As bad as Trump has been,
Don’t forget, “W” is responsible
For the deaths of a million.

I spoke to God and thought
I heard God speak to me.
It was a bumblebee,
Unfortunately.

You spoke to God and thought
God spoke to you.
It was a bird
And away it flew.

We spoke to God and thought
God didn’t speak to us.
God speaks through birds and bees,
Some say even shrubs and trees.
What’s all the fuss?

St. Paul said that God, the Creator,
Is revealed in nature.
Maybe nature we should hear
And listen to God
Speaking to our hearts
Through our ears.

At least God didn’t say,
“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.”

She, of one religion,
graciously offered

water to thirsty workers
of a different religion.

She was sentenced to
death for blasphemy

by the fringe of some
religion. Eight years

on death row then ac-
quitted, she, of one

religion, and the
judges, of another

religion, were con-
demned to death by

the fringe of some
religion.

The following paragraph is from Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac for Monday, January 28, 2019:

It was on this day in 1754 that the word “serendipity” was first coined.
It’s defined by Merriam-Webster as “the faculty or phenomenon of finding
valuable or agreeable things not sought for.” It was recently listed by
a U.K. translation company as one of the English language’s 10 most
difficult words to translate. Other words to make their list include
plenipotentiary, gobbledegook, poppycock, whimsy, spam, and kitsch.

Actually, they are pretty easy:

1. Serendipity: A song sung full of pity.

2. Plenipotentiary: A Trump fat diplomat who belongs in a penitentiary.

3. Gobbledegook: A Thanksgiving turkey that was severely over cooked.

4. Poppycock: An arrogant rooster; an arrogant jock.

5. Whimsy: A sudden inexplicable urge to go to sea.

6. Spam: Spitting out a “gooky” piece of ham. See definition of goobledegook for gooky.

7. Kitsch: A small kitchen that is garish.

Botta bing, botta bang, botta boom.

The man watched a Neil Simon
comedy from the 70’s and tear-
ed up over the music of that

day. Experiencing the existential
return to that era, he admitted
that he can’t get over things.

He drags the past along with
him like a sack of rocks on a
Western Flyer which he pulls

down the sidewalk of the first
neighborhood he can remember —
experiences, friends, family —

gone, some especially dear ones.
The man sat in a bar chatting
with a couple he didn’t know.

The guy was from northern Ill-
inois, a little town by the Wis-
consin border. The man knew

the town and a couple that lived
there. The man said he had a high
school and junior college friend

who owns a jewelry store in town.
The man had purchased the wedding
ring for his late wife at the store.

The store owner’s name is Dennis,
he said. Then he caught himself.
His friend’s name was Dennis. He’s

dead. The guy at the bar said the
store closed two years ago. That’s
what he means. Dennis is one of

the rocks in the bag on the Western
Flyer he pulls down the sidewalk
of the man’s old neighborhood

as he sits at the bar.

The Anthropocene
has become obscene.
Before Homo sapiens
the world was pretty clean.
We have fouled things so
Stephen Hawking suggested
we get on a spaceship and go.
While Stephen is now gone,
a spaceship we can still get on.
Shall we get in touch
with Elon Musk
and make a reservation
before the earth turns to dust
for an outer space destination?

He reads the poem of the day on
the internet and then reads the
poet’s explanation. Sometimes he
thinks the poet should put break
lines in the explanation and make
that the poem so he could get it.

When he started out in life
he was ever so small, some
would say a preemie, and
then he grew, eventually to

six feet, but as he journeyed
the pathway to society’s
success having, of course,
to push and shove along the

way, the buildings got taller,
the trees got taller, people
got taller and taller, the
blades of grass stood higher

than he stood in his well
manicured neighborhood
until at the end of his
life, which was shorter

than he would have imagined,
there wasn’t even enough of
him to cremate, just a tiny,
speck of dried flesh lost

among grains of sand on the
beach, which over the years
grew bigger and bigger near
where he had lived in a

house that just kept getting
bigger and bigger and bigger
overlooking an inland sea that
seemingly went on forever.

He watches the female turkey
in the driveway and then
slowly cross the snowy
road stopping to peck a
few times at something on
the ground and then she
moves on. Two days ago
she wandered near his
backyard pond. Yesterday,
she wandered around a
neighbor’s circular drive,
round and round she went.
She is all alone. Where is
her flock? What can he do?
He feels so sad, so helpless.

He thought to himself that
fat shaming is off the
dinner table so to speak

and thank heaven. It is
rude and crude, un-civil
not to mention that it

must hurt a person deeply,
but, having said that, he
wondered if something might

be done about the ton of
fat growing seemingly ex-
ponentially on the bodies

of Americans weighting them
down and driving up the cost
of health care. Now, apparently,

the excuse is genetics and,
of course, there is some truth
to it, but something can be

done medically about genetic
inheritance. Then he thought,
something has to be done to

save lives and save the economy.
The question in his mind is,
have we become so self-indulgent,

so irresponsible, so selfish,
so slothful, so much like the
gluttonous Romans before their

fall that we will just continue
to inhale the oversized fast food
meal deals to make us feel better

about ourselves? He thought, I’m
not fat shaming; I’m just wonder-
ing where we will store that

mountain of fat; the landfills
are filling fast. Maybe make
the landfills into ski slopes.

He then glanced down at his
bulging waist and uttered out
loud, “Oh, my. Skiing anyone?”