Mao with My Dog's Sense of Entitlement | Posted: April 1, 2013
Posted: Sunday, November 18, 2012
Posted: Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Posted: Friday, July 20, 2012
Posted: Sunday, July 1, 2012
Posted: Sunday, June 24, 2012
Posted: Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Posted: Sunday, June 17, 2012
Posted: Saturday, June 9, 2012
Posted: Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Posted: Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Susurrus
A rustling amidst the trees.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
Goodbye, Maurice.
May 9, 2012
Posted: Tuesday, May 8, 2012
For Maurice Sendak... you will be missed beyond words, my friend.
Posted: Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Posted: Monday, April 30, 2012
Posted: Monday, April 23, 2012
Posted: Monday, April 16, 2012
Posted: Thursday, April 12, 2012
Assonance
Oak; oat; oaf; oar:
Ever growing.
Ever sowing.
Never knowing.
Ever rowing
Evermore offshore.
Posted: Friday, October 21, 2011
AaaaooooooO
Nothing howls
Without vowels!
Posted: Tuesday, October 18, 2011
A Wheel
The appeal of a wheel is it rolls--
That it rolls without any controls.
As long as it’s round,
It’s perfectly sound,
And it rolls and it rolls and it rolls!
Posted: Friday, March 11, 2011
Hamburger
A hamburger is not a book,
Though both are yummy kinds of food.
A book tastes better raw than cooked,
And ketchupped pages aren’t so good.
Posted:Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Winter
There’s no school for Candy Caning—
No advanced degree or training—
Merely endless to- and fro-ing,
During late December’s snowing.
Draining? Yes... but who’s complaining?
Posted:Thursday, December 30, 2010
Cletis McFloffal
Malodorous Cletis McFloffal
Never bathes and he reeks something awful!
His repugnant bouquet
Made his pants run away,
Gasping “Mercy…that boy smells unlawful!”
Posted: Monday, November 15, 2010
Mandril
Suppose your schnoz was red and blue
(Forget your keister’s bright red too)
I’m curious what you would do?
Perhaps put on a plastic nose
With glasses and with one of those
Ridiculous mustachios?
Or maybe not wear a disguise,
And flaunt your face like some swell prize,
In front of all these staring eyes?
It’s hard to know what you would do
If your fine mug were red and blue,
But I like mine—and you should too!
Posted: Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Penguins
Black-and-white spattily,
Jaunty top-hattily,
Adelie penguins
Are waddling nattily.
Posted: Thursday, November 4, 2010
Tall Tale
In Namibia, natty giraffes
Find that neckwear is quite good for laughs.
Forty bowties at once
Is the swellest of stunts—
Forty-one lead to breathtaking gaffes.
Posted: Monday, November 1, 2010
Eat Me
I’ve lolled about in lemon curds
And baked myself in crust.
I really taste too good for words.
Just take a bite—you must.
All decked out in chocolate chips,
And filled to here with fudge,
I’ve nicely tried to pry your lips
Apart, but they won’t budge.
I’m lightly swirled in caramel,
And spritzed with maple glaze.
How sweet am I? Gosh…I won’t tell.
You’ll see, one of these days.
Posted: Thursday, October 20, 2010
Mooning
Occasionally by dark of night,
The moon delights to think it might
Slip off its dress down past its hips
And moon us with a full eclipse.
Exciting? Quite!
But impolite!
Posted: Monday, August 30, 2010
Tired
Tired weighs eight hundred pounds,
Tired squints its eyes,
Tired is too tired for sounds,
More audible than sighs.
Tired doesn’t have a nose,
Tired has no hands or feet,
Tired only has one tooth,
Which is too tired to eat.
Tired maybe has one wing,
Or maybe it’s an ear?
Or maybe just a pointless thing
Too tired to flap or hear?
Tired is just too tired to sleep.
Tired’s too tired to play;
With tears too tiresome to weep,
Or even wipe away.
Posted: Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Songbird
Here is a bird with the finest of plumes.
In love with his plumage, he wrongly assumes,
That he can strut safely up high in the branches.
But down below patiently coiled on its haunches,
A leopard looks up and then suddenly launches
Itself in a flash of black spots and consumes
The bird... and each one of its finest of plumes.
Posted: Thursday, August 19, 2010
Nothing Burger
I cannot whistle, wink or hum,
Or somersault or skip.
I’m just a spaz who’s way too dumb
To stand. I’d only trip.
I’m horrible on pogo sticks,
And dangerous on skates--
The last one anybody picks,
It’s me my whole team hates.
I barely know that books are square,
Or that the sun is round,
Or that the sky is filled with air--
That nothing makes no sound.
A negative at minus signs.
A zero adding sums.
A dullard scorned by eights and nines.
I cannot count my thumbs.
I cannot even draw mistakes.
My squiggles look like smears.
And sometimes when my pencil breaks,
Its pink eraser cheers.
I’m worse than everyone I know
At everything I do.
I’m lower than your lowest low.
What’s that you say? Boo hoo?
Posted: Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Woof
Poodles like their puddles better,
Drier... smaller... never wetter.
Posted: Monday, August 16, 2010
Inedible
You aren’t allowed to bite my toes!
You cannot chomp my feet
Or nibble on my ears or nose--
I’m not for you to eat!
You may not gnaw upon my knees,
Or snack upon my wrist,
Or nosh upon my neck. So please,
Desist! I must insist!
No, no…you may NOT lick my head
Or taste my hair! INCREDIBLE!
How many times must it be said?
NO PART OF ME IS EDIBLE!
Posted: Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Picture Frame
My head is just a picture frame.
My eyes are just the sun.
My ears are just a mountain stream.
My hair is just for fun.
My hands are just a pair of birds.
My legs are just two trees.
My knees are just too shy for words.
My toes are just to please.
My wants are just the ocean’s floor.
My needs are just some fish.
My dreams are just the evening’s shore.
My me is just my wish.
Posted: Monday, August 9, 2010
Odyssey
Three peas and a piece of aged sharp cheddar cheese
Set for sail in a small gravy boat.
With a spoon for an oar, they pushed off from the shore,
And soon sank since their boat didn’t float.
Posted: Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Shipwreck
You do not want to be a sloop
That’s up and sunk beneath the sea.
First off, it makes your rigging droop
And hang unkemptly towards the lee.
Your bow goes waterlogged and soft.
Your anchor rusts. Your prow turns gray.
Your masts no longer stand aloft.
Your fore, aft, and poop decks decay.
Your keel grows barnacled and old.
Your sails get frayed and thinned to strands.
And all the gold within your hold,
Is swept beneath the patient sands.
Perhaps some shrimp will eye your jewels,
And eels will dine within your hull.
And maybe ‘midst the darting schools,
A crab will wear the captain’s skull.
Posted: Sunday, July 18, 2010
Nebulae
There’s not one thing remotely blah
About your far-flung nebula:
A gauzy coalescing mass
Of star-producing dust and gas.
Galaxies look dolled up because,
Their gewgaws grow in nebulas.
Posted: Friday, July 9, 2010
Where the Universe Ends
Beyond all the stars that have ever been seen,
Past the reach of the telescope’s lens,
Further out than the furthermost thing’s ever been,
Is a place where the universe ends.
Where the hum of the galaxies fades to a hush.
Where the faintest specks tire with twinkling.
Where the speedingest meteors no longer rush.
Space just ends, like this rhyme, in an inkling.
Posted: Thursday, July 8, 2010
Jupiter
In all its striped enormous girth,
Three hundred times the size of earth,
Jupiter suffers no small dearth
Of moons. Sixteen! For what it’s worth,
Some say it’s more like sixty-three--
That’s quite a lunar potpourri!
But Jupiter gives not one jot
How many stupid moons it’s got,
Or what amount sounds like a lot;
It simply loves its great red spot--
Obsessed with counting moons it’s not.
Posted: Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Eureka!...Uranus?
Eureka!… Uranus is utterly heinous,
Unspeakably icy and frozen. The rain is
Unwelcomely gaseous. The rainbows all grayness.
The winters are endless. The summers lack gayness.
No fall leaves. No spring songs. The locals’ refrain is,
“There’s zero to like about here!” Why remain? is
Precisely the question my brain can’t explain. Is
It wrong that I love living life on Uranus?
Posted: Monday, July 5, 2010
Lasso
On the plains of the vast Serengeti,
The naturalist, Fern Ferlinghetti,
Ropes beasts large and small,
With no effort at all,
In lassos she weaves from spaghetti.
Posted: Friday, July 2, 2010
Walking
My words are taking off their T’s,
Which means my pants are pans—
Awfully painful on my knees,
So now I use my hands.
Posted: Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Waving
The sand itself does not know why,
The ocean never says goodbye;
Just wet hellos, it quickly grows
All shy, then goes away.
Posted: Monday, June 28, 2010
Hat
The evening is a giant hat
The earth puts on at night,
And pulls down low across its brow
To block out all the light.
