Prose Poem: The Art of the Fidget.

 

@andsachs_sachs

I have a black belt in fidgeting.

It's not a brag; it's just a statement of fact.

The art of the fidget is learned

slowly and silently.

You sit in a cedar paneled room,

observing closely your fidget sensei.

It took me two years to master

foot tapping.

Two more to understand 

the graceful intricacies of

the stifled yawn.

Now I can fidget at will.

But I use my power carefully.

A conspicuous fidget is 

considered bad form.

It is best to do your fidgeting

in a darkened room, 

with the curtains drawn,

in the early dawn.

The existence of the fidget

was first discovered

and then refined by 

Duns Scotus during

the High Middle Ages.

He became aware of

drumming his fingers

on the lectern during a lecture,

and from there posited 

the existence of a state of

being that was neither calm

nor rational, neither angry

or focused.

He named it after the Scottish

word 'fike' -- which means

a state of grace emanating from

an earthquake.

It caught on quickly among sailors,

who spread it to the Orient.

The Three Rules of Fidget are:

1.  Never fidget on a full stomach.

2.  A child cannot fidget; it can only squirm.

3.  Never fidget for personal gain.

We Fidgeteers are rather secretive,

shunning the limelight.

Group fidgeting is discouraged,

except during Disco revivals.

If you would like to learn more

you will probably learn less.

Today's Timericks. Monday, Oct 12, 2020

 

U.S.-China Trade War Gets Wrapped Up in Twist-Ties. Minnesota company’s plastic-and-wire closures—a fixture on bread bags—are at the leading edge of Washington’s tariff tiff with Beijing.  (WSJ)

@JoshZumbrun

My bread is bagged in plastic/to keep it fresh and moist/

but if it is not tied off/I fear the very woist/

TWIST ties are the answer/from good old Uncle Sam/

no furrin imports, buddy/no Chinese knock-offs, ma'am/

And if they undercut us/a tariff war they'll get/

until they holler 'Uncle!'/and eat crow with baguette. 

A surge in worldwide demand by educators

 for low-cost laptops has created shipment delays 

and pitted desperate schools against one another.

 Districts with deep pockets often win out.

(NYT)

@Kellen_Browning

Online classes are no good/in a flat broke neighborhood/

School districts will not bestow/laptops on the poor and low/

So a generation sinks/lacking any hashtag links/

to the future, bright and clean/which now belongs to those

with green.

North Korea’s ‘monster’ missile sends menacing

 message to next U.S. president.  (WaPo)

@simondenyer

Kim Jong Un is awful proud/that among the atom crowd/

his ballistic missiles loom/as the ultimate in doom/

They are aimed across the sea/at an unnamed enemy/

Canada or Mexico?/Mushroom clouds will let us know/

What a thankless task awaits/the next Prez of these United 

States!

Prose Poem: Cancel Me This.

 

@a_coletta

There has been no conflict in my life

since I canceled mornings.

No breakfast dishes to do.

No commuting worries.

My guilt about missing sunrises

has completely disappeared.

And I save money by not 

taking a shower or shaving.

I didn't realize how much my

razor blades were costing me

until I gave them up.

Now I soak my beard in 

linseed oil once a week,

and that's that. It

keeps out the voles.

I wouldn't tell this to just anybody,

but you have the power to cancel

your mornings, too.

Or afternoons. Or evenings.

And I'll tell you how to do it

during my next podcast.

You can subscribe for just ten

dollars a week.

Special rates apply for the missish. 

Prose Poem: Clouding the Prospects

 

@aduehren

At today's family council meeting

 the prospects were clouded

 for any immediate consensus 

on the most crucial items.

The meeting was held at the

dining room table,

after blondies and a 

powdered milk beverage

were served.

Our family had been in crisis mode

ever since I lost my job several months

ago.

At today's meeting I proposed a 

massive increase in Jimmy

and Suzie's allowances,

to jump start the household

economy.

"But dad" said Jimmy in exasperation,

"Where will you get the money to pay us?"

"Not a problem" I assured him.

"I'm getting you each a credit card."

"Now honey" said wifey dear,

"is that prudent?"

"Damn the prudence" I said bravely,

"full spending ahead!"

I was given a rousing cheer

by several persons,

and the fish eye by others.

A great leader once said:

You can't please everyone.

But the motion failed to carry,

and so wifey dear said she would

go back to work as a bookbinder

at the University. It didn't pay much,

but she could always bring home

first folios and Gutenberg pamphlets

that were just cluttering up the place

for us to sell online.

