Prose Poem: Written on Jam.

 

Remember in all those old movies,

how the plot always blew up after

a newspaper headline appeared?

Announcing a birth

a death

a fortune won

a fortune lost

the start of a war

a new hero

or old villain found out?

Boy, that's what I always wanted --

a huge black headline with

my picture underneath

proclaiming me the Eighth 

Wonder of the World.

People would run down the hallway

waving the newspaper headline

like they were signaling a zeppelin.

My friends and family,

especially that snooty cousin

of mine,

would gape until their jaws

hit the floor.

Meanwhile

I would modestly disclaim

any special virtue or talent,

 telling reporters I was just an

average American boy with

an average American sweetheart

and an average American mutt

named Pomeroy.

Well

I finally got my name 

in big black headline letters

last week

after I saved a baby

from the talons of a hulking

Philippine monkey-eating 

eagle.

Single-handed.

Every newspaper in the country

ran the story, with my photograph.

And nobody, but nobody,

ran into the room waving

the paper above their head --

or glanced at my headline and

swooned in a dead faint --

or even had the decency to 

yell "Jumping Jehoshaphat!" 

in my face.

The whole thing might just

as well have been written

on jam.

And get this --

my snooty cousin just

went viral with an NFT

of him wearing a crown

of dandelions. 

Today's Timericks: Their Own Private Idaho: Five Oregon Counties Back a Plan to Secede (NYT)

 

five counties out in oregon think that they ought to split/and stick themselves in idaho, where there is holy writ/I hope they like potatoes and the horse and buggy age/and trains that only ever run on very narrow gauge.

do not kill the kangaroo/tho tasty in an aussie stew/be kind to hopping critters, since/you can always eat a quince/then feel humane and kindly too/oh, do not kill the kangaroo!

there's this guy named sabatini/who must have had a large martini/when he said that socrates/would be canceled like bad cheese/sabatini's point seems dim/since ancient athens poisoned him.

We're running out of babies/or so the experts say/women do not want them/and men are turning gay/but oldsters grow like mushrooms/they live so long that we/are entering an era/of post-senility.

Nowadays some gummy bears are laced with THC/and skittles get you higher than a tall sequoia tree/no telling where they'll put it next; perhaps in chicken soup/I wouldn't be surprised if hagen-daz/puts out a scoop.  

Russians think that melting ice/is as bad as loaded dice/without polar ice to keep/enemies at bay, they'll creep/right around the old north pole/putting ruskies in a hole/but by then, with water rised/we'll all be fully bapatized.  

Prose Poem: The Little Games.

 

Death came for me 

bearing a bag

of Krispy Kreme Donuts.

"That's thoughtful of you"

I told him.

He wore dirty white sneakers,

which took away from

the solemnity of the

whole thing.

"Do I get to play a game

or something first with you

in order to keep my soul?"

I asked him.

Silently he produced

a checkerboard.

I beat him in a dozen moves.

"Another game, perhaps?" 

I asked him politely.

He handed me a deck

of Uno cards.

His mistake:

I played Uno with my

family every Monday

night for nearly twenty years.

The cards kept slipping

through his bony fingers,

slowing him up considerably.

We had finished the donuts

and I was thirsty.

He ate most of them,

by the way.

"How about a drink of milk

before the next game?"

I asked.

He gave me a tepid glass

of buttermilk.

That's when I discovered

 Death is a sore loser.

Today's Timericks: Featuring Onions!

 

Why does mankind want a king/or emperor or anything/to tell him what to do and say/and where to live and what to pay/Since ancient pharaohs, and before/even in the Trojan War/royalty means avarice/I'd rather live just like the Swiss. 

Storming the Bastille is not/what the DC mob had thought/Paris rose impulsively/but DC was planned carefully/With the two events compared/the cops both times were unprepared. 

I eat onions for dessert/because I am an introvert/My breath means interlopers find/my presence kills their peace of mind/Even tho it may seem kinky/I chew scallions with my Twinkie.  

Jakarta doesn't have clean air/in fact it smells like underwear/Particulates do run so thick/they'd even make a hantu sick/So tourists, take a word from me/and detour straight to pure Bali. 

Australia's keeping borders closed/They do not want to be exposed/to viruses and other drek/so they have made a bottleneck/You can't get in for years to come/unless you bring them chewing gum.

 So China now on Mars has landed/and the planet they have branded/so they'll start to set up shop/and ev'ry Mons will have a cop.

Companies cannot get workers/seems to be too many shirkers/so they automate instead/the shiftless can just stay in bed/so if you want to work today/with robots you should learn to play.

Today's Timericks: Featuring Krill!

 

Antarctica has got the krill/that give the southern whales a thrill/Other creatures also dine/on this fast food thing in brine/But now the algae that krill eat/are growing rare as earthworm feet/It's all because man ruins the land/and makes the place an ice cream stand!

Ten Commandments has mankind/which they rarely bear in mind/as they go about their span/thinking they are Peter Pan/Someday Father will return/and we'll either smile or burn . . . 

