He giveth grace unto the lowly.

 

Grace cannot be bought or sold;

it has no truck with rank or gold.

God showers it on lowly folk

who in this world may seem a joke;

but those who laugh and scorn will find

when they need grace it is declined.

In Memoriam: Irvin Holst Torkildson

 

The years have softened nothing;

where I walk is rawness still.

Where I walk without my Irvin,

who lies in the sod so still.

Forgive me, God, my bitterness

at death so young and swift;

so final and unyielding

that it set my heart adrift.

I lost too much to ever heal

completely here in dust.

I want to see my little boy,

and so to Thee entrust 

my prayers that Resurrection

will allow me to erase

the present misery I feel,

denied his cherub face.

 

Photo Essay: Unmailed Postcards to My President.

 Due to recent severe illness, I'm reworking my budget for the merry month of March; postage has no place in my emaciated accounts for the next several weeks. But I still create, document, and will eventually mail these postcards to President Joe Biden -- soon as my stimulus check arrives . . . 

Photo Essay: Postcards from Friends.

I have spent this past Pandemic Year creating and mailing a good many postcards, to both friends and strangers.

And occasionally I receive one in return. Such as the following:

From journalist Andrew Van Dam: 

From printmaker Victor Femenias Von Willigmann, of Chile:

From Eli Raczynski, of Massachusetts:  

I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands.

 

I meditate on all thy works,

O Lord of Night and Day;

thy mighty hands have formed my soul

like supple potter's clay.

Remember not my frailties 

and follies, Lord of hosts:

Forgive my idle reveries

that turn to pompous boasts!

Restaurant Review: Tommy's Burgers has discovered the secret to patty cohesion.

 

This place has been around a long time in Provo.

But I ain't gonna tell you where it is.

Cuz I don't want it to be busy when I want

to go there to get a good hamburger.

They also do Chicago dogs, but they tend to turn

into gloop after the first few bites, cuz

they have more soggy verduras heaped on 'em

than Carmen Miranda's hat.

I don't know how they do it. Maybe voodoo or

jiggery-pokery, but their burgers hold

together, stay strong and cohesive

like the Rock of Gibraltar, even when

they get shook up bad while I lumber

uneasily on my arthritic legs the three

blocks back home.

I had this gargantuan burger this morning. See, they

open at 10:30, and that's about the time I get home

from the Rec Center after my deep water aerobics class

and a long soak in the hot tub -- so today I decided

I wanted something decadent, something that pandered

to the carnivore in me to break my morning fast.

 This burger did the trick. For five bucks.

I didn't bother with fries, which I now regret.

There would have been room for 'em.

Just thinking about how good that first bite

was when I got back home, sitting in my

recliner and watching an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise

on Netflix, makes me want to go back there right

now for for maybe a Texas burger this time.

As my old Thai girlfriend Joom used to 

say to me, shaking her head:

"May roojug paw!"

Which means "You always want

too much of a good thing."

I tried to take a picture of my reflection in their window.

Didn't quite turn out; I'm sure that after watching

me struggle to get this shot, the proprietor 

now thinks I am an elderly overweight lunatic.

You may be sure I'm going back there tomorrow,

Wednesday, because they give a Senior discount

on Wednesdays -- ten percent off.

Maybe I'll try the Texas burger then . . . 

Prose Poem: Norwegian Walnuts.

 

We sailed through the Suez Canal during a sultry 

afternoon in March.

I was worried about our cargo:

Norwegian walnuts are subject

to all sorts of hot weather wilting

issues.

But many members of my crew

had never seen sand in their entire

lives:

Lascars and Antimacassars,

Laplanders and Foozlemen. 

After our rough passage around the

Grimstead Archipelago, 

I figured they deserved a

reward for their hard work

and sacrifice.

Abbiby, our pilot, seemed nervous.

 "These waters can be Quixotic" he told

me, when I mentioned his twitching

and feral glances. 

"The Canal has many moods"

he continued, chewing on a 

Baby Wampas Bar. 

"So do I" I told him grimly.

