Homage to Guy Wetmore Carryl: Humpty Dumpty

His story has been told so oft

it makes the children's brains go soft.

But there is more to his brief tale

than that great fall and epic fail.

The quadrupeds and bipeds vexed

with Humpty's fall were soon annexed

by counselors at law, you see;

they wanted to sue somebody.

And even though for King they worked

around by lawyers they were jerked,

until they really didn't know

which way to come, which way to go.

So they in turn did hire scribes

(who weren't averse to giving bribes)

and soon the court was satisfied

that justice had been ratified.

The judge in robes both black and wide

said Humpty was a suicide.

And no one else was there to blame

for snuffing out his life's short flame.

It was announced to one and all

that Humpty made himself to fall.

But quite a portion of the crowd

thought this was just a phony shroud.

They whispered in the ears of some

that Humpty had been pushed, by gum!

Because he knew a thing or two

about the King's dishonest crew.

And so it spread throughout the land

that murder had been slyly planned

for whistle-blowing eggs that spilled

the royal beans (and they meant "killed.")

Where DID those knights get livery fine,

with so much gold it gave a shine?

How could those pages still afford

to live above their room and board?

The Queen was on the take, they said.

The King stole even pauper's bread.

The palace was so rotten that

from Denmark you could smell a rat.

And so the populace arose

and started in with hardened blows

to topple the regime's long sway.

They did it in a single day.

The king and queen, their heads they lost.

The dukes and knights outside were tossed.

The pages were exiled toot sweet;

the commoners now ate crabmeat.

And all because an ovum fell

(and truly, he was quick to smell.)

A revolution has no legs

unless you start in breaking eggs . . . 

It Starts Out With a Glass of Milk

                    “The cookie business is pretty cutthroat,” he says.

WSJ  @Annie_Gasparro  

It starts out with a glass of milk -- as harmless as can be.

But then the battle joined is filled with grim ferocity.

Because the brand of cookie that is dipped into moo juice 

has fomented some awful brawls without a hint of truce.

Hydrox suing Oreo -- you think that is audacious?

Tis nothing to the other brands of biscuits, quite voracious.

Each wafer seen upon the shelf of any groceria

got there through hard battle and a bit of logorrhea.

America loves cookies; we are stout in their defense.

Even though their calories give dieters offence.

Whether cream or brittle, thin or thick as lurking thieves,

the snacking on an Archway true Nirvana sure achieves.

So Keebler and Nabisco are in deadly dark contention

to make their brand of cookie the one truest sweet ascension.

Chips Ahoy torpedoes any Clif Bar found a-floating;

Fig Newtons stomp on Lorna Doone, and then commence to gloating.

In truth the cookie aisle in stores, and relative position,

is crafted with the cunning of a running politician.

The bottom shelf's Siberia -- no Little Debbie there.

It's where they dump the Snackwells without any further care.

And when the Famous Amos truck arrives upon its route

the Nilla thugs are waiting to hijack it with a shout.

Walker's Shortbread, tartan clad, does battle with the Voortman,

and doesn't scruple to use tactics shunned by any sportsman.


The worst part, from consumer's view, is pricing that's outrageous.
To purchase top brand cookies needs a purse that is courageous.
Pepperidge Farm Milanos must be worth their weight in gold,
and buying Barnum's Animals makes me feel I've been rolled!

Where will it end, where will it end -- these most unseemly rumbles?

Is this the way, the only way, the pleasing cookie crumbles?

Please grant competing cookie brands a bit of cool afflatus --

otherwise the market will default to cheap galletas! 

Postcards to the President

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

The spies holding converse with spies

Are oft in amazing disguise;

A nose with mustache

Or buck teeth that gnash --

They’re MAD Magazine kind of guys.

Tim Torkildson

"The Poet Laureate of the NYT Newsroom."

Provo Utah

801-310-4804

Available for birthday parties and clambakes

The Blonde Pied Piper

Federal officials still do not know how many children were separated at the border from their families by the Trump administration, according to an inspector general report.

WSJ  @palomaesquivel  

Down where castanets do sway

and razor wire grows like hay,

the old folks like to sigh and say

"here children used to sing and play."

You look around, and cannot see

kids in the near vicinity.

It seems there is a history

of children missing frequently.

They say a blonde man dressed in blue

came through the town with his kazoo

and such a merry tune he blew

that children followed, two by two.