But Suzie said "I don't want mommy

to go back to work. The house isn't any

fun when she's gone."

"Quiet, you!" I snarled at her.

If you're not firm with five-year-olds

they tend to coopt the whole shootin' match.

We then adjourned for an hour

so certain members of the council

could throw crockery at me and

call me a 'beast.'

When we resumed I made a motion

that we move to a frozen lake in

Canada, to live off of moose and 

pine nuts.

This was shouted down in such

a rude manner that I pulled off the

table clothe to build myself a tent

to sulk in.

The meeting then adjourned sine die.

And I ate the rest of the blondies.

Prose Poem: A Pointless Fad.

 

It's just a pointless fad.

I mean, who really knows what

it means?

I confess that I don't.

"Think."

It's on shirts, caps, sweaters, jackets, 

and even on bras

(I saw them in the window at Victoria's Secret.)

Think about what?

About who?

Don't we all be thinking all the time?

So I performed a mind experiment.

I purposely stopped thinking.

Sat in a chair in a darkened

silent room.

And thought nothing.

Let my mind go blank.

Until I could hear dust motes crashing

in midair.

Felt the Brownian Motion on my face.

And fell into an omnivorous trance.

I came out of the trance

a changed man.

I had discovered the secret of

turning off my brain.

I could stop thinking

whenever I wanted.

I thought about teaching

workshops and starting 

a podcast.

Or rather,

I didn't think about those things.

I no longer see the need

or feel an urgency

to think. Ever.

And I have prospered greatly.

Gilbert and Sullivan knew what

they were talking about when 

they wrote:

"He thought so little they rewarded he;

and now he is the ruler of the Queen's Navy!"

Thinking will only give you thoughts;

but not thinking will give you a peaceful

absence of annoyance.

Plus, there are large and wealthy groups

that will pay you to not think about specific

things --

STOP THINKING AND GROW RICH.

That'll be on every item in my fashion line.

Which consists of empty spools of thread.

Today's Timericks.

 

White House Draws Up New $1.8 Trillion Virus-Relief Proposal.  (WSJ)

@kristinapet

Mr. Trump is now morose/with elections drawing close/He can't

win without a sop/as his polls so steady drop/Thus he wants to

give away/cash before Election Day/Biden he has plans to 

wreck/by bribing voters with a check.

TRUMP ENGINEERED A SUDDEN TAX WINDFALL IN 2016

 AS CAMPAIGN FUNDS DWINDLED  (NYT)

@susannecraig   @mmcintire   @russbuettner

When Trump felt the bankruptcy axes/he fiddled around 

with his taxes/and now he's so rich/the son of a gun/more 

bloated and arrogant waxes.

USPS on-time performance dips again as millions prepare

 to mail 2020 ballots.  (WaPo)

@jacobbogage

I use the mail to pay my bills/and sending postcards

gives me thrills/Even fliers in my box/my modest world so

fully rocks/Don't knock the postmen with headlines/playing 

up their sad declines/I've lived in other countries where/mail 

disappears into thin air/I think our postal system's fine/(but

just in case -- I'll vote online.)

Warning: Don’t Touch This Hairy-Looking Caterpillar.  (NYT)

Contact with a puss caterpillar can cause a painful reaction as well as a rash, fever, muscle cramps or swollen glands, experts caution.

Although it may look like a wig/this critter is a poison fig/One touch

 and blisters will appear/upon your neck and feet and ear/When

 God sends plagues he's never spare/They always make us scream and swear.

Prose Poem: Sand

 

I grew up on a sand farm.

We planted in summer and harvested

in winter, when the pine needles

were more stable.

You need pine needles to pacify

the sand demons that otherwise

would rise up and snatch away your

cuticles.

Or so the old folks said.

I worked beside my mother

and father, tending the silicon

grains until they matured.

Then we hauled them to the

curing shed, added sumac berries,

and let the whole mess ferment

until it turned white and dry 

as cattails.

Then we sold it to the Texans,

who came in droves in the dull

of February to dicker with my

father over the price per ton.

What they wanted it for I never found out.

"Best you don't know, son" my dad 

told me, with his rough brown hands

on my shoulders.

The Monsoon of 2020 wiped us out.

The whole family took to the road,

selling matchstick carrots and mending

horse shoes. 

But it was a poor living, so my father

bought sacks of pumpkin pie spice

which we smuggle across the

Canadian border --

in our fanny packs.

