Be gone Old Man Winter,
You’ve had your prance.
I’ve already put away
all my corduroy pants.
April is half gone now,
the green grass is showing,
so much that I can hear
folks down the street mowing.
Baseball has returned,
we’re all thinking spring
nobody has interest
in one last icy fling.
You’re in this year’s rear view
as we head forward,
away from you Winter,
and the hot summer toward.
After the long, drab winter, popped lilacs are like purple pyrotechnics. (Photo: PaC)
UPDATED 3-26-16: To read this poem as a STELLER STORY, click on the photo below.
Last year’s Easter egg hunt
was in the old cornfield.
Now it seems that day
not every egg was revealed
and that from those left back
are this year being born
acres and acres of stalks
sprouting tiny eggcorns.
Nature’s packaged each one
in a shell in a husk,
so cracking the eggcorns
is a rusty padlock fuss.
But once their outer layers
are opened up and clean
the cob yolks deep inside
are like nothing that you’ve seen:
Purple, pink, and yellow,
orange, blue, and jade,
all the prettiest pastels,
every springtime shade.
Just how nature made this magic
Science is still figuring,
but one thing learned so far:
is mighty omelets
from the tiny eggcorns spring.
Eggcorns are the kernel of a colorful Easter breakfast. (Photo: PaC)
In a pinch? In a bind?
Have an out of style flip?
That’s dampened your spirits?
Put a dip in your zip?
Well no messy hair doll
has reason to fret
who knows the old Ballad
of the Green Barrette.
It’s a song that licks cowlicks
and marches past bed-head,
that makes crooked parts
straight as new tire tread.
So to tune up your coif,
it may be your best bet
to sing that ol’ pea-colored clip classic,
The Ballad of the Green Barrette.
“SIGHT READING IS TOUGH, PILGRIM!” – An artist rendering of the original score from “The Ballad of the Green Barrette” (Photo: PaC)
Dear Tooth Fairy,
Wherever you might be,
Take one good guess
Who it’s time to come see.
If you are not near by
My apologies
I know sometimes your work
Takes you overseas
Or maybe this is your week
To be on holiday
Either way, with all respect,
There’s no more time to play.
Because another tooth
At eight-oh-four this morning
Leaped out of my mouth
Without any warning.
Now I’m sure that no one knows
The tooth business like you
Or appreciates how teeth can
Fall out out of the blue.
And while unexpected calls
Must make your life tricky
Just imagine how they help
Spur the economy!
Just what would happen if
No one ever called?
Think of the horror: poor you!
At home, watching the walls!
But at least for one more day
There’s no danger of that.
So stop what you’re doing, check my address,
And this evening, be here, stat!
AN ARTIST RENDERING OF THE TOOTH FAIRY ON VACATION – Seen here (in silhouette, at center), riding her Vespa in Cinque Terra.
There’s water in my house
where there shouldn’t be.
It makes me so mad
that I want to pee.
But the last thing I need
is more liquid around,
So I’ll hold it and hop on one leg — (SPLASH!)
What’s that sound?
So you found a 4-leaf clover.
Well, I hunt bigger things:
Like five and six leaf clovers
And the extra luck they bring.
And the highly coveted clover
With leaves that number seven,
Legend says those who find one
Will go straight to heaven.
The eight leaf clover doubles up
What a plain four leafer brings
The 9-leaf clover isn’t lucky at all:
Touching it actually stings.
Ten leaf clovers are what I’m really after
They’re the best it gets.
So you’d like to come hunting them with me?
Hmmmm….well, ok…let’s.
I’ll bring you along for the low low price
Of that old 4-leaf clover you’ve got.
What’s that? I said 4-leafs don’t interest me?
I said that?!? Well. I must have forgot.
Field Notebook Renderings of Members of Genus: Polyleaf – (from upper left corner) The Basic aka The Four Score ; The And-1 ; The O’Six Pack ; The Stairway to Seven ; The Octclover ; The Stinger aka the Paul Newman aka The Henry Gondorff ; The Big Time aka the Green Whale aka The O’Derek
UPDATED 9/18/17: To see this poem as a fully photo illustrated STELLER STORY, click here.
Up in the Hudson Valley
Lived a dog named Zo
He was always the biggest pooch
Wherever he would go.
Weighing more than most grownups,
Even far away he looked tall,
“No dog in all this land,” thought Zo,
“Could ever make me feel small.”
As he started each day
That was Zo’s world view
It kept his sun warm,
Made his sky extra blue.
And that’s how it was
As he strolled a new street
One morning and looked up
And saw two large feet,
And above them huge legs,
Giant ears, a big kisser,
Eyes climbing, Zo thought,
“What have we got here, Mister?
