Photo Essay: Postcards Mailed to my President.

 

Prose Poem: The Gift.

 

Nymphets sporting at a mountain stream.

"I'm getting a gift today"

I told the nurse from my

hospital bed.

"How nice" she responded.

"What is it?"

"Oh" I replied, "it's a surprise.

"I won't know until I get it."

She said "How nice" again

and then gave me an

enema.

Actually, I wasn't expecting anything

from anybody during my hospital stay.

I wasn't dying, so nobody but my

brother Casey had come to visit.

He brought me a sports magazine --

he knows very well I loathe sports.

I told him, too crossly, to come back

with something worthwhile to read,

and he left suddenly, silently,

and sullenly. 

I didn't expect him back.

I don't know why I told the nurse

I was getting a gift -- it just

popped out spontaneously,

like a bit of chewed food flung

from my mouth during an animated

dinner conversation.

I do it all the time --

once I told a friend that I was

being published in the New Yorker.

He was duly impressed,

so I had to drop him completely

to keep from ever answering his 

embarrassing questions about when it would

be published.

In grade school I told all

my teachers that I was extremely

allergic to jute twine --

so I was excused from the annual

paper drive, and any time

I caught sight of a piece of twine

at school I began to sneeze like

crazy.

But that same day Casey

surprised me by coming back with

a book for me.

"Well, thanks!" I told him.

"S'all right -- hope it's deep enough

for you" he said, then patted me on

the shoulder and left.

It was a copy of Lolita.

The nurse saw it when she came in.

"Dirty old man" I could hear her thinking.

My oncologist saw it that evening on his

rounds.

"Read that in college" he told me.

"It wasn't as dirty as everyone said."

When he left I threw the book into

the wastebasket.  

And read the damn sports magazine.

Photo Essay: Spring Haiku.

 

Spring is aching green --

the color of summer still

remains to be seen.

There is purple here --

strangest of colors by far

and never fearful.

Brown is part of spring --

the illegitimate child

of waiting too long.

Today's Timericks.

 

First there was the Cold War/now it's Cyber Clash instead/If we don't take stern measures/then our infrastructure's dead/We do not know the hackers/and their bosses stay obscure/They haven't got the guts/ for open conflict, that's for sure!

Oat milk, almond cream, and such/do not move me very much/They ain't dairy, which I love/I won't switch despite the shove/And there's proof their benefits/don't amount to musty grits/Give me moo juice ev'ry time/cuz milk from hemp is just a crime!

The Census shows our birthrate has declined in recent years/this has given rise to speculation and sharp fears/that the country's shrinking and our vistas have a ceiling/We no longer can be thought of as a folk freewheeling/I refuse to bellyache about a future bleak/America is still the place that hopeful people seek.

Prose Poem: A Touch of Prinkweed.

 

This Mother's Day

give your mother 

a touch of prinkweed.

Yes, this common 

garden variety plant

can do a lot to please

the most demanding mommy.

Drop some in her tea --

she will break into song.

Sprinkle it down the back

of her neck --

she will begin to dance like

Vilma Ebsen.

Stuff her pillow with it --

her dreams will be sweeter

than gulaab jamun.

Present her with the seeds

to plant around her cottage --

the vigorous prinkweed will

lift her little home like Baba Yaga's

chicken legs, turning it ever 

counter-clockwise.

Last, but not least,

add some to her skin cream

and watch as she happily

transforms into an Old World babbler and

flies away to the Grampian Hills.

Prinkweed is available wherever

fine botanicals are sold.

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

Prose Poem: The Dust Storm

 

I like to read the newspaper at breakfast.

In fact, I dreamed of doing just that for many

years while I was a working stiff --

Retired and sitting

 down to buttered toast and marmalade,

with bacon and eggs, and a cup of peppermint tea,

 then snapping open the paper to continue my

pleasant struggle of becoming an informed citizen.

No rush -- I could spend all morning reviewing my horoscope

and doing the crossword.

So as soon as I retired I subscribed to the

Saint Paul Pioneer Press.

Then one morning there was this headline:

"GIANT DESTRUCTIVE DUST STORM HEADING OUR WAY!"

The reporter wrote that due to global warming

a huge dust storm from the shores of Africa would

hit our town by tomorrow; the potential for disaster

was enormous.

Gridlock. Power outages. Tire stores closed.

Famine.

Refusing to be stampeded into a panic,

I searched online for confirmation of this

unsettling story. I found none.

I turned on the radio, put the TV on CNN --

nothing.

The story in the Pioneer Press had a phone

number for the reporter who wrote the dust

storm story -- so I called her.

"Hello" said a voice. "This is Tiffany Chino."

