November 5, 2009
The Carefree Daffodil
“Oh, no! They’re going to pick us! I knew it! I knew it! Oh, no!” trumpeted a daffodil sprouted near the edge of a meadow positively yellow with daffodil blooms.
“Who cares?” sniffed a daffodil nearby, head held high while the meadow all around swayed in floral panic.
The collectors swept in with baskets, and soon the meadow was nearly empty and the baskets nearly full. The parson’s wife bent down to snip the last stem, but was stopped by her daughter’s plea.
“Oh, Mummy, we have enough. Let’s leave one,” said the little blue-eyed wench, golden curls bobbing, pink cheeks glowing.
The parson’s wife smiled and put away her razor-sharp clippers. The collectors gathered together and moved off, chatting and laughing. The meadow with its single standing daffodil was abandoned.
“Who cares?” sniffed the daffodil, held held high.
Moral: A carefree flower often survives.
November 4, 2009
i walked on the wharf
fish stared from abandoned creels
goggle-eyed surprised
November 3, 2009
by golly
i’m a poet
and yet somehow i remain blissfully unaware of the fact
November 2, 2009
Unless you’re a Mozart or another of his ilk, there has to be sacking before there is silk.
November 1, 2009
The Vampire and the School Custodian
Two vampire bats engaged in a heated discussion with a school custodian. Count Dracula looked on, amused. When the bats, mocked beyond endurance by the school custodian, suddenly produced a couple of shivs, the count decided enough was enough and intervened.
“Fellow, fellows, forgive and forget … Forget … I say … Forget,” hypnotically chanted the count, raising his cape to cover the lower half of his face and freezing the bats comatose with his blazing red dead eyes.
Seizing the opportunity, the school custodian quickly unwrapped a loaf of sliced rye bread, extracted two pieces of same, tossed both bats onto one slice, squeezed some mustard and mayo on the other, slammed the pieces together, and loudly, with much moaning, consumed the bat sandwich.
“Very well, I’ve done my good deed for the day,” commented the count before turning himself into an industrial planner and strolling away.
The school custodian saluted smartly.
October 30, 2009
“A tad more tincture of churl and it’ll be good to go.”
October 29, 2009
The Apple Man
He was there, ever vigilant, in the orchard. The children stuck an apple in his grinning skull mouth every Halloween.
October 27, 2009
The Hawk and the Lodgepole Pine
“Arp! Arp!” cried the hawk, and he circled to land on the highest branch of a lodgepole pine close by the lake.
“What do you know about World War One?” he asked the tree without so much as a ‘How do you do?’
“Huh? What?” responded the tree, its impressive height doing nothing at all to boost its not altogether impressive intelligence.
“World War One. Do you feel that Haig was stubborn and blind or do you on the other hand feel that in the end he did what had to be done?” stated the hawk between preening wing feathers and tearing at the dead chipmunk he held in his talons.
“I … don’t know. A lot of my ancestors were masts, though,” offered the tree in a pitiful attempt to converse. It was not often that birds talked to the tree. And whenever they did, the more or less comatose pine was always so startled that all it could ever think of to say was the exact same thing, that short statement about its tree mast ancestors. Suddenly inspired, this time the tree added, “Masts are straight.”
“That’s really neither here nor there,” said the hawk, tearing off a strip of nice red meat. “The maritime bits of the war don’t interest me all that much. Oh, sure, Gallipoli and u-boats, I suppose, but the trenches, I mean slogging back and forth for years gaining and losing the same few hundred yards while suffering frightful slaughter. What was that all about?”
“Masts?” suggested the hopeful tree.
Moral: It’s always a good idea to keep your mouth shut even if you don’t have one.
