To Bill Vogel Upon His 80th

To Bill Vogel Upon His 80th

by Teak Kilmer

 

One Outrageous (meaning to get the rage out)

weird (originally meant being yourself)

silly (meant and means being abundant)

human man person

 

This particular slice of Homo Sapiens …

possessed by elves and fairies

wrapped in conundrums

imbedded in bewilderments

pervaded in confusions

 

and ever in the wonder … are we …

at what he is going to do next

what he’ll say next and to whom he’ll say it

Oh, and when he does say

you better listen … intently, carefully

 

Bill will not; I repeat will not

pause for breath nor other interval

but headlong and down hill

speed bumps be damned

This incredible love button

will recite an entire novel into

a single unpunctuated sentence … if interruption

or exhaustion, or Marilyn in lingerie

does not first show a brilliant face

 

humor, born of whimsy and absurdity

in the realization that we are all ridiculous

all barely kept afloat in our boat called:

“I am a serious and important thing

and get out of my gathering and spending way”

 

Well, Wild Bill Vogel dispels brilliantly

all such illusions as he sets out to prove

single-handedly that ludicrous folly

is the road to eternal Peace and Jolly

that gently letting the rage out … one Holy impulse at a time

being himself by being fantastically weird

and being abundant by being in a surfeit of silly

is the quickest road to God and Eternity

 

and by God and Eternity let us all

swear for evermore to be more

like Bill, truly a clown of God

exemplifying for our good pleasure

the most enjoyable of paths to Heaven

 

Spoken in Greatest Appreciation, we are timelessly yours, Teak (and Jo Anne Kilmer)

on the 80th anniversary of Your birth April 9, 2009


Comments

  1. John McCabeFebruary 15, 2023 at 5:47 PM

    Such remarkable stream of consciousness writing which reminds me of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti. Thanks so much!

    ReplyDelete

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