"This is me" I replied, working up a fine

head of steam. "What's the big idea of making

up that dust storm thing? You're going to scare

 people into their graves!"

"You don't believe the story?" she asked quietly.

"No I don't! Besides, there's no other news media

carrying the story -- so I'm calling your bluff, you

phony!" 

I heard her sniffle. Then begin to weep.

"Oh, now . . . " I told her consolingly, "maybe I

was a little harsh. Anyone can make a mistake."

"Thank you" she said. I heard her blowing her nose.

"That was my very first story -- I'm just a cub reporter.

I wanted to impress my editor, so I made the whole thing

up."

"That's understandable" I said, suddenly liking this girl

very much. "You sound like you need a good breakfast. Why

don't you come over to my place tomorrow morning for some 

ham and eggs. I have a wonderful view of Phalen Park

from my condo."

The next morning she was at my door bright and early.

She brought a photographer with her, and didn't

stay long. Didn't even take a bite of toast.

And wouldn't you know it --

the next morning the newspaper ran

this huge headline, with my picture beneath it --

"ELDERLY MAN INVITES YOUNG

GIRLS INTO HIS APARTMENT, ALLEGEDLY TO

MURDER THEM WITH CHOLESTEROL!"

At least they said 'allegedly' . . . 

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

From a teacher at BYU comes this email compliment about the above piece:  Thank you! Very entertaining. Drama, humor, social commentary--wonderfully combined and engagingly presented.

Prose Poem: There is nothing left to write.

 

When I went into the Writing Bureau

for my weekly assignment,

the clerk behind the counter said:

"Sorry, there's nothing left to write."

"What does THAT mean?" I asked him.

"Nothing left to write? That's nonsense!"

I felt something unpleasant closing in on me.

He adjusted his arm garters and pulled down

his green plastic eyeshade before he answered me:

"Just like I said: There. Is. Nothing. Left. 

To. Write. Period. Everything has been written

about exhaustively, to the point of nausea.

He shuttered his counter right in my

face.

"So I'm superfluous" I whispered to myself.

As I shuffled out of the Writing Bureau 

I bumped into my old friend Sally Applebaum.

She wrote exquisite recipes for fruit compotes,

using the metric system.

Now she was superfluous, too.

I took her to a nearby stationary store,

where we commiserated with each other

while trying out fountain pens and drinking

distilled water on the rocks.

"Sally" I said to her, "why don't we get married?"

So we went down to City Hall to get a 

Marriage License.

The clerk behind the counter told us:

"Sorry, there are no more marriages . . . "

I stopped her right there.

"I know" I said, "everybody is already

married, right?"

"Wrong, wise guy" she told me,

tweaking her jabot,

"There are no more marriages . . . on earth.

You have to go Mars to get hitched."

"Has this been written about?" asked

Sally hopefully, "because I haven't read anything

about it."

"Search me" said the clerk with a shrug.

"I belong to the Illiteracy Brigade."

"I haven't read about any Illiteracy Brigade either" I

told Sally excitedly.

"So there are still things to write about!" she

yelled at me joyfully.

In our mad enthusiasm we literally skipped

down the steps of City Hall,

where we saw a police officer put

a pterodactyl in a choke hold. 

"That's been written about" I told Sally glumly.

"Way too much" she agreed.

Prose Poem: The Lady on the Staircase.

 

The Lady on the Staircase told me:

"I love only Liz Cheney."

"Can't you find it in your heart to love

me just a teeny-weeny bit?" I pleaded.

"No" she said sternly. "Unless you can perform

three impossible tasks for me."

"Name them" I whispered fervently, "and

I will perform them!"

"First" she said, "go to Australia

and help them win the war against China."

Five years later I returned to the Lady

on the Staircase, missing an arm and

blinded in my right eye.

"We won at last!" I told her exultantly.

"The Chinese surrendered at Port Arthur 

this past week."

She deigned to smile at me.

"Next" she said, with a hint of a caress

in her voice, "light a match on a bar of soap."

I was stymied by that one, 

so I sought out the wisest man I knew --

Mitt Romney -- and asked his advice.

"Simple" he replied, ruffling my hair

with avuncular affection, "use a bar of 

Lava soap."

And so I lit a match on a bar of Lava soap

for the Lady on the Staircase.

"Well done" she beamed at me. "One last

challenge I must give to you."

I awaited her words with my heart soaked in sudor.

"Bring me" she said "a pregnant Egyptian mummy."

At that I shot up the staircase to gather the Lady on the 

Staircase into my arms.

"You are the only pregnant Egyptian mummy

in all the world" I murmured in her ear, "and I 

love you foolishly, madly, completely!"

She tapped me three times with her ankh --

and I became her mummified husband.

Prose Poem: Uncle Soapy.