When I asked him what 

Canadians do with all that

pumpkin pie spice, he

put his rough brown hands on

my shoulders and said:

"Best you don't know, son."

I hate my father.

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

Email response to this poem from Nathan Draper in Bangkok:

"Like so many things....best we don’t know. Helps stabilize world order!"

Thursday's Timericks.

 

Facebook to Suspend U.S. Political Ads on Election Day.  (WSJ)

@JeffHorwitz

In a land that don't exist/politicians will subsist/on the truth

and not deceit/Be polite and never cheat/They will never 

run an ad/calling someone else a cad/Politics will be

genteel/not a turbulent ordeal/Till that happy day arrives/watch

out for cyber carving knives!

Putin, Long the Sower of Instability, Is Now Surrounded

 by It.  (NYT)

@antontroian

When the borscht comes home to roost/Putin finds himself 

reduced/Comrade, fooling with the fire/only brings you grief 

and ire/Even Bolsheviks must try/the Golden Rule to know 

and try!

The New England Journal of Medicine avoided politics

 for 208 years. Now it’s urging voters

 to oust Trump.  (WaPo)

@katemshepherd

Even medicoes today/beg for Trump to go away/In their

magazines they rant/how their love for him is scant/I'm

afraid now in our clinics/all the staff are White House

cynics/Kevorkian might vote him back/but otherwise

the docs talk smack. 

The Cure for COVID-19.

 

Where were you when you heard they had first

 found a cure for COVID-19?

I was soaking my feet in Epsom salts

when my wife burst into the room,

waving a magazine and shouting:

"They did it! They did it! The cure!"

"Don't have a cheese curd" I said sulkily;

my feet were killing me. "Sit down like a

sane person and give me some details."

I knew that was a rude response, 

but I didn't think she'd simply turn around

and go find a divorce lawyer.

Without telling me anything about the cure.

She wound up with the lake home, 

the Shakespeare folios,

and the silk worms.

All I got was the condo and the cough drop business.

But then she died suddenly of the COVID-19, 

before the divorce decree became final  --

so everything came back to me.

I felt very relieved,

yet frustrated and confused.

Had she been inoculated or not?

I guess I'll never know.

I, of course, got inoculated

immediately.

And met a beautiful woman

online.

We were married in Saskatoon,

where her family was from.

They refused to believe in the

cure for COVID-19 --

because a German pharmaceutical

firm had come up with it,

and they were refugees from 

World War Two.

Predictably, after the wedding,

many of them died of the virus.

Gretchen didn't dare get inoculated,

out of respect for her parents' 

beliefs.

She caught it and became very ill.

But recovered.

And had an affair

with the doctor treating her.

She ran off with him to Nova Scotia.

About that same time they

announced that the so-called

COVID-19 cure was a fake.

It didn't work.

In fact, it made people bald.

So that explains why I lost most

of my curly brown hair in just

a month.

Nowadays . . . 

Oh, but why bother to tell you

about the new cure?

You've heard about it.

Horse chestnuts.

Swallow one whole.

You never get sick.

Your hair grows back.

Wives and lovers are

impelled to come back.

They tore down the whole

Amazon rainforest 

to plant horse chestnut trees.

Now the world is safe.

Now I have my wife back.

The doctor she ran off with

choked on a horse chestnut

and died.

I think that's as good a place

as any to end this story.

Wednesday's Timericks.

 

White House Order Against Diversity Training Generates Confusion  (WSJ)

@khadeeja_safdar    @laurenweberWSJ  

Prejudice in all its glory/now is the triumphant story/No more bleeding heart workshops/with their liberal milksops/He-men only need apply/in the modernized pigsty.

Two of These Mail Ballot Signatures Are by the Same Person. Which Ones?  (NYT)

@larrybuch   @aliciaparlap

My signature is such a scribble/it looks like a garter snake's dribble.

Officials who judge/will just have to fudge --

unless they are prone to a quibble.

Amy Coney Barrett served as a ‘handmaid’ in Christian group

 People of Praise.   (WaPo)

@mboorstein    @jonswaine   @emmersbrown

Small Christian groups, small Christian groups;

We do not like the sound.

Who knows what kind of oddities

in such a thing is found!

A 'handmaid' now, a 'handmaid' now;

it surely seems suspicious.

It could well be, quite possibly,

a role that's plain seditious!

No gasconade, no gasconade;

such groups are very quiet.

I'll just bet you that if we knew

their plans we'd have to riot!

So insular, so insular;

these self sustaining groups --

the only way we're not their prey

is sending in the troops!