“That can’t be a dog,
There’s no way. But it is.
Up there … on that roof ….
That whole building is his.
“Do my peepers deceive me?
Is he bigger than I?
Who am I kidding?
He blocks out the sky!
“Could he be part Bull?
Smooth Fox? Jack Russell?
Would even Godzilla
With this fella tussle?”
Politely Zo nodded
And yipped a hello.
The roof dog’s response
Was too slight to show.
Or too little, at least,
To detect from the street,
At the level of Zo’s
Now fast moving feet.
“Good day sir,” Zo barked,
without looking back,
“It appears on this street
You’ve got things well intact.
“Should you stop what you’re doing
because of me? No!
You just hang out up there,
I’ll go keep being Zo.”
Then off he moseyed
Politely smiling
While in his brain this address
He was filing.
Good old clear sighted Zo
Still gets thrown in a fog
Thinking back to first meeting
That other big dog.
A Waterloo kangaroo
met a Syracuse moose
looking for a Buffalo crow
flying with a York stork
and a Champaign crane
who once knew a San Francisco doe
speaking Bismarck Lark
to a Montauk hawk
with a swine from the Mason-Dixon line
while a Worcester rooster
and Delaware bear
made plans to dine at nine
at Decatur Alligator’s
where the famed Seattle Cattle
played behind the Ocala Koala
who opened the show,
“Here’s one ya’ll know
called, ‘My Friend in the Zoo in Walla Walla.’”
The Clement Clark Moore standard meets, you guessed it, Norman the Great. Pickle lovers will recognize traces of their favorite brand in the seal at center.
When you live with Terri Schwartz,
It’s tricky being Kerri Swartz.
Imagine being called John Donson
If your neighbor was Don Johnson.
It could be hard to be named Temple
And to live beside a steeple.
But think who has it worst of all:
The poor mailman for all those people.
The dustbuster scares me
I’ve an ammonia allergy
and find the vacuum cleaner heavy,
I don’t know how to sweep.
My elbow grease is running low
I’m not sure where the dishes go. . .
Am I in danger folding clothes?
I cannot reach the sink.
Our mop just isn’t working right
The toilet brush is nowhere in sight,
The bathtub, too, is gone it seems. . .
But otherwise, I’d love to clean!
Artist rendering of the mythical Snuggly Cactus from the fabled Friendly Desert. (Drawing: PaC)
The Sun is hot
the snow is cold
babies are young
fossils are old.
The water is wet
there’s no I in team
no snuggly cactus
no sad ice cream.
There’s no awesome hiccups
no soothing snores
no turning five
without being four.
When we’re playing at the beach
and say, “Look your Sunday best!”
You can be a salty, sweaty, sandy mess.
In the winter when it rains
it is never nice to hear,
“Well, at least it isn’t snow”
if you’re snow.
Oh how it would be lonely
to be the only
seed in a seedless watermelon.
HOW LOW, SOLO – Pity the poor seed stranded in a seedless watermelon sea. (Photo: PaC)
If you’re buckled in the back
while we’re driving down the road
and suddenly you make a juicy sneeze,
it’s ok to wipe your nose off with your sleeves.
It hurts to have a sunburnt head,
An itchy tender scalp of red,
So bald eagles out there, beware:
Buy lotion, hats, or grow some hair.
This was the first year I sidestepped scissors, stamps, and the sweet smell of xerox fumes, producing an all digital card out of a table design, photo, and email blast that went out on The Night Before. (Photo: PaC)
One time Dad bought Mom some flowers,
and they made her weep.
And once he gave her earrings
that made her cry till she’d hardly speak.
Now the time he bought her
Onion Safety Goggles, I confess,
even though she said she loved’em,
I never seen a gift’s made her cry less.
Oh what’s there to do
With Bob Poopadoo?
His name is funnier
Than “Timbuktu”
It sounds like a creature
Who lives in a zoo:
“Come see the Poopadoo, kids,
from the Land of Zamboo!”
And yet Bob is just
A regular guy
He can’t sleep underwater,
Or do cartwheels in the sky,
When he’s happy, he laughs,
When he’s sad, he cries,
He puts on his pants,
One leg at a time.
While on paper, yes,
He looks different, it’s true,
He’s no more strange,
Than me or you.
So perhaps when it comes
To Bob Poopadoo,
About nothing,
There’s really much ado.
W is twice the U
of what the letter U can be,
exactly double the U
of that guy just left of V.
True, U may be one of just five
a vowel like E-I-O,
but among letters only
W comes stereo:
with a U on either side of you
for lovely surround sound
of the doubly-U-est letter
living in Alphabetowne.
Tweed Typewriter 