Their parents yelled and held them tight

and put up a tremendous fight,

but that blonde piper with words trite

proved to have astounding might.

"My friends" he said, "I come to you

because you need to take the view

that you must tell your kids adieu

while we are now deporting you."

"You didn't bother to apply

for green cards; that's the reason why

your hard work cannot justify

any kind of alibi."

"But have no fear, your kiddies dear

will stay with me until leap year.

This is to teach you to adhere

to our most lawful atmosphere!"

The parents did begin to swoon

as that blonde piper played his tune;

and underneath a hazy moon

the children with him did commune.

He led them all to barracks grim

with his hateful little hymn,

and gave them to caretakers prim

who all used a fake pseudonym.

And there they stayed, to fade away.

Deprived of love, forbid to play.

Forgotten by that piper fey,

who went on a golf holiday. 

Their anxious parents, I must tell,

could not come back their grief to quell,

but were put on a carousel

and spun away to sadly dwell

in lands they did not like too well.

Postcards to President Trump

A Pint of Ben & Jerry's

On Wednesday, 16 of the top 20 books on Amazon’s romance best-seller list were titles from its book-publishing arm or were self-published on Amazon’s platform.

WSJ

A pint of Ben & Jerry's and a box of tissues near;

I'm ready for a romance that will bring a wistful tear.

I love to read of heroines who find by page fifteen

a ranch hand or a pirate who is handsome, true, and clean.

Complications intervene to sever their true fate,

until a lush denouement on page 288.

So what care I if Amazon has cornered such a market?

When it comes to passion, they're the only ones can spark it!

And if it gets erotic round the edges, that's okay;

my kids will not pick up a book -- it's Minecraft fills their day.

I snuggle up with Kindle for a busty maiden's sighs

as she bounces bed to bed to test compliant guys.

I could pen a romance and to Amazon present it.

They wouldn't mind my typos or bad grammar to resent it.

Maybe clear a couple thou -- now that would be a kick --

for writing hanky-panky and then laying it on thick.

Hi ho, hi ho, an author soon I'll be for Amazon.

I'll manufacture purple prose, and dreck proceed to spawn.

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

Restaurant Review: Beto's Mexican Food, of Provo.

At 8:35 a.m. this morning the power went out all over Provo. At the time I was at the Provo Rec Center, taking a deep water aquatic aerobics class. The life guards immediately started tweedling on their shrill whistles to get us out of the pool and huddled by the exit doors. 

It was such an apocalyptic hub-bub that I immediately thought to myself: If this is my last day on earth, what would I like to eat for brunch? Since I'd skipped breakfast.

And, of course, the answer was: Huevos Rancheros. What else? 

So I had my old pal Bruce Young drop me off at Beto's across the street from Deseret Industries on State Street in Provo. 

Their computerized menu sign was still down from the power outage, so I didn't see the price for Huevos Rancheros when I ordered them. I soon found out. $9.59, plus $2.09 for a medium fountain drink. And tax was 92-cents. I should have gotten a breakfast burrito instead; most of 'em are only $5.99. Oh well, cuandos vives aprendes. 

Their salsa bar, though, is chock-a-block with a huge variety of salsa:

Here's just a partial list:  

• Arbol
• Habenero
• Macha
• Serrano
• Nortena
• Tropico
• Ranchera
• Pina
• Mango
• Chimole
• Tomitillo Guacamole
• Jalapeno Cilantro
• Taquerda verde
• Taquerda rojo

And there were half a dozen others with no labels on them. I sampled them all. My favorite, hands down, is the macha -- with a very deep smokey tang and an afterburn that won't quit.

There was nothing wrong with my Huevos Rancheros -- but there was nothing spectacular about them either. The carne asada was a bit rubbery, but never gristly. For 9.59 I was hoping for some brillar. 

(Cue the Walter Brennan voice) And they had one of them new-fangled fountain drink dispensers. Took me a month of Sundays to figure out how to make the dad-blasted do-dad work!

I'm giving Beto's 2.5 burps on a scale of one to four. I may raise that rating after going back to sample a breakfast burrito in the near future. 

Postcards to President Trump

Brazilian President vows to make it easier for civilians to defend themselves in world’s most murderous nation

SÃO PAULO—Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, signed a decree Tuesday to loosen the country’s strict gun laws, vowing to make it easier for civilians to defend themselves in what has become the world’s most murderous nation.

