A giggle a day keeps you youthful.
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
the robot sneezed
God bless said I
‘Talks’ with sponsors of terror in Iran
‘Talks with murderous Hamas
On these talks
may there be a pox
Their surrender’s
~ the way to end’er
Mr milk mustache
precocious liquid lime laugh
kids have no filter
The antiquated train station in Omaha could make a marvelous house
Are you kidding? My spouse asked. You are kidding, right?
I was not kidding, my mind saw a potential no one else saw.
We bid on it, and began work immediately, it was July.
We got closer and closer as we retiled and rebuffed oak floors.
By the time our Christmas party rolled around, we had appreciation.
Our friends were asking where they could buy a train station.
Friends who had initially made fun of our purchase.
We bid them good-night and saw two or three turn back.
To look at the gorgeous home we had built together.
Or maybe to remember how much love and laughter are inside.
We are the best I said to my husband, and of course, we are.
We’ve lost the ability
to laugh at ourselves …
P.C. humor both lifeless
and dry
Our levity as tepid
as our character flawed
Fraying the tightrope
—awaiting a fall
(Dreamsleep: March, 2023)
Being as how I am the 4th graders lunch room monitor,
I think I know how a prison guard feels.
A loud noise gets my head up and turned.
When someone stands, I flip my head over there.
I would like to reach for my taser.
Unfortunately, the principal took it away.
Just kidding.
My mother had the energy of a five-ring circus
She refused to walk with slow people
unless they let her run circles around them while she walked
She kept her cancer a secret none of us kids knew.
My sister called and said Mom went by ambulance to a hospital.
I drove four hours to visit her, and they were sending her home.
She woke up long enough to say, “why are YOU here?”
They insisted on bringing her to my truck in a wheelchair.
I thought this was silly.
This is a woman who can run laps around a truck while it’s moving.
Is what I still thought.
When we got to her apartment building she handed me her keys.
She said, “Go down the hallway and get the wheelchair.”
I thought she was kidding, so I laughed.
Then I felt small.
She meant it.
I got the wheelchair and manuevered her to her apartment.
It was the last day she would be there.
The next two months she spent in hospitals or a nursing home.
The last day I saw her was her last day on Earth.
I began praying God would take her home.
She was tucked into her bed in heaven by angels that night.
Cancer is a disease I would not wish on anyone.
Going to take myself seriously today, I promise myself.
But not yet. Right now, I am in playing mode.
Heading toward my art studio. Painting now.
I will take myself seriously later, I think.
But them I remember that we do not like being serious.
We are not happy when we are serious,
so, I release this idiotic idea into the atmosphere with the
ridiculous ideas of trying to be precise, neat, or younger.
In a bazaar
spectacular
bizarre
jar
I bought. Strange triangular
cork. Popped. Vapor.
Powerful
Genie named Tatar.
I will dutifully
Fulfill
Your wishes. I am accessible
between the hours of nine am to five pm this isn't
flexible
or changeable.
In a masterful
forcible
voice I said Go to you room until I figure out if
your the incredible.
Carjacker
flees to mother's house
bites policeman
Sixty-eight! What the heck. I look in the mirror and see another me.
I am twelve inside. Can’t anyone else see?
My sense of humor is hilarious just like it always was.
I am young at heart; I still run from the fuzz.
I am a giant cuddly peace-loving hippie, who did not make it to Woodstock.
I would have but my parents would not allow it; which I think was a crock.
I was in high school then. I should have gone to Berkley.
But I wasn’t ready to leave my friends, so stayed home. Was still perky.
I want to tiptoe through the tulips, catch a ride with a communal VW van.
Painted with yellow happy faces, bubbly daisies and a peace-sign hand.
I will play a ukulele and sing folk songs louder and happier than Mama Cass.
Look at my face, my friend. Sixty-eight. Come on! I am a 17-year-old lass!
I see my eyes are fading. Arthritis makes me limp a bit when I walk.
But inside I am 19, a real beauty, with a heart that doesn’t squawk.
Sixty-eight. You’re kidding! At the most I am twenty-two or twenty-five.
I lived through assassinations, bombings, Viet Nam. It’s amazing I’m alive!
each day I face the world
I put on my warrior face
my funny face
my serious face
none seem to work
the world puts on its
you got to be kidding face
and faces me down
recently
I put up a large mirror
between me and the world
facing it
It sees
The mirror
and the you got to be kidding face
and we move on
My kid gets smarter every day
She queries in a thoughtful way:
"Are two M.D.'s a paradox?
Are kosher fish in spring 'May lox'?"
"Go ask your Mom". She says, "I did!
She said to ask another kid".
As I reminisce
through childhood eyes
I see vivid images
of my family home
where bumbles would bounce
Our garden seemed to stretch for miles...
perhaps that’s why
I made an odd birthday request
for a nanny goat as a pet !
Taking her home in dad’s VW Beetle car
caused quite a stir ...
‘Susie’ perched precariously on a seat
her horned head poking out of the window!
We deemed Susie
our Caprinae vaccum
she'd attempt to hoover up
anything that came her way -
even dad's underpants
which flew off the line
one blustery day
Oh, what precious memories!
Where Bumbles Bounce Contest
Sponsor - Craig Cornish
NOT a fictional poem
9/4/19
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