Humor

Models for Configuring Friendship A knight for whom the Grail is wholly you; the one who greets you sans your power, might; who never counts the favors that accrue; adheres to you whatever is your plight. An audience for fear, for woe, for laugh; an egger on, abettor of your...

Squinters The curious the contemplators the ones who concentrate on the littlest details. The most beautiful thing about them is how they space out and their attention is unattainable. While the others dismiss things as useless activities the squinters wish to figure out the world and how we revolve around...

ATLASUSA “Material of this sort is best read aloud.” – Frank Fortky The postal gurus are creative and clever. Our Massachusetts-Pennsylvania family Brought forth a Maine addition – MA & PA, and ME. Per partly pluperfect plus purely preposterous purpose, State names will be spelled with two letters forever. Of...

The band struck up for the comical clowns! They all sported wigs, red noses, and frowns And from painted mouths uttered sad cries. Then the fools threw water and custard pies In riotous ribaldry: mad, bad, and bold! The laughter and fun began to unfold; The children giggled; a vast...

A news report here provides some background on China Radio Like Radio Free Europe, Which popped the wax Plugs from deafened Soviet ears, And warmed their sterile souls With tales of liberty, China Radio wafts as pleasant song Through the ears of benighted Europeans, Australians, Canadians, and Americans, Especially Americans...

Beneath the Mask Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. -Oscar Wilde A mask is worn to hide one’s face from the surly light of day but if you open up your mind, you’ll see...

When You Have Reached the Bottom By R. Lee Ubicwedas When you have hit rock bottom, you have nothing left to lose. You gain experience and wisdom that you now can use. You have a choice how to react when you have fallen down. Forced to confront the hard things,...

  Political Banter Once again it’s that time of year, When political banter seems the rage. When otherwise normal people, Try to come off as some worldly sage. I have friends who are really nice folks, Any other time of the year. But, once they start with the political rants,...

The God Morpheus vs. The Little Baby Kuppy You'd think in such a fight - no contest To be sure - immortal gods happen not To happen, but have always been best And around to give humans their best shot. That's it - perhaps complacency, the sense That once in...

To Hell with the Hoi Polloi A droll from the Man of Mode To hell with the hoi polloi, I say, democracy is démodé; aristocrats, by troth, know best, who needs a scurvy IQ test? A pox upon the under-class, salute the King and raise a glass; the Devil take...

Volkswagen has admitted to rigging as many as 11 million vehicles with illegal software that cheats on emission tests.   Lies and half-truths? Daily fayre But for pious folk it’s only fair If you peddle wares upon our trust When you’re caught you should be bust. Someone must have made...

Winter Smoke Winter smoke and little houses Drawing blinds against the dark The cold, the crying wind Against a stark White moon Winter smoke. Wispy phantoms Casting a ghostly veil Of patterned, ancient symbols Against a pale White moon Sweet-scented turf recalling Times more pleasingly mellow Winter smoke reaching the...

For 30 more riddles click here. I. I may not have a large population Compared to China or the United States, But more than those two or any nation I’ve more coastline and freshwater supplies. What country am I? II. On this exact day, the year’s half over, The cold...

Ideology is a disease, Impervious to reason, An infection known to seize One in the election season. It has alas no known cure, This paralysis of the brain, No thought is allowed to stir If it runs against the grain. Left untreated it will spread Far and wide o’er the...

Rare Dreams I'm looking through the window of a plane in which I've never been, nor ever will; staring beyond a wing that is not there into a sky I've never seen nor care to see again; above clouds strangely still, dropping a soft and steady soothing rain upon the...

Poetry, arguably the most powerful form of communication ever devised by mankind, has died. It was thousands of years old. Poetry died yesterday after a prolonged illness. Trapped in a meaningless, vegetative state for some time, feeding tubes were removed, allowing Poetry to die with dignity. Aristotle once wrote, “Poetry...

Do forgive me strange little man If I’d rather remove your hands Than risk a trip to the clinic For laying with one so unhygienic Who must slumber with hounds at night To have contracted such a parasite. Tis not me who should be bested. But surely tis you who...

Tanka By Ue "Bird Claws" Ee In dim morning light, attracting mates, warning males, dawn's choir's singing— liquid-silver jingling— nature's alarm clock...ringing.   On a Piece of Johannes Brahms By Ewald E. Eisbruc Hungarian Dance Number 5 in F# Minor was not a traditional folksong, but based on the csárdás,...

The Cherry Blooms in Central Park In Central Park the cherries now Are hung with blooms along the slough, And stand around the reservoir, Pink and white Spring avatars. Now of my three-score years and ten I’ve outlived many better men; I’m over-the average hill by five.... I wonder why...

. . Bay from Berkeley Slate blue blustered inland sea Water from the rivers be Sea of salt and rain ashore Many waters, oceans roar. Slate green gusted inland sea Berkeley roof, fraternity Rising sun to light and warm Morning of a coming storm. White cap tufted inland sea Windy...