 

I went to visit my Uncle Soapy out in the country,

but his caretaker told me he wasn't there.

"He's gone off with some British Nonconformists

on a bicycle tour of the Great Lakes" he told me.

I was very disappointed, and put out -- because now

I had no place to stay and there wasn't a train back

until the next day.

The caretaker sensed my predicament somehow.

"Would you like to come in for a cup of Bovril and

then perhaps we can find you a cot to sleep on in

my cottage?" he offered kindly.

I accepted gratefully, and soon we were in his

book-lined study. 

We talked late into the night, about books and authors

and Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. 

As we finished the last of the strumpets and

Gentleman's Relish the caretaker told me he

was writing a book himself.

"Really?" I replied. "What kind of book?"

"A biography" he said, with a shy smile.

"Anybody I know" I replied waggishly.

"Actually" he said, "it's about you."

I goggled at the man.

"Me?"

He nodded pleasantly as he filled his meerschaum

with Turkish Taffy.

"But . . . but" I spluttered, "you don't know me at all!"

"Ah" he replied, "that's what makes it so easy to write -- I

can make up everything as I go along. Your Uncle is

quite taken with the manuscript so far -- and has promised

to see that it gets published next spring."

I demanded to see this manuscript at once. 

"You've just cribbed the story of John Paul Jones and didn't even bother to change the name!" I told him sharply after I had finished reading.

For answer, the caretaker opened the curtains -- the sun was already up, and if I wanted to catch my train back to town I'd have to hurry along. 

As I rushed out the door I paused to tell the caretaker that he was a scoundrel and that I would inform my Uncle about his effrontery.

"Do that" he said as he closed the door in my face, "my biography will indicate that you were illegitimate, and so your dear uncle will not leave you a dime in his will."

At the train station I asked the telegraph clerk if the city-bound train would be on time.

"Come and gone already" he replied shortly.

"But your schedule clearly states it would not leave Templeton

until 9:45" I said to the clerk crossly.

"This ain't Templeton, it's Finlay Corners" he told me.

I glanced up at the station sign. It said Finlay Corners.

Then I remembered that 'Uncle Soapy' was the name of an old

circus clown I used to know -- and not my uncle at all.

So I laughed the whole thing off and 

went white water rafting. 

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

This poem was reviewed by a friend, who simply emailed:  "Interesting, and full of words I don't know and won't bother looking up because I'll forget them 5 minutes later."

Prose Poem: The Evil Spirit of Upton Snodsbury, Worcestershire.

 

I read about a man who spent his entire adult

 life parking in new parking spots.

His goal, the newspaper said, was to park in

every parking space in his hometown of 

Upton Snodsbury, Worcestershire.

The minute I finished reading about this man,

I was attacked by a horla -- 

a ghastly spirit of obsession 

that compelled me to seek out innocent

people and murder their time with inanities.

My first victim was an elderly gentlemen

who was sitting on a park bench enjoying

the warm spring sunshine.

I sat down next to him.

"Nice day, ain't it?" I said to him.

"Mmmm . . . yes" he replied distantly,

obviously wishing to savor the warmth

 by himself.

"Did you know" I began,

"that the Sun is about 93 million gallons

fuller than the Earth?"

The old gentleman stared at me.

"Fuller with what?" he asked.

"Of course" I continued insanely,

"the Marblehead Ferry will not

resume service until late May.

And the Chicago Bears are scheduled

for rotary cuff surgery by the Gallup Poll.

Will you hold this string for me?"

I gave the bewildered old man one end

of a piece of string, and then walked away

from him, unspooling the string until I 

was out of his sight, and then tied it off

around a sapling.

I then slunk off, chuckling to myself like a 

madman. 

Next I volunteered at a homeless

shelter,

where I inveigled residents to collect

cigarette butts for a statue of Albert Schweitzer.

They completely stopped their job searches

and apartment hunting 

to waste their time on my bootless task for nearly

two months, before the shelter's director kicked 

them all out and banned me from the premises. 

Then I pedaled my velocipede to 

Washington D.C.,

where I worked as a lobbyist

for the Thomas R. Marshall 

Commemoration Fund.

I button-holed Senators to

give them exhaustive lectures on

why the Washington Monument

should be renamed for Thomas R. Marshall,

the 28th Vice President of the 

United States.

I passed out bubblegum cigars

like crazy -- 

which the fools sat around chewing 

for hours on end.

The evil spirit finally left me to

inhabit a stop sign at Wisconsin Avenue

and M Street.

Now, like Napoleon,

I am banished to Ellis Island --

where I make amends by scattering

sunchoke seeds to the gulls to carry

to Europe -- there to replenish the barren

fields of France and Germany.