Reporters cannot make up facts/They hire good internet hacks/the 'truth' to display/so they earn their pay/with non-fiction that's pretty lax.
Wild horses once under the care/of Uncle Sam need to beware/The market for meat/makes folks indiscreet/They'll wind up on menus, cooked rare.
Investing in good ransomware/can make a guy a billionaire/It can't be stopped; it's spreading fast/potential for it, unsurpassed/Like the Mafia of old/just join a gang to get your gold!
"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.
Spring is aching green --
the color of summer still
remains to be seen.
strangest of colors by far
and never fearful.
the illegitimate child
of waiting too long.
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.
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.
**************************
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.
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.
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.
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."