I like cooking for my friends/but the pleasure always ends/with the dishes in the sink/where they stay until they stink/No one offers help to me/to make my platters gravy-free/So now I open up a can/or put an egg in frying pay. 

UFOs up in the sky/common as the old housefly/so say pilots nowadays/taboos ready to all raze/no one thinks you're crazy when/you espy some small green men/buzzing 'round the aerodrome/wanting just a quick phone home.  

Today's Timericks: What if Space Junk and Climate Change Become the Same Problem? (NYT)

 

space is full of junk, you know/tho it's going awful slow/astronauts into it crash/giving NASA quite a pash/global warming makes debris/up in space quite fancy free/even good old Santa Claus/now avoids the tropopause!  

peacocks on the lawn, I swan/strutting there from dusk to dawn/think I'll write a book that shows/they do not breathe through their nose/and some other crazy fluff/readers love such offbeat stuff!

I'm a senior, got that straight?/Cryptocurrency I hate/People buying that fool stuff/are lemmings running off a bluff/If investments you desire/do like me: buy chicken wire!

The widow and the unjust judge/is known by one and all/how that poor woman importuned/a soul like a brick wall/Finally he favored her/because she was a scold/which only goes to show that/nagging often gets the gold!

The walrus has a funny face/it looks to be from outer space/it flops about like gummy squid/it cannot dance -- it never did/global warming is destroying/ice packs -- which is so annoying/to walruses of ev'ry stripe/that they may fly away like snipe.

Prose Poem: The Long Shirt Society.

 

So Chico asks me if I want to come to their meeting.

"There's a dinner afterwards" he told me.

"What meeting?" I asked him.

"The Long Shirt Society" he said.

"Never heard of it" I replied. "Sounds dull."

"Well, yes" Chico admitted. "We mostly meet

for the good food afterwards. The secretary is

a fabulous cook; you should taste her braised ribs!"

"Is this a membership drive?" I asked suspiciously.

"Well, yes" admitted Chico. "We need more dues-paying

members so we can afford to buy

a DeLonghi espresso machine."

"No thanks" I said firmly. "I'm not a joiner.

How about a ride home?"

We drove in silence for a while.

"Here you are" Chico said, pulling

up to my house. "That'll be one-hundred

and seventy-five dollars."

"What are you talking about?" I nearly screamed at him.

"You never said anything about money when

I asked you for a ride home!"

"Mister" said Chico, "I drive a taxi cab.

I picked you up three hours ago at 

the airport."

"I thought you were my friend, 

a good friend" I said bitterly, as I 

got out my wallet.

"Well, I did invite you to a meeting 

and dinner, Mister" he said quietly

as he ran my card.

"Well, I guess it's okay" I said,

trying out a half smile on him.

"Would you like to come in for some

Postum and a quick video before you head back

into town? The gridlock is terrible this time of

day."

"What video is that, Mister?" he asked, 

squinting at me.

"Meet the Mormons" I said cheerfully.

 

Today's Timericks.

 

Reporters cannot make up facts/They hire good internet hacks/the 'truth' to display/so they earn their pay/with non-fiction that's pretty lax.

Wild horses once under the care/of Uncle Sam need to beware/The market for meat/makes folks indiscreet/They'll wind up on menus, cooked rare.

Investing in good ransomware/can make a guy a billionaire/It can't be stopped; it's spreading fast/potential for it, unsurpassed/Like the Mafia of old/just join a gang to get your gold!

Photo Essay: Postcards Mailed to my President.

 

Prose Poem: The Gift.

 

Nymphets sporting at a mountain stream.

"I'm getting a gift today"

I told the nurse from my

hospital bed.

"How nice" she responded.

"What is it?"

"Oh" I replied, "it's a surprise.

"I won't know until I get it."

She said "How nice" again

and then gave me an

enema.

Actually, I wasn't expecting anything

from anybody during my hospital stay.

I wasn't dying, so nobody but my

brother Casey had come to visit.

He brought me a sports magazine --

he knows very well I loathe sports.

I told him, too crossly, to come back

with something worthwhile to read,

and he left suddenly, silently,

and sullenly. 

I didn't expect him back.

I don't know why I told the nurse

I was getting a gift -- it just

popped out spontaneously,

like a bit of chewed food flung

from my mouth during an animated

dinner conversation.

I do it all the time --

once I told a friend that I was

being published in the New Yorker.

He was duly impressed,

so I had to drop him completely

to keep from ever answering his 

embarrassing questions about when it would

be published.

In grade school I told all

my teachers that I was extremely

allergic to jute twine --

so I was excused from the annual

paper drive, and any time

I caught sight of a piece of twine

at school I began to sneeze like

crazy.

But that same day Casey

surprised me by coming back with

a book for me.

"Well, thanks!" I told him.

"S'all right -- hope it's deep enough

for you" he said, then patted me on

the shoulder and left.

It was a copy of Lolita.

The nurse saw it when she came in.

"Dirty old man" I could hear her thinking.

My oncologist saw it that evening on his

rounds.

"Read that in college" he told me.

"It wasn't as dirty as everyone said."

When he left I threw the book into

the wastebasket.  

And read the damn sports magazine.