The Lumberman by Bud "Weasel" Rice I saw him resting up against a giant gray-brown stump, the lumberman was pausing from his haul, hitch, heave and hump. He stood there in the sunlit forest, head turned to the sun, eyes closed, an upright, peaceful dude; his trunk and limbs glowed...

Burrowed down in leaves of brown piled by the garden wall, our Billy cat dreamed of a rat he’d chased down through the hall. Up from the creek came Max the dog, exhausted from his run, but hearing purring at the wall resolved to have some fun. So with a...

  Salazar Sneed Salazar Sneed was a man of great need Who traded holey shoes for a pocket of beads. With the beads he then went to the market and bought A pancake pan that was cast iron wrought. The pan he then gave with a wink and a smile...

Wanderer's Retreat I Across the dive bar floor strode a figure, Tall but slightly slouching, wearing a cloak. His facial features, save nose and chin, were Submerged in hooded shadow as he spoke,    “Bartender, Olympus Ale, please.” He plopped    On a stool like a lifeless body dropped. Most strange the...

Thoughts after Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) By Bud "Weasel" Rice Everywhere curious, articulate, perfect and inimitable ... nature does ... leave a space for the soul to climb above her steepest summits. As, in her own dominion, she swells from herring to leviathan, from the shelly hodmandod to th' elephant, to...

  Winter Storm Watch The sky is still; no flakes appear and yet we know that they will come. Held hostage by our doubts and fears we beat out warnings on our drums. We know, for sure, the flakes will come; we may be buried to our ears or slip...

A mysterious substance is ruling our lives. It flows through our oceans and floats in our skies. “It’s good for you,” cries four docs out of five. It will keep your skin young for the rest of your life. It will grow your corn tall and make your kids bright....

  Vessel No one can insure candlelight; its flame Precisely burns in flickering waves of gas, Ingesting oxygen while fibers pass Through burning into soot, and feel no shame. A stroke of pen or brush behaves the same When we regard them steadily: the mass Remains inert like painted prairie...

Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare Some say that Shakespeare didn’t write The many works that bear his name; But surely if that were the case, A rival would have blown his game...   Inner Beauty My wife was born without her eyes; She cannot love her pretty face, Yet knows her inner...

He Kept On By Erisbawdle Cue He kept on striving to attain an ideality connected to the good, but grounded in reality. He kept on working to achieve perfection in the act, pragmatism on the run with satisfaction's fact. He kept on pressing to combine both ecstasy and truth, to...

Youths' Sonnet They view the world through filmy innocence, these youngsters who now hear the future call. Into that forest bountiful and dense, some travel slowly, wary of the fall. With nurturance and guidance young ones need and patience to sustain and keep them strong, they labor long and hard....

I've had some poems I could submit but now I've got behind a bit, they're packed inside the silent hive of a sev’ral-year-old, old hard drive tho’ un-backed-up, their form survives in sev’ral forms of after-lives, some stuck fast inside the lump that's hard as nails and gives me stump...

The British are coming! The whole fourth estate Must wear what is smart For William and Kate. The British are coming! Men, watch how you dress: A jacket and tie Should lead to success. The British are coming! So, ladies, look nice: A suit, pants or skirt, Would likely suffice....

"...that best portion of a good man's life;     His little, nameless, unremembered acts     Of kindness and of love."         —William Wordsworth, Lines Composed...Above Tintern Abbey At any time in life, the little kindnesses occur. Somebody greets you with a smile brightening 'Yes, sir!' One store clerk reassures...

Life Ravaged forests again take root Life nestling within the sturdy acorn Cannot be throttled Ashes reborn yield bitter fruit Fragrance scattered upon the winds Cannot be bottled   The Old and the New What shall Lord and land and hall and bower Castle and fen and glade and tower...

Dandelions She touched their gray-haired afros tenderly: an urban six year old with kinky hair who pounced on dandelions (bud-vases were full of yellow stubby). Telling me: “This is the way that dandelions age” – then blew upon them (instant baldness), sad that “no one liked them but the wind...

The tip jar was snatched at O Cafe. O! “Somebody just picked it up,” mused the guy at the register. I’d stopped in to buy six ounces of beans, fresh sweet espresso, number two grind. The young baristas know their stuff. They're very warm--no snark. So why did you make...

Fall Haiku New England college towns: Pumpkins, apples, breakfast in a warm café. Swamp-maples afire! Rusty colored barns, silos draped in bittersweet… In their black pea-coats, off of the Metro North, the leaf-peepers arrive. Cross-country. Small-town football. The leaf-smell hunting— God I love the Fall...   The Little Vector (a...

  "Breathes there a man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself has said, This is my own, my native land." —Walter Scott I saw this stolid man stand tall, and obviously proud. He wore a bit of blue and white, o, Scotland, strong and stout. He looked like...

  When snow arrives As long forecast, It sets a scene That does not last; But for the while Snow sits around, All else remains Transfixed, spellbound.   Jane Blanchard lives and writes in Georgia. Her work has recently appeared in Concho River Review, Mezzo Cammin, and Orbis. Featured Image:...