today's timericks

 

I'm spending for the Holidays exactly zilch this year/Why should I go in the hole others up to cheer?/Poetry don't pay too much, and if it pays at all/I'll be darned if I must spend it in a shopping mall!

Trading online is a trend that people love these days/They think the market is a chicken they can simply braise/Trading platforms tip the wink, then gouge them greedily/Suckers never cease to think that wealth's a guarantee.  

Big Oil thinks to hide its sleaze/by the planting of new trees/paying farmers to maintain/oaks with all their fields of grain/I like trees, seen in the dawn/but who will care when we're all gone?

Goats can stomach anything/from rank weeds to napkin ring/Many use them in a clan/so their lawns are spic and span/But even goats can't swallow blight/that comes from Trump in megabyte.

The Paynim.

 

Did you ever see that Tex Avery

cartoon where the cat accidentally

eats a bag of Mexican jumping beans

and its head goes bouncing all over

the place?

That's how I felt on the Saturday afternoon

I discovered a Paynim in my closet.

I was looking for an old bottle of

Turtle Wax for my bowling ball

in the hall closet when I caught

a stealthy movement out of the

corner of my eye.

I pounced on it immediately,

thinking it might be a pesky

inner tube moth --

but instead it was a Paynim,

trembling like a leaf.

Recoiling in surprise, I 

fell over some croquet mallets

and got entangled in a sinister

green badminton net.

By the time I had extricated myself

the Paynim had zipped out of the closet

and was up on the fireplace mantel

in the living room, next to the Shelf Elf.

Trying to blend in, no doubt.

But I wasn't fooled for a minute.

I glanced out the picture window a moment,

to let my eyes readjust to the light.

Snow was being shaken from the sky

like salt.

Then I turned back to the Paynim.

"I suppose you have a name" I asked.

"My name is Hooghly" said the Paynim.

"Like the river?" I asked.

"No, like my father -- who was

also named Hooghly, as was

his father before him" the little

Paynim said. He put a companionable

arm around the Shelf Elf,

who was looking distinctly uncomfortable.

Just then my therapist came in.

She often drops in through the trap door

I've installed in the roof.

"What do you see next to that Shelf Elf?"

I asked her.

"Well" she replied slowly

"I see a lovely holiday wreath next to your

Shelf Elf, and a framed photograph of 

Winston Churchill, and what looks like

an opened box of peanut brittle."

"Nothing else?" I asked her.

"Not really, no" she told me.

The Paynim made some frantic gestures,

which I ignored; instead I went over to gaze

out the picture window again.  Then I said:

"The snow drifts down like a lift net, doesn't it?"

I heard the Paynim jump off the mantel and run

over to me. He took my hand.

"And we are all little fish that will be hauled

gently up to heaven for sorting and canning" said

the Paynim quietly.

"I believe in myself" said my therapist happily.

And out in the yard the snowman's carrot nose,

which had been gnawed away by squirrels,

was made whole again.

And shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay

 

Who comes our grief and pain to stay,

while housed in frail and mortal clay?

Great God has done this noble thing;

his sacrifice we're bound to sing

about forever when we take in

that he was born to cancel sin.

Prose Poem: Three Wishes.

 

The genie said he would grant me three wishes.

He came out of a Jufran banana ketchup bottle

that I found washed up on the beach.

My first wish was for the color pink

to vanish from the earth and never return.

"That is an odd wish, master" the genie

said to me, his eyes sparkling like bottle caps.

"My ex-wife never liked the color pink" I told him.

"Why don't you wish to have her back, if 

you still have feelings for her?" he asked me.

"Nah" I said. "Her family wants to improve me."

"What is your second wish, oh master?"

the genie asked me. His breath smelled of 

salt water taffy.

"I wish" I said "that all pretzels tasted as good

as they look."

"Indeed?" said the genie, lifting one eyebrow

until it knocked his turban off.

