Today's timericks.

 

The issuing of Pardons is a presidential perk;

even when that president is nothing but a jerk.

Perhaps he thinks St. Peter at the Pearly Gates will wink

at his indiscretions and let him into heaven slink.

An autocrat like Mr. Xi

frolics like a lamb, you see,

when at first he comes along --

singing that old siren song

of detente and sweet accord,

then from scabbard pulls a sword;

Chops some heads and stomps on treaties,

telling us "Go eat your Wheaties!"

Something about drinking beer

keeps the sipper from much fear.

Corona is imbibed with ease,

despite the rumor of disease;

when it comes to alcohol

you can't discourage us at all!

Prose Poem: Listicals

 

There may be a Santa Claus,

but there is no list.

I'm talkin' about The List --

the one that has the names

of all those who get to leave

Earth somehow or other

 before the asteroid hits

or the monsters invade or the 

oceans suck all the continents under.

You know, that list.

It's in a hundred movies and TV shows.

Not to mention novels, short stories,

and probably dozens of dirty limericks.

But I gotta tell ya --

I've searched for the past twenty years

for that confounded list,

hunting high and low,

suborning officials of the highest rank

and interrogating lowlife ratfinks.

The salarymen of Japan know nothing of it.

And the bushmen of the Kalahari simply shrug

their bare shoulders.

So once I satisfied myself The List didn't exist

 I decided to fill that obvious need with my

own List --

with a money-back guarantee; if you didn't 

get off the planet in time, your five-hundred dollar

fee would be cheerfully refunded.

So far, the following persons have signed up

and paid in advance:

Robert Reed

Nathan Draper

Robert Strong

Michael Fedo

Clarke Woodger

Bart Seliger

Oscar Halvorson

Sue Ellen Yund

Jed Boal

Jennifer Graham

Peter Rosen

Ethan Bauer

Joseph Palazollo

John Schwartz

Dan Kelly

Tara Kelly

Johnny Diaz

Chip Cutter

Penelope Green

Don Van Natta Jr

William Wan

Coral Davenport

Paul Farhi

Andrew Ackerman

Amy Wang

Christina Zhao

Rachel Abrams

Margaret Young

Bruce Young

Ted Freedman

Motoko Rich

Peter Baker

Noah Bierman

Cindy Boren

Amy Snyder

Bruce Veldhuisen

Tom Hanks

George Clooney

Jordana Green

Ben Ellis

Lizette Alvarez

Joe Morgenstern

Rob and Laura Petri

Jacob Bunge

Mark Mauer

Jerry Seinfeld

Mitt Romney (and family)

 Jesse Newman

and others too numerous

to mention.

Anyone reading this post

and wanting to take advantage

of my December Sale

(two passengers for the price of one)

should contact any member of the

outgoing Trump administration --

they're ALL paid in full, and, in fact,

eager to get off world as soon as possible.

They'll sell you a ticket pronto, pup.  

At the going down of the sun there was no darkness

 

The scriptures say one moonless night

this land was bathed in broad daylight.

A sign that in far Bethlehem

the Christ was born, all woe to stem.

And wicked men did topple o'er,

their lethal plans secure no more.

Today's timericks

 

Uncle Sam says Walmart stores

pushed opioids like cheap s'mores.

Walmart counters with the claim

that Uncle Sam should take the blame.

The only winners that I see

are lawyers with their big fat fee.

Amazon, upon the sly,

has a finger in each pie --

shoes and food and books and lamps;

giving rivals money cramps.

Bezos seems to want to try

to emulate the octopi.

I'm old and gray and full of smarts,

and like to lean on shopping carts.

So heed my counsel, boys and girls:

Depend on swine and not on pearls.

Wealth brings friends quick to renege;

but you can always kiss a pig.

(Dedicated to The Naked Cowboy of

New York City.)

Here's to buskers everywhere,

who, dressed in only underwear,

strum guitars or practice mime,

and rarely ever make a dime.

They are rich in chutzpah, chum --

thank heavens we can't see their bum!

 

Prose Poem: The Inspector.

 

"No! No! No!" cried the Inspector shrilly,

when I tried to hang a string of pickled walnuts

on my Christmas tree.

"That item is NOT on the approved list."

I was about fed up with him.

He had arrived the week before,

shown me his credentials,

and then proceeded to lord it 

over me ever since.

Each bauble, bangle, and bead

had to bear his imprimatur

or be tossed on the dust heap.

I'm all for enforcing tradition --

but this was pouring it on a bit thick.

I had already complained to the Home Office;

like always, those bureaucratic fuddy duddies

had gabbled and gobbled and done nothing.

The Inspector stayed put; spraying down my

tree with rosewater once a day and

keeping track of the number of fallen needles

on the carpet in a miniature chapbook. 