The inside’s lined with starry tweed
And lunar velveteen,
And asteroidal silk charmeuse,
And nebular sateen.
Just what the other side looks like
No one can really say,
Since when the earth takes off its hat
It’s always bright as day.
Posted: Thursday, June 24, 2010
Emperors
The Emperor penguins are gravely distressed,
Having first thought the rumors were whispered in jest.
They would never have even half-jokingly guessed
That they’re marching about in the nude, plain undressed!
Formally speaking, since others are peeking,
They’re not only nude, but are guilty of streaking.
Posted: Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tides
The ocean is a pair of socks
The coast pulls off and on,
Around its sandy shoals and rocks
From seaside dusk to dawn.
A ceaseless back and forth of froth
And kelp and grit and shells,
The tide gets lazily pulled off
And on, in ebbs and swells.
The coast just can’t make up its mind:
To wear its socks or not?
But even worse, it cannot find
The only shoes it’s got.
And so the coast sits where it does,
Due north, south, east or west,
And heaves a briny sigh because
It simply can’t get dressed.
Posted: Monday, June 21, 2010
Marooned
Mildred Muldoon has been struck on the moon,
Since the middle June of last year.
Picnicking high in her hot air balloon,
She did not hear that typhoon draw near.
Blown by Rangoon and clear past Cameroon,
Mildred whirled as the skies grew severe.
“Heavens, this lunch has turned inopportune,”
Mildred sighed. Then she swooned. Now she’s here.
Rationing prunes and the odd Lorna Doone,
Mildred stares at the earth in good cheer.
Hoping that help’s on its way to her soon,
Mildred croons to the stars, “Persevere!”
Posted: Friday, June 18, 2010
Lucy
What if Aus-tra-lo-pith-e-cus
Could sing as beautifully as us?
Bright jazzy tunes without a word,
She hummed. And walked. And smiled. Who heard
Her sing three million years ago?
Such melodies we’ll never know.
Posted: Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Lascaux
A long long long long time ago,
Some very very old van Gogh,
Or Picasso with torch aglow,
Painted a cave in old Lascaux.
A leaping horse! A giant bull!
Rhinoceros!?! This joint is full
Of dashing, extinct animals
Leaping forever on its walls.
Since 15,000 BCE
They’ve pranced here in the dark. Come see.
Posted: Monday, June 14, 2010
Nebu-Claus
Throughout the interstellar void,
All kinds of kids were overjoyed
To hear some guy named Santa Claus,
Was mushing toward their nebulas.
A codger with a big white beard,
Who hands out gifts? It sounded weird,
But even eight-eyed girls and boys,
Are strangely fond of getting toys.
Posted: Friday, June 11, 2010
Pluto
Till recently my life was fine.
I grooved on being planet nine,
Casually orbiting the sun
With my own tiny moons. What fun!
Sometimes I’d sidle up and gloat
To Neptune, “Pssst…I’m more remote
Than you—and way smaller to boot.”
Back then I was a total hoot.
But now that there are only eight
Planets, well…life’s not so great.
Now Neptune smugly looks at me
And says to Uranus, “Who’s he?”
Posted: Thursday, June 10, 2010
Mercury
To be quite blunt, NO…it’s not fun,
Circling this closely to the sun,
Without one crummy moon—not one!
And now that Pluto’s been undone,
I’m punier than everyone.
Friendships with other planets…none.
I’m boiling hot then freezing cold
(“Lacking an atmosphere,” I’m told).
It’s true I’m not much to behold.
Small wonder I’m verklempt…I’m old!
Bullied by meteors since birth.
My whole life lived devoid of mirth.
If only I was born the Earth!
Posted: Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Earth
A pale blue dot is all we’ve got
To share amongst ourselves. We’re not
Much more than a miniscule speck
In someone else’s sky. A fleck
So faint they might not ever see
Us here. The whole wide world is wee.
Next time you’re playing on a beach
Beside some endless ocean, reach
Out for a random grain of sand
And pretend what’s within your hand
Is Earth.
Posted: Monday, June 7, 2010
A Bird
A bird is just a word you heard.
A worm is just a term.
If words are terms, then birds are worms,
And words are just absurd.
Posted: Friday, June 4, 2010
Voclano
I wish I had a small white hat,
And icy, pleated glacial slacks,
And sedimentary kneesocks that
Were flecked with Himalayan yaks.
I’d gossip with the cirrus clouds
(Yeah, we’re just way too cool for trees)
And look down smugly on the crowds,
Who bivouac amidst my knees.
