Hard Boiled Eggs.

 

When it rained hard boiled eggs

I said nothing.

It took me all morning

to scrape 'em off the fence

and driveway.

I said nothing because

'the quiet man triumphs

over all.'

So my Zen master told me.

A month later a flock

of moths

descended on my children

and ate them.

There was nothing left

but their shoes 

and braces.

My Zen master said

'If you let them go

you will keep them always.'

So I did.

But when the maple tree

in the backyard asked

me for a cigarette

I lost it.

"I don't smoke, you ninny!"

I shouted at it.

"Don't burst a vein, dude"

it said right back to me.

"I'll bum one off the lilac bush."

Just then my Zen master

came out of my house

(he lived with us, in

the basement)

and began to chant something.

But I cut him off with a blow

to the head with a garden

rake.

I suspected he was trying

to get my wife to dye

her hair blonde

and then run off with her.

When they questioned me 

down at the police station

I said I was looking for the

Pure Land,

and nothing more.

So they let me go.

And then I let go as well.

I desire nothing.

I think of nothing.

I am nothing.

And a man

made out of pillows

has just climbed 

through the window.

Today's timericks.

 

Sunday always meant to me/as a child a brilliant spree/of funny paper illustrations/in such gaudy variations/as Prince Valiant and B.C./Nothing like it on TV/Peanuts and old Andy Capp/Innocence and wicked snap/Hagar and poor Beetle Bailey/The Sunday colors blazed so gayly/But nowadays online cartoons/on Sunday are the merest ruins/No Ben-Day dots, just pastel shades/it's like a circus sans parades/I read instead the Op-Ed page/and really start to feel my age. 

Cafe owners feel the bite/of restrictions getting tight/Most will close, but some rebel/serving heedless clientele/Though the food may taste like nectar/rest'raunts are the biggest vector/so if you go out to eat/prepare your Maker soon to meet.

If you want to take the bus/you may be inclined to cuss/at the lack of public transit/from the way your city plans it/Budgets have been slashed so deep/it is faster just to creep/on your tootsies and not wait/hours for a ride that's late. 

Electric cars mean guillotine/for them as run on gasoline/Assembly also is a cinch/putting workers in a pinch/Unions sure face abrogation/with the coming automation/Blue collars become quite sparse/as they're thrown out on their arse.  

Surely he has borne our griefs

 

Our griefs are borne by shoulders strong.

By one who chose to do no wrong.

At the gates of dawn he stands

with kindly smile and helping hands.

His love for us is past perfection;

our hope through him finds resurrection.

#givethanks Expressions of my personal gratitude.

 

Here is a compilation of my posts this past week on social media with the hashtag #givethanks:

Most of my children have married and decided to have children of their own; I'm grateful for their courage and faith in starting families in a world that seems so uncertain and dark. And, of course, I'm just crazy-mad delighted to have grandchildren to spoil!

I will forever be grateful to my first radio boss, Oscar Halvorson. He took a big chance and hired me wet behind the ears to do the news at KGCX in Williston ND back in 1979. A farmer at heart, he once told me he won title to the radio station in a poker game.

As the sunset lights up the mountains in my backyard, I give thanks that because of the Savior my own personal sunset, whenever it may come, promises to be peaceful & happy, no matter how the world spins out of control.

Kevin Bickford: We started together as first of Mays at Ringling just about fifty years ago, and though he's gone I still think of his goofy sweetness and steady kindness to me and many others over the long and harried years. He proved it’s impossible to be generous to a fault.  Roofus T. Goofus, I'm thankful to have been a part of your jeweled society.

I grew up with long, cold, unforgiving winters in Minnesota; so now my old bones are grateful indeed for the mild winters here in Provo -- where I can wear sandals year-round!

For many years, when I worked as a clown on mud shows, I slept in the back of trucks or vans -- so I am truly thankful to have a soft, clean, warm, comfortable bed of my own to sleep in tonight. I still think of it as an unbelievable luxury sometimes. 

Thanks be to God for the abundance and variety of food in our rich and blessed country!

Thank you, Sun,

for sometimes hiding

your raw power

While still revealing your

Beauty.

Thank you, Mountain,

for being you --

and letting me

Be me. 

 

I am thankful for my old friends who have reached out to me through social media in the past few years. Renewing acquaintanceships with them is a sweet sweet blessing (except when they're trying to sell me something!)

 

 

I'm grateful to have been able to make so many free meals for my friends and neighbors here at Valley Villa for the past 7 months -- it was fun and flavorful!

 

 

Since I don't drive anymore, I am most grateful for friends and family members who give me rides to the doctor and the market, and sometimes just take me out for a spin to get some fresh air. God bless you all!

 

 

I have lived abroad, in places where I couldn't drink the tap water for fear of disease or poisoning. I am so grateful today to live here in a city of abundant and clean tap water. Bottoms up!

 

 

My monthly Social Security check allows me to live with comfort and dignity. I'm thankful for the wise and compassionate leaders who founded this program nearly a century ago.

 

 

I'm thankful for my inexpensive generic prescriptions that keep me functioning on a daily basis, and for the doctors who minister to me. I feel very blessed to be in the hands of competent medical practitioners, and not deluded quacks.

 

 

As a harum-scarum young man my life was transformed by the friendship and example of Tim Holst, who introduced me to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank God for his compelling testimony and quiet courage; I owe him everything! I never had a better friend.