"So don't hand me any tall tales

and just get us past the Dry Heaves, pronto!"

My little outburst seemed to settle his hash,

but two days later, as we sighted Marmalade Kettle,

Abbiby abruptly abandoned the wheel to jump overboard.

He landed on a sandbank and scuttled away.

We grounded on that same sandbank,

at which point I lost control of my crew --

they threw themselves onto the sand in an

ecstasy of unbridled joy, scooping up the grains

to pour over their heads and down their shirt

fronts, and they even began swallowing the sand.

"Tastes yust like sugar!" yelled Finn Mark, 

my first mate. 

I knew it wouldn't be long

before the sand flies got 'em,

so I lured them back onboard 

with rollmops and lemon schnauzer. 

Then opened all the stopcocks. 

The ship settled into the sandbank,

never to move again.

And I planted all the Norwegian walnuts

along the bank of the Canal . . . 

Eventually we built a country club

and started a credit union. 

Then the crew started clamoring

to make me King of Sandbank Island.

But I told them such a thing

would surely lead to vassalage,

and their daughters would become

confectionaries.

But they insisted, 

so now I'm the King.

King of an upstart gang of 

arrogant and immature men.

They're such proud boys . . . 

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

An English Professor at BYU responded to the above with his own poem, based on the Beatle's 'Norwegian Wood.' --

I once had a nut,

Or should I say, I was a nut?

She showed me her nut:

Isn’t it good, Norwegian nut?

 

She called me a nut

And she told me to sit on a nut.

So I picked up a nut

And noticed it wasn’t a walnut.

 

I sat on a rug, eating my nut,

Drinking her nut.

We talked like a nut

And then she said, You are a nut.

 

She told me she worked like a nut

And I laughed like a nut.

I told her her nut

Took a bath and then crawled like a nut.

 

And when my poor nut

Woke, I was the nut!

This bird was nut.

So I fired the nut--

Isn’t it good, Norwegian nut?

 

Brought up in the way ye should go.

 

Some have goodly parents

who have taught them right from wrong;

others aren't so fortunate

and somehow scrape along.

No matter what the case may be

for you and I, dear friend --

I testify that angels still

our welfare will defend! 

Prose Poem: Grandpa Palazzolo.

 

It was a strange-looking device that

rattled down the street in my home town

back when I was a boy.

The old folks said it was from the devil.

But younger folk, those with open minds,

wanted to give it a chance --

so the strange thing was not run

out of town on a rail.

Instead, it was allowed to rumble

into the gazebo at City Park, 

where it hummed and hissed,

belching out a noxious black smoke

from the smokestack on top.

There was a Victrola horn on the side,

and as soon as the strange machine

was settled in the gazebo a harsh

mechanical voice began tickling 

our ears with balderdash and

innuendo.

My mother tried to keep me away from it,

but after dinner I snuck out my bedroom window

and went down to City Park to listen.

The machine told us that Mrs. Johnson,

a school teacher,

was secretly married to Nikita Khrushchev.

Our Town Hall was full of wormy 

catalpa seed pods,

to be sold to Mexico at a huge profit by

the mayor and city council.

Mr. Plummer, a veterinarian, licked

fire hydrants at night.

And my own dad, Fred Palazzolo Sr., 

hoarded matches.

"It's a dirty lie!" I yelled at the horn.

Then I threw a rock at the darn thing.

It went down the smokestack and

a minute later huge glowing red sparks

came flying out of the machine 

as it burst at the seams.

We all ran screaming back to our homes

before that dratted disinformation machine

exploded -- destroying our beautiful town

gazebo.

Don't ask me why, but all the prominent citizens

in town turned against the old folks

who had warned us in the first place

about the strange machine --

so those prominent citizens 

had every single solitary senior citizen

hauled off to the county poor farm.

That's why I never got to know my grandpa Palazzolo.

  

In all labor there is profit.

 

God has made the world to be

run by sweat and industry.

Making money from thin air

seems to be most people's care;

but all true prosperity

comes from humble drudgery.

Learn a skill and ply a trade,

to be well and truly paid.