Instead there’s nothing on my head.
My friends are fog. I can’t wear snow.
I’m steamed that all my yaks have fled.
And sick of wearing lava flow.
There must be more than puffing smoke,
Or spewing ash and gas non-stop.
Ugh... molten magma? What a joke.
I’m bored enough to blow my top.
Posted: Thursday, June 3, 2010
Precipitation
I’m not allowed to be a cloud.
I always blunder thunder.
I even made the rain complain
Aloud—so it’s small wonder,
With how I frightened lightning so,
And all the storms I’d muddle,
I got moved safely down below...
And now I’m just a puddle.
Posted: Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Fishy
Sad but true, in the rarest of cases,
Young piranhas are forced to wear braces.
It’s their parents’ belief
That a mouth full of teeth
Looks much better without any spaces.
Posted: Monday, May 31, 2010
Looth
Theodore Thoth of Deluth,
Hath one lonely tooth and it'th looth.
He eatth thpecial pretzelth,
Called Unthalted Wetzelth,
Which are thoft thinthe they come
packed in juith.
Posted: Thursday, May 27, 2010
Lorraine
These are the things that I like about space:
That it isn’t my sister Lorraine,
And her know-it-all, eye-rolling, smarty-pants face.
And her stupid old toys. What a pain!
Who needs her star-covered sorcerer’s hat?
Or her blue-sequined daredevil cape?
Or her magic kazoo, or her robotic rat
Or her musical butterscotch tape?
Space doesn’t selfishly hog up the stars
Or the moon as it waxes and wanes.
Whatever sparkles in space is all ours—
Just tonight can it not be Lorraine’s?
Posted: Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Distraught
Morris Mott the astronaut,
Was ceremoniously shot
Off into space last month. He thought
Rocketing would be cool. It’s not.
“I’m sick of stars. My helmet’s hot.
One weensy window’s all I’ve got.
I miss tv. I should have brought
A book, but I’ve got diddly-squat
To do except boringly plot
A course for…oh no… I forgot!”
Posted: Monday, May 24, 2010
Xenophobe
My sneakers gab in Cantonese,
And blab in Mandarin,
But I don’t understand Chinese,
So I just nod and grin.
My socks all yawp in Tagalog.
My pants whisper in Wu,
Or maybe they just yack in Sock
And Pant (or Trouser) too?
My t-shirts giggle things in Tsat.
My sweaters jeer in Hmong.
Was that my name I heard my hat
Sneer back? I hope I’m wrong.
What if my clothes are mocking me
In Hindi and Urdu,
And cracking jokes in Nepali?
Oh no! What should I do?
Posted: Friday, May 21, 2010
S-oops!
Dry soup?!?! How bad can it get?
Is soup even soup when not wet?
This bowl of clam chowder’s
A grim pile of powder,
Without H2O. Don’t forget!
Posted: Thursday, May 20, 2010
Tattoo
Ladies and Gents, without further ado…
Gather round!
Right this way...
Watch your step...
Yes it’s true!
From the outermost reaches of northwest Peru,
Illinois, it’s Llywellyn Magellan Magoo!
The Astonishing Head-to-Toe, Buck-Naked Zoo!
He’s got yaks on his back! Chimpanzees on his chest!
And hyenas in places you’d never have guessed!
Eagles dive down his biceps! Vultures roost on his wrists!
Tarantulas lethally dance round his fists!
His knees swim in narwhals. His toes teem with eels.
Assorted sharks fiendishly smile near his heels.
He’s a beastly tableau from the wilds of the globe.
Step this way!
Tickets please!
See what’s under his robe!
Posted: Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Ooragnak*
The rearward-hopping Ooragnak,
Evolved to wear its pouch in back.
This means it never can keep track
Of where its baby is. Alack!
(*Ooragnak is kangaroo spelled backwards)
Posted: Monday, May 17, 2010
Cactus
“A life of no piddling sorrow,
Is mine,” sighs the mighty saguaro.
“I can’t count all the times
A friend's sized up my spines,
Then said ‘Hmmm... Can I hug you tomorrow?’”
Posted: Friday, May 14, 2010
Slacks
I admit that it was a mistake
To make myself pants out of tape.
They’re no good for dancing,
Advancing, or prancing,
And offer slim chance of escape.
Posted: Thursday, May 13, 2010
Two Ants
“Lookee here! A picnic! Yum!”
“Yee haw! Let’s go get us some!”
Posted: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 |