"That is a highly subjective subject --

I am not sure it can be done to your satisfaction."

"Oh, well . . ."  I told him, "if you haven't got

the mojo for it just gimme a million in cash, then."

This enraged the genie, as I knew it would.

He wiggled his ears in a rage, until they

began to hum. 

Just go try a pretzel, any pretzel, now --

see how great they taste.

For my third and final wish

I asked that a war be named after me.

"Master is pulling my leg, right?"

the genie said, rather desperately I thought.

"Nope" I told him. "They don't write many

books about do gooders --

the bestsellers are always about wars

and their starters;

So I want one named after me --

'Tim's War.'"

"As you wish, master" said the genie

with a sigh that was pure Brownian Motion.

After Tim's War was over

(both sides surrendered to each other

and the only casualty was

an overweight Air Force colonel

who had a stroke while running up

a flight of stairs)

I made a comfortable living 

being interviewed by historians

and the news media --

charging five- hundred dollars

for an hour of my time. 

For some reason the genie

from the Jufran bottle turned

into a large red pencil eraser

after granting my last wish.

I keep him in a pigeon hole

in my mahogany roll top desk.

I haven't heard him gibber

in months now.

I will prepare a stone.

 

The Lord said long ago he would prepare a stone

so plots and evil deeds to prophets shall be shown.

Conspiracies today discovery await

and soon shall be exposed to meet their proper fate.

O man, don't be in haste to castigate a trace

of variance in folk until you know God's face.

Prose Poem: The pontoon boat.

 

I've always wanted to explore

Marmalade Lake in a boat;

to see the glaciers falling into the bays,

the brigand birds diving for bluegills,

and the sun reflected off the Crystal Isles.

I finally got my chance when a Friend

invited me up to his cabin on Marmalade

for a boat ride and picnic.

We set sail just after dawn in his pontoon boat.

The weather was magnificent; high clouds

and moderate temperatures, with a 

sweet smelling breeze out of the southwest.

The hydrometer said we were seven hundred

feet above sea level.

The storm blew up suddenly

while we were netting driftwood.

It caught us by surprise.

"I have been here before"

my Friend said, refusing to take

any measures to save us or the boat.

"We drown and our bodies are slowly

eaten by kelp."

"Well, I've never been here before!"

I screamed at him as the waves towered

over us.

"I'm getting us out of here!"

I took the wheel and put the motor

into reverse, then extended the outrigger

pontoons on both sides.

We rode out the storm, soaked to the bone,

and I managed to guide us back to my

Friend's boathouse. 

After changing clothes

we ate our delayed picnic

in my Friend's baronial dining hall.

There were Irish harps playing.

It had onyx tapestries hung 

on the walls and vintage chalk Kewpie

dolls displayed in rosewood cabinets.

We did not mention what happened

on Marmalade Lake.

But my friend insisted on giving me

an original Picasso sketch, drawn

on a brand new tablecloth from the

Els Quatre Gats Cafe in Barcelona.

I use it to polish my brown Florsheims. 

Which I always wear when I 

walk among the living.

Out of obscurity

 

Out of obscurity comes the glad sound:

The Savior of Mankind has been duly crowned

by his own Father and soon will prevail,

aiding the humble in ev'ry detail.

Out of the darkness has come the true light;

bearing great kindness with absolute might.

Prose Poem: The Great Beyond.

 

So the lady that lived next door

to me in my apartment building

died in her sleep the other day.

Her children came by this afternoon

to her ground floor apartment to 

move everything out through the 

sliding patio door.

I didn't think too much 

about her death

but that night I dreamed 

she appeared to me in a nimbus

of cold blue light.

She never looked too good

in life,

and I'm sorry to report

that she

still looked pretty awful

in the Great Beyond.

Like five miles of bad road.

Even her robe looked dingy.

She just stared at me,

not in a threatening way,

but kinda sad and tired.

Didn't really see much exaltation

in her, to tell the truth.

