Listen to the voice of your Redeemer.

President Russell M. Nelson.

"Our Father loves us and yearns for each one of us to choose to return to His holy presence. He pleads with us to listen to the voice of Jesus Christ, whom the Father anointed and appointed as our Mediator, Savior, and Redeemer."

President Russell M. Nelson.

Forgive my errant wayward feet

that to distraction run so fleet;

my heart unconstant oft does beat,

my passions beget too much heat.

The constant voice of Christ I crave;

his words alone my soul can save.

O make my ears attuned and keen,

so holy words are all I glean!

Zombie Debt. (Prose Poem)

I borrowed fifty cents from my best friend Wayne to get a Hershey bar. That was sixty years ago, when we were both eight years old.
So I forgot to repay him, and we both went on living and finally lost track of each other.

Until last year. When a lawyer came down my chimney on Christmas Eve to deliver a subpoena, demanding payment of said fifty cents, plus penalty and interest.

It came to just over fifty thousand dollars. I gave the lawyer a glass of milk and some ginger snaps and told him no way would I be paying anything. It was ridiculous.

He merely smiled and went back up the chimney. Lawyers can sneak in and out of anything. 

I looked Wayne up on Facebook and sent him a friend request. He accepted and I asked him 'What the hell?' He replied he really needed the money, because he was unemployed and losing his home. Plus his two daughters needed braces.

So I sent him fifty thousand dollars. I could afford it. From my patent on bacon topped doughnuts. He thanked me, but then stopped communicating with me.

But because of that legal action my friend had started, my credit rating went into the toilet. And I couldn't get a crucial loan when I needed to expand into tofu-stuffed long johns. The new tariff on powdered sugar didn't help things, either. 

I lost my company, my home, and my bank accounts were seized by Mitch McConnell -- for some reason I never learned. I moved into a friend's garage and slept on a cardboard refrigerator box. 

In desperation I reached out to Wayne on Facebook, telling him what had happened and asking him to send some of the money back that I had sent to him. 

The next day while I was stuffing my sleeping bag into my refrigerator box a helicopter landed behind the garage and my friend Wayne jumped out to embrace me.

"It was all just a test!" he told me. "I never needed your money. I've always been rich. And it was me who forced your company into bankruptcy. I needed to test your moral fiber, to see if you gave  up or kept fighting. Because, old friend, I wanted to make you a partner in my stupendously profitable corporate empire."

Then he broke down weeping. My emotions were very strong, too. 

I finally managed to ask him what was his stupendously profitable business.

"Scented eyeglasses" he quavered, still overcome with emotion. "But you failed the test, old friend. You gave up too easily and sit around all day on an old refrigerator box. So I can't use you."

"That" I said simply, "is the dumbest idea I've ever heard of. Your business empire will crumble before the snowdrops come up this year." 

And that's exactly what happened to Wayne's business empire. As for me, I've started a line of cardboard refrigerator box furniture, without any startup funds, just using social media. And I'm becoming rich again.

My next step is to create a line of scented cardboard refrigerator box furniture. 

When thou hast eaten and art full

When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.
Deuteronomy 8:10

In this goodly land, we bless

God above for our success;

for the golden harvest days

and the fullness of our ways.

Keep us from false pride, that we

may prosper in humility --

We, thy children, celebrate

thy bounty, Lord, without debate!

In Venice, even the drug dealers hug. (Prose Poem)

In Venice, even the drug dealers hug.

Jessica Bennett. NYT. 

I always hug a man before I kill him.

Although I haven't killed anybody yet.

I'm still waiting for the right assignment.

You know, one that means the saving

of Western Civilization.

So far, I've only been offered 

a few jobs bumping off meter maids

and assorted in-laws. 

So I wait, and hug people at church,

at community sing-alongs, when I attend funerals,

and so on.

I am always impeccably groomed and discrete

with the Lilac Vegetal,

so very few people object to my 

hugs. Some really enjoy them.

Perhaps if they knew I was an 

embryonic killer, they might 

feel differently.

I was responsibly sourced

by good parents,

but I turned to the bad

at an early age.

The imaginary film noir.

See, I went to school, did my homework,

and became an accountant, with no

hint at a violent side.

Yet I dreamed in film noir.

So one day I simply walked away

from my QuickBooks to look

for bad things to do.

Can I help it if I look reliable

but harmless? 

Honest and substantial work

is all I can find.

Being friendly and helpful to everyone.

One day . . . one day . . . 

I'll be known as the Hugging Hit Man.

Or my name isn't Fred McFeely Rogers.

Ten Cucumbers (Prose Poem)

MORIA, Greece — As night closed in on the migrant camp, masses of people made their way to their makeshift tents, climbing hills of denuded olive trees, carrying dinner in plastic bags. Lila Ayobi showed her family what she had waited three hours in line to collect.

Ten cucumbers.

Chico Harlan.  Washington Post.

The Ten Cucumbers League

is dedicated to the proposition

that everyone needs plenty

of cucumbers in their daily 

diet.

Low on calories and sugars,

high on potassium and fiber,

one cucumber can sustain an adult for 24 hours, or longer -- if he or she doesn't

move around too much.