The last straw in the creche came

when he told me the angel on top of 

my tree was too amorphous. 

"It looks like a sack of potatoes" he said.

"So?" I replied. I was in a mood to feud.

"Find something more like a seraph 

or cherub" he rasped.

"The devil I will!" I replied hotly. 

That angel was a gift from my phrenologist. 

"You know the penalty for noncompliance"

he said ominously. The candlelight made

his shadow dance like a demented fiend

on the damask curtains.

"Do your worst!" I shouted. 

"I'm all done with Tree Inspectors,

and Sugar Plum Enumerators and Blixem Collectors!"

I crammed his inspector's cap on his head

and pushed him out the front door.

I had the satisfaction of watching him

stumble down the front steps and fall

on his face in the gray murky slush.

Then I packed my bags,

set fire to the house,

and, under an assumed name,

 took the night boat to Scituate.

As far as the world knows,

Clement Clarke Moore

died in a house fire on Christmas Eve.

"

This life is a probationary state

 

This life is a probation,

to see which we will choose --

to live with God forever,

or His alliance lose.

You cannot have it both ways,

mixing right with vice;

you'll either be rewarded

or have to pay the price.

Prose Poem: Dead Sailors.

 

There was one too many in the pool.

I did a surreptitious head count, just like everyone else.

"Alright!" yelled our instructor, 

a short woman with bright red hair,

"When I call your name hold up your

hand -- and keep it up!"

That's hard to do when you're in a fourteen

foot deep chlorine scented pool at the Rec Center.

But we managed. All of us.

She ticked our names off the list,

her voice muffled through the mask.

Then she did it again. The morning sun

glared through the plate glass windows.

Our class time was leaking away --

we only had one hour. 

Most of us had jobs to get to.

"I still count thirteen, and there's only supposed

to be twelve in the deep water pool at one time"

she said helplessly, throwing up her hands in despair.

So we had a dirty stowaway among us --

too cowardly to give himself or herself up.

The lifeguard did a head count.

"Yup" he said stoically. "Thirteen."

"Do we have a volunteer who'll get out

so we can get started with class?"

asked our instructor hopefully.

No one volunteered.

We refused to make eye contact with

each other.

We just floated there, silent and flabby --

like dead sailors.

Today's timericks

 

Tuna salad for my lunch

really packs a grody punch;

people who then catch my breath

will go into 'sudden death.'

Luckily, with masks abundant,

screams of anguish ain't redundant.

Malicious code from Russian hackers

(brutal as the Green Bay Packers)

has breached so many firewalls

our infrastructure's in mothballs.

The only cure (and please don't laugh)

is to go back to the telegraph.

Magicians sans a spot lit stage

are also sans a living wage.

But if they make Trump disappear

I'd buy 'em all a glass of beer!

Put me in a cardboard box,

with some bagels and some lox.

Check on me 'bout once a week;

say hello and take a peek.

Better that than nursing home,

where I'd soon be 'neath the loam.

Become as a little child

 

The invitation has not changed;

in order not to be estranged

from our Father up above --

rid yourself of all but love.

Call it inner child or not,

miracles by it are wrought.

Prose Poem: The Empty Box.

 

The delivery guy took the refrigerator

out of the box and set it up in the kitchen

for us. Then he carted the old one away.

It looked great and ran so quiet --

not like our old clunker,

which rattled and dripped condensation

continuously onto the floor.

I put the big refrigerator box

in the spare bedroom --

because I thought it might come in handy

someday.

Those things are huge --

big enough to house a person, really.

****************************

It came on very slowly,

and we hardly noticed it for months,

my wife and I,

but finally we admitted to each other

that a chilling sadness had settled 

into our home.

We both walked into the spare bedroom

and immediately knew it was the empty box.

The empty refrigerator box, 

where no one was ever home,

which no children ever played in --

a thing with no purpose.

"Throw it away!" my wife pleaded.

But that didn't help much.

There remained a dead silence underneath

the carpeting that muffled our aspirations. 

Until she bought a ficus plant for

the spare bedroom.

Then the sunlight that streamed

through the window motes

began to remind us of warmth.

Next I put up a bird feeder

in the backyard --

nothing but sparrows and squirrels

ever show up at it,

but their frantic chatter 

stays a comfortable echo

during the blank nights.

Then in quick succession

we set up a fish tank,

learned to bake artisan bread together,

which we donated to the local Ronald McDonald House,

and acquired an aunt for the spare bedroom.

She is dotty and collects glass doorknobs,

like that character actor on Bewitched.

And our house began to blush and breathe again,

like a living thing.

We haven't taken the final step yet,

of having a child,

because children bring so many boxes

into your life.

And I'm not sure if Amy and I

can stand another empty box in the house again.

Maybe if we started small, with an empty

candy bar wrapper,

and worked our way up . . .