Since she appeared not to want

to start the conversation,

I went first:

"I'm sorry to say that I never

knew your name" I told her.

"What is it?"

"Lucy Henderson" she replied

in a normal voice.

She didn't rattle any chains

or moan or float around like

a helium balloon --

and, quite frankly, I was 

at a loss to know what she wanted

of me. If anything. 

"Was there something you wanted

to communicate to me?" I finally asked her.

"Like the meaning of existence or maybe 

a warning about global warming or somethin'?"

She began to disintegrate, breaking up into

tiny yellow pieces.

Before she was gone she said:

"Tell everyone to bring lots of quarters.

There's none here and the washers

and dryers won't take anything else."

Then she was gone.

When I woke up the next morning

I went down to the bank to get

a roll of quarters.

But then decided that was a 

foolish thing to do.

Cuz, see, I'm gonna go

nudist in the Great Beyond.

The Magic List

 

The letter came on Sunday night -- 

an unheard of thing by the USPS;

but the mailman knocked on my door

that night just as I was making hot cocoa,

dressed in my robe and slippers,

and handed me the envelope with

nary a word of explanation,

except to say "Special Delivery."

The envelope was franked 

from the Department of Justice

in Washington D.C.

I couldn't imagine what it was,

but it sure made me nervous.

So I drank my hot cocoa first

and then turned on a cheery 

Netflix yuletide fireplace. 

Now I felt cocooned enough

to face anything the Federal government

might throw at me.

I slit the letter open and

took out the thick parchment-like

paper --

notifying me that I had been taken off

The List.

"What list?" I said out loud,

to no one in particular.

I was soon to find out.

On Monday I went shopping for 

soda crackers, liverwurst, and butter.

At the automatic checkout stand

a buzzer sounded when I swiped the

barcode on the butter.

"Sorry" said a big burly man

in a white apron, "but you're 

not allowed to have any more butter."

"Huh?" I said through my mask,

feeling my mouth go dry. "What's that?"

"You're no longer on The List" he replied,

taking the butter out of my grocery bag.

Later that week I was in the park,

enjoying the way the evergreens were

bowed down under the recent snowfall.

A cop came up to me, looking me up and down,

and asked: "Are you Elmore Wiggins?"

"Yes, I am" I replied, even though I'm not --

I just wanted to see what would happen.

"Well, Mr. Wiggins, you should know better

than to loiter in this park looking at the evergreens"

the cop said severely. "You've been taken off The 

List, you know."

Now I had him dead to rights,

the overbearing momser.

"It just so happens" I told him haughtily,

pulling out my wallet,

"that I am NOT Elmore Wiggins,

my fine feathered friend --

my name is Timothy Osborne Marmalade!"

And I stuck my driver's license 

right under his big fat nose.

"So you are" replied the cop, squinting at my ID.

"So you are." 

He turned silently and stalked away,

without uttering another word.

Boy, did I feel good that night

when I got home!

Like I had fought the whole 

carnsarn Federal government and won!

To celebrate I brewed up a pot of Postum

and asked the neighbor lady over --

the one who keeps a cricket in a 

small bamboo cage --

to have some with me,

along with liverwurst on crackers.

We stayed up laughing, snacking,

and being giddy

until almost ten that night.

And the next day

the very next day

nothing untoward happened.

So now I keep a cricket in a 

small bamboo cage

and buy pounds of butter 

at a time without any more hassle.

Of course, I've drawn a black mustache

on my face mask to disguise myself . . . 

Today's timericks.

 

The wages of sin are not set

by anything other than sweat;

the harder you stray

the more you will pay --

and taxes will keep you in debt.  

A vaccine is ready -- hooray!

And who gets it first of all, pray?

Not you and not me;

we've no pull, you see --

it goes to the largest outlay.

Texas no longer can stick

their nose in some far bailiwick;

the judges have spoke --

their lawsuit's a joke.

Go back to your oil wells, you hick.