A Friday poem from Susan the Wonderchild

Susan's friend, Erin Keenan, wrote the following on FB:

a more decent sort of critter
would stop and seize & shiver
dare never
to call this awful abode, with its trashful clutter
ho-
-me
a more decent sort of critter
the kind without the nervous jitter
would spend its sundays only half in slumber
would write a list, list each item with a number
cross the items off & have them dismembered, all but disremembered
before going back to slumber
in the shiny, sanitary (rarely solitary) bed in the clean abode
a more decent sort of critter

but not this one.

Susan wrote the following response:

A more decent sort of critter
would surely clean the shitter
address the laundry pile
and do it with a smile
the dishes would be cleaned
the bathroom floor degreamed
the cat box scooped with glee
the ceiling cobweb free

however, this is, oh my,
a critter who simply is not I
who lays all morning in a bed
visions of kickball in my head
Tomorrow, perhaps, I may be neat
Today, I'll kick balls with my feet.

A Friday poem from Susan the Wonderchild

Spam is good for something after all: haiku!

Green Harbor Publications has a Spam Haiku generator. This generates haiku using the subject lines from spam (with no changes or corrections to the capitalization, spelling, or punctuation).

Some of these are pretty good, you know:

This will make your day
10 things girls love about men
Your dreams have come true

Start Working Today
A babe-filled life awaits you
Plans for the day's end

No workout, lose weight
Ardorize for your woman
Russian dating site

Be cool, think different
Treat your pain with Percocet
Love them and leave them

Green Harbor Publications also has a lot of information about the Writing 69th, a group of journalists in the European theater of WWII that included Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney, and many other notables. There are some great photos and stories.

Many thanks to Richard Hamilton for bringing this gem to my attention.

Spam is good for something after all: haiku!

Haiku du jour

(This is a different category, I grant you, but it's really good. From Karen Mulholland.)

Somebody "fixed" something,
Now everything is broken.
Word that starts with F.

Haiku du jour

Robert Frost and Hernando's Hideaway

(I thought I'd posted this many moons ago, but apparently not.) Everything outside is crusty with ice. The roads are slick with black ice; it was a pest just putting the recycle bin out this morning. It's snowing in Seattle, Portland's getting up to a foot of snow on Tuesday night, and we may be in for snow on Wednesday. It seems appropriate to point out that Robert Frost's famous poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," can be sung very well to the tune of "Hernando's Hideaway," as the following example shows:

Whose WOODS these ARE I thinkIknow.
His HOUSE is IN the villagethough;
He WILL not SEE me stoppinghere
To WATCH! hiswoodsfillupwithsnow (O-lé!).

Robert Frost and Hernando's Hideaway

A poem from Leigh Ann Hussey

I was just looking for an article that I wrote in 1986 in a pile of old papers and I found an amazing poem by Leigh Ann Hussey.

Leigh Ann Hussey was an amazingly good musician who died in a motorcycle accident in May 2006. I knew her through various circles for a long time before that. When she was in Seattle in 1987 or so, she spouted one of her poems off and I was enchanted and asked her to write it down for me, which she did, and signed it.

I will arise arise and go now,
And get my coffee cup
And some strong coffee pour there
With cream and sugar laced—
Nine cupfuls will I make there
When I have gotten up
And drink them all
Ere the world I face.

I will arise and go now,
For always, night and day,
I hear the coffee boiling
With gurgles in the pot
When I lie beneath the covers
Or in the twilight grey,
I bless the world
When my brew is hot.

A poem from Leigh Ann Hussey

A cat haiku for Friday

I was looking up Ernest Borgnine on IMDB.com to see how old he is (92!) and saw a lovely haiku by a user named Crazykaese.

Small brave carnivores
Kill pine cones and mosquitoes,
Fear vacuum cleaner

A cat haiku for Friday

Blessed Winter Solstice!

It's Yule once again. A busy year that's had a lot of darkening of the light since the Summer Solstice has now come to rest and a new year has begun.

The God is born and the Light returns! Sing with joy as the new year awakens and unfolds.



Blessings on the Earth, the fields, the forests, and the mountains, and on all the Goddess's children, whoever, wherever, or whatever they may be.

May the Goddess and God watch over you gently and with love, and may your life be filled with the Light that is the dawn of the coming New Year. Blessed be!

Blessed Winter Solstice!

Wonderful political thought

This was cited in The Washington Note as being from a handwritten sign in West Philadelphia

Rosa had to sit so Martin could walk,
Martin had to walk so Barack could run,
Barack had to run so our children can fly.

It choked me up. A lot of things about this election's results have choked me up.

BTW, there's a roster for signing up to help Bush get his shit packed and out of the White House. I've signed up for the 2-8 shift Sunday, but I'm sure we can use a lot more people.

Wonderful political thought

Kazim Ali's "Poetry is Dangerous"

Kazim Ali, a faculty member at Shippensburg University, got hassled recently for putting out a box of old poetry manuscripts for the recycler, something he's done before on a number of occasions. This time, he was spotted by a ROTC person, who saw his dark skin and just knew he was a terrorist.

Kazim Ali's "Poetry is Dangerous"

Cat haiku

Grant Hogarth sent me this, provenance unknown:

My brain: walnut-sized.
Yours: largest among primates.
Yet, who leaves for work?

Cat haiku

Roy Blount, Jr.

Roy Blount, Jr. (star of all sorts of things like Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me, Prairie Home Companion, and many others) wrote two small books of very light verse almost 20 years ago: Soupsongs and Webster's Ark.  These books are combined into one small volume that you flip over to read the second book.  I've heard him read some of his poems and he's got a fine, deep, mellifluous voice dripping with Southern accent that makes the poems come off the page and dance around in one's forebrain.  But even without the layer of auditory pleasure that his voice adds, I'd like to quote two of my favorites from these books to persuade you that you, too, should go buy this fine collection of silliness:

From Webster's Ark:

The Dugong

The DUGONG
Has tusks in the male
And a bilobate tail
And appears in the following song:
"Camptown Racetrack five miles long,
Dugong, dugong."

From Soupsongs:

Chicken Medley

How sweet it is to kiss the hand which
Holds a chicken salad sandwich.

Wonder product, chicken skin!
Tans while holding moisture in.

So often, here's the taste report of
Epicures: "Like chicken, sort of."

Ever wonder who the dickens
Joined the comic and schmaltz in chickens?

Nothing cuts a broader swath
Through the blues than chicken broth.

You know who's my fondest dream?
You, suffused with chicken steam.

I mean, how can you not be inspired by an Ode to Grits that includes the couplet:

Grits at taps, grits at reveille.
I am into grits real heavily.

Go get it. It's fun.

Roy Blount, Jr.

A quick poem

Yang loves curling up on top of the #1 computer's monitor. Actually, so does BC, but he tends to stay on the back of it (where it's warm). Yang likes being more decorative, which occasionally requires me to lift a tail, a paw, or a hindquarter out of the way of the screen.

Susan the Demon Child came up with a short poem about this:

   My computer has a hat.
   Most of it is fur and fat.
   The rest of it is cat.

A quick poem