,
I could have easily
snubbed you
like a Marlboro butt
with my shoes
going nowhere
in a hurry.

I don’t know why
but I stopped
and
you became a bird
hiding
almost hidden
lost in the homogeneity
huddled with
your feathers ruffled
frightened of men.

When I touched you
you followed my probing
with your dark eyes
while in my mind, black
sinister cats loomed
on all sides
getting jazzed.

There was little life
in you
little bird, so
diminutive and fragile
it was indeed a dare
on my part
to wrap these
paw-like hands
upon you,
to attempt a rescue
to tuck you under
my chin whispering life
in mute sentences.

Above were rows
of closed windows.
I understood something.
Above were flocks
flying freely.
I wept in sympathy.

Little bird lost.

If I let you go
-I have to let you go,
you see, I have to go-

Would you survive?


As for the spontaneous combustion story-- I was building a fancy door in a winery, and trying to make it look like all the other fancy doors, and putting a coat of boiled linseed oil on it with a rag.

Now, legend has it, that oily rags will ignite if wadded up and left in tight balls in piles somewhere, which I had heard of but never seen. So, being the conscientious carpenter that I was, and being that the winery was an old hop kiln that had been converted and was made in large part by old and dry wood, I thought I better keep tabs on the rag until I was finished with what I was doing. I wadded it up and put it in my tool belt, and then got busy talking to Gary, the famous winemaker, about other projects.

Fast forward about an hour and I was back discussing something with Gary down in the cellar. It was cold and damp down there and everything you said had a bathroom echo to it. We were talking about adding a tank online to a cooling system, or something, and Gary simply asked me the obvious when the obvious occurred.

"Are you on fire?"

"Oh shit! I am!"

The rag had ignited and was burning a hole in the leather tool pouch from the inside out.

I'd love to tell you I jumped into a vat of wine and put it out, but I didn't, due to the CO2 that would kill me if I did.

I simply dumped the contents of my pouch out, and stamped on the sucker until there was no life in it anymore.

Gary said something like-- "Did you kill it?"

And I said something like "I think so."

The story did spread around the winery like wildfire, though, adding to my list of goofies...