 

 

I love reading, but my poor old eyes begin to dwindle, so I am profoundly grateful for my Kindle; it allows me still to roam the Elysian Fields of literature where I am always welcome.

 

 

I am thankful for the amazing view from my patio each day. I grew up in the flat Midwest, so this mountain vista graces my later days with a strength and beauty I drink in like nectar.

 

 

 

I am most grateful for my journalist friends who take a moment from time to time to tell me they enjoy my light topical verses. It makes me feel I'm serving a useful purpose here on Earth.

 

 

Dumped in a homeless shelter 7 years ago, I knew a despair deeper than any mine shaft. When a friend heard of my predicament he straightaway invited me to live with him here in Provo. My gratitude to him is endless.

 

 

I'm grateful for the homely aroma and comforting warmth of clean laundry fresh out of the dryer. (For the folding, not so much!)

 

 

After the divorce I was estranged from my children for many years. But tonight I'm having my youngest child Daisy over for slow cooker pork roast and veggies. How grateful I am to be getting to know them again!

 

 

The more I read the Book of Mormon the more I come to appreciate its beauty and utility. It would be impossible for me to live a happy life today without its precepts. Thanks be to God for such scripture!

 

 

I'm so grateful for the Provo City Housing Authority; they have provided me with subsidized housing that is clean, safe, and comfortable. Without their help I'd be homeless!  God bless them.

 

 

As a young man I was given the privilege of serving as a missionary for two years for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Kingdom of Thailand. I was blessed with the society of a beautiful and affectionate people, who it was an honor to serve. I may live in Utah now, but part of me is always going to stay in "The Land of Ten Thousand Smiles.”

 

 

My parents were not religious, but they both worked hard to give me a stable home, good food, and warm clothes. I'm grateful for their unwavering watchcare. 

 

 

As a young man I worked for Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus as a clown. What a great privilege and blessing it was to be paid to make people laugh! I associated with people whose zest for humor was unparalleled. I always remember those days of slapstick and greasepaint with gratitude and wonder.

I lost my son Irvin to diabetes. I'm so grateful my mourning is tempered by the gift of eternal life for all of us that stems from Jesus Christ. Because of the Savior I know I can take my little boy in my arms again after this present life is done. I await that day with joy.

Inspired by President Russell M. Nelson's video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i51gcWCs-Ho 

Today's timericks.

 

A loaf of bread is all I ask/no jug of wine for me/and as for female company/I'm far too brusque, you see/Underneath a scented pine/or in my hushed study/I paint word pictures by job lot/to peddle artlessly.

The world is fraught with leftovers/as turkey gravy prowls/from fridge to fridge post holiday/congealing all our bowels/the tupperware is fit to burst/with dressing and green beans/and no one possibly can wear/a pair of decent jeans!

I think Black Friday was a bust/nobody went a-shoppin'/People stayed at home instead/to shop online non-stoppin'/Of course I stayed above the fray/Conspicuous consumption/takes more money than I've got/and a lot more gumption. 

I hope that Trump evaporates like a patch of smog/in the coming years and finds repose in some gulag/The media should guarantee his antics to ignore/so as a beaten zombie he disturbs our peace no more.

China is so generous they build across their fences/hoping to promote a bunch of happy consequences/Then they get their feelings hurt when other nations holler/All they want to do is get much bigger, and not smaller . . . 

The Unauthorized Autobiography of Me. Section Nine. The River. 1961.

 

The heavy river water

pushed away

by black coal barges.

The boy with

a cane pole

Watching and smelling.

Phew! Mississippi water

mixed with sewage

and hungry carp.

Can of corn.

One kernel for bait.

The pole bends slowly.

It's a big one.

Two pounds maybe.

Molting diseased scales.

Three on a fume-laden

summer afternoon

with an oily reflected sun.

Under the rose bushes

at home;

calamine for stinging nettles.

A probationary time

 

I'm living on probation;

God is checking up on me.

But more than that, he's helping

to bring light and clarity.

The test is rigged, I'm glad to say,

so no one needs to fail,

because results are scored 

by Him that hung upon a nail.

Today's timericks.

 

Any day that ends with pie, and too much pie at that/is the kind of day that I consider can't fall flat/which is to say Thanksgiving as excuse to gormandize/is the kind of holiday to win a Nobel Prize!

WASHINGTON—U. S. government agencies from the military to law enforcement have been buying up mobile-phone data from the private sector to use in gathering intelligence, monitoring adversaries and apprehending criminals.  WSJ.

The mobile phone's a wonder of our modern age, but hark/it gathers information like a hungry hungry shark/which then is sold to bidders, maybe government, or not/who then know all about us, from our bank book to our thought/This breeds strong paranoia in consumers not a few/who fear complete brainwashing with a perilous shampoo/Perhaps a tinfoil helmet is the only good defense/against this great conspiracy, whether real or just pretense! 

I've got some homespun wisdom for the youngsters on the street/looking for their first good job by going suite to suite/Let the work just come to you in Zen-like fashion, dude/The karma of the universe cannot be spun or skewed/Your career is written by the hand of fate -- submit!/It is to pay your student loans till you're too old to spit!

Thorstein Veblen, Ph.D/studied our economy/with contempt and little fact/and with doubt was never wracked/Consumers were 'conspicuous'/which on Black Friday's ridiculous!

Photo Essay: Zen Postcards.

 

Thank you, Sun. #GiveThanks.

 

Thank you, Sun,

for sometimes hiding

your power while

revealing your beauty.