We began as a local food shelf in Rancho Cucamunga

out in California -- where the cukes grow to the size of

Piper Cub airplanes. 

When we became overwhelmed with

donated cucumbers, we

decided to reformat our

charity, so that every man, woman, and child in the world could have at least one cucumber a day.

Especially the poor and displaced.

Today we have cucumber drops in places like the Aegean Islands, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Laos, Guatemala, and the Kamchatka Peninsula. 

We are very proud of our work, and hope you will feel the need to donate to our cause.

We accept cash, property, checks, bitcoin, and Burpee seed packets. 

The fatness of thy house

They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.
Psalm 3:8

The Lord of hosts fills to the roof

each humble home with loving proof

of his design for our success

when from his laws we ne'er digress.

And pleasant waters we imbibe

when to his words we glad subscribe.

True satisfaction comes to those

who in the Lord their trust repose.

Baking Rage. (Prose Poem)

The book was meant to celebrate anger and activism in the kitchen. While it may do that, it also ignited a conversation on social media about race, appropriation, feminism and marketing.
Tejal Rao. NYT.


Baking rage is a real thing.
I have it all the time.
In fact, I'm approaching a rage right now.
I'm making chicken curry with eggplant 
and turnips today.
A big pot on my stove, with a Japanese
paste from the local Asian market
for the roux.
Also a cooker full of rice.
And kimchi and peach jello on the side.

Sunday afternoons are so
tediously unfair.
There's nothing to do
after church.
Not for an old single guy like me.
So I cook. I bake. I fry.
Trying to recapture memories
of when I was married 
and we had eight kids.
I made a lot of casseroles back then.
 The kids ate everything I made.
Today, they're all on different diets.
Organic. Keto. Paleo. Vegan.
Bah!
They never come over to eat 
at my apartment.
So I cook for all the old ladies
in my building.
Serving it up in the community room
on card tables.
And today I'm making the Japanese chicken curry
as spicy as hell.
That's how I vent my towering rage.
I make their eyes water.
Their tongues wheeze.
Their blouses turn dark with sweat.
And still they come.
They dearly love a free meal;
one they don't have to cook themselves.
And they call me a great guy.
And they bring me canisters of oatmeal;
bags of long grain rice; and boxes of brownie mix.
So I feel obligated to make more meals.
It's a vicious simmering circle.

I'm saving an open box of ginger snaps
until it's as stale and hard as concrete.
Then I'll put it out 
to watch 
them crack their dentures.
And I will find peace 
at last. 

Forgetfulness, (Prose Poem)

 Over the past five years, “mindfulness” programs have exploded in popularity. In Grand Blanc, Mich., first-graders are breathing to the sound of Tibetan music before class. In Albuquerque, second-graders sniff and speak about raisins before eating them. In Yellow Springs, Ohio, students can choose yoga as an alternative to detention.

Hannah Natanson. Washington Post. 

I'm having a good day today.
That's because I've forgotten who I am.
And where I'm from.
And the purpose of my existence.
Instead, I float along on a gentle stream
labeled HUH?
So very pleasant and refreshing.
And this is what I'm teaching 
my fourth graders to do.
To forget. 
To let go.
To stop existing as an individual
whose head is crammed with 
facts and thoughts and emotions.
To be an empty balloon,
allowing the breeze 
to send you anywhere.
Anywhere at all.

I became a convert to
forgetfulness
about five years ago --
of course, I no longer
really remember the date or the process
of conversion. 
But I remember, in a vague sort of way,
that I wanted to forget everything
and start each day over again
with a clean slate.
Once I started doing that
my back pains went away.
If I ever had any.
My paunch shrank.
The arthritis in my knees -- 
what are knees, anyways? --
disappeared.
And my breath became so sweet
that humming birds circle my head
day and night. 

That's when I infiltrated
the fourth grade classroom
and usurped the teacher's position.
She was ready to retire anyways.
She left the minute I began blowing
soap bubbles at the children,
leaving behind a faint cloud
of chalk dust.
Or not. I have no real recollection
of how I got here.
So I made up that story.
Just now.
It's as good as any other.
It explains nothing but keeps
the eyes occupied while
the brain is cradled into
forgetfulness.

Today my fourth graders sit quietly,
touching their scarred desktops
like braille.
Passing over names and dates,
childish swearwords and holes
drilled in desperate boredom.
I sit at my desk, 
a soothing white blankness
overcoming my concern
about the hairy green thing
waving its tentacles
in the classroom doorway. 
Certain that I won't remember
a thing about it tomorrow.

The sound of rejoicing

 Verily, I say unto you that ye are chosen out of the world to declare my gospel with the sound of rejoicing, as with the voice of a trump.
D&C 29:4

Shake the rafters with your voice;

in the Lord we should rejoice!

Declare it with triumphant horn;

our burdens from us shall be shorn!

Declare the gospel long and loud

to the heedless laughing crowd --

for some there are who shall believe

and find in God a true reprieve!

And when this day's work has been done

we'll rest content with God's own Son!