In the first major policy move by the two-week-old government, Mr. Bolsonaro said Brazilians living in rural areas or regions with high homicide rates, as well as business owners, will automatically qualify to buy a gun to keep on their property.

WSJ

Said Mr. Bolsonaro to the people of Recife,

"Get yourself a pistol to shoot crooks when they are thiefy!"

He gladly told the citizens of scrappy Macapa

that they could shoot most anyone, because of martial law.

Brazil's new presidente has decreed that guns are swell;

that citizens should carry one, aggression to repel.

He wants to arm the biznessman, the teacher, and the schmo

who drives a garbage truck and does his thinking mighty slow.

Tabernas will have rifles that their patrons can employ

when too much cold cerveja makes them feel like a cowboy.

Shooting bottles, mirrors, and occasional barback,

makes a Brasileiro happy as a crackerjack. 

And if a wife in Campo Grande finds her spouse a bore,

she can use a Luger that will make his spirits soar.

Or when the alunas wish to take a holiday,

they fire off an Uzi so professores run away.

It's nice to have a country with the citizens so armed

that though they're shot up full of holes nobody's getting harmed.

On Sugarloaf they target practice as the birds wing by;

such slaughter is delightful, though it makes the toucans cry.

So come on down to Rio for the Carnaval this year.

No crime or foul extortion will you ever need to fear.

For if a bad hat happens to get in your tourist face,

they'll shoot him up until he's nothing but some shredded lace.

Of course there is a slight chance that you might be wounded, too --

but tourists in the ER get a free pet cockatoo.

The fact is that I hereby want to give my final notice

that my arsenal and I are moving to Pelotas!

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

Tiffany Scrobble Reported the News

“When America’s most aggressive newspaper cost-cutter makes a run at the nation’s largest newspaper chain (Gannett), it is hardly a cause for cheer,” said Jim Friedlich, chief executive of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding sustainable business models for local journalism. “This is the lumber company trying to buy the national park.”
WSJ

Tiffany Scrobble reported the news

and didn't care whose reputation might bruise.

Like most of the other newspapering folk,

Tiffany Scrobble was terribly broke.

But though pinching pennies was her stock in trade,

she wouldn't change jobs for a mountain of jade.

She wrote with a will and she wrote with a way

that kept all her stories from being passe.

She worked for the Bulldog Diurnal Gazette,

a blazing good paper quite deeply in debt.

Founded by pioneer printers when Grant

marched into Vicksburg to make them recant.

The newsroom was frowzy from years going by,

leaving it fragrant with smoke and cheap rye.

Tiffany worked at a desk in that room

(and wished the accountants would spring for a broom.)

Reporters were given free rein to narrate

anything making the bigwigs deflate.

The place was a bedlam, a stew of wordplay;

where writers complained (but would not go away.)

It happened one day that the publisher caved

and sold the newspaper to bankers depraved.

They moved in and started to squeeze things real tight;

no light bulbs replaced -- writers worked in twilight.

Seniority was not a popular term;

pensions caused all of those bankers to squirm.

And so they ejected the old rank and file,

but that did not cause young Ms. Scrobble to smile.

Though she was promoted, twas not long before

summoned was she through new management's door.

They told her to sit, they examined her dress;

they hemmed and they hawed as they chewed watercress.

Told that her salary now was reduced

and that her byline away had been sluiced,

the management waited to see if she'd crack --

but she simply smiled like she'd taken Prozac.

Expense account gone; no fact checkers employed.

Free coffee and donuts were tossed in the void.

Allowance for gas was a nickel per mile.

Forget the smartphones -- back to rotary dial!

Tiffany Scrobble persevered like a champ;

nothing they did could her spirits long damp.

But then came the day when reporters were told

that current events had been way oversold.

The Bulldog Diurnal Gazette would retreat

from news to refocus on memories sweet --

using the morgue, all reporters would write

about Eisenhower or flying a kite.

This would increase circulation among

readers who hated the new and the young.

Tiffany Scrobble was given the beat

of Gentlemen's Sports -- mainly how to shoot skeet.

She worked and she slaved, but she couldn't produce

anything that wasn't very obtuse.

Her nerves became fractured, she bit off her nails.

I will not distress you with further details.

Suffice it to say that her health and her soul

suffered until she descended to sheol.

Jobless and homeless, she now walks the streets --

one of the many hedge fund obsoletes.