Planetary

Because we didn't really know her birthday, 

We simply had to pick a date for Earth Day. 

Saturn somehow gets a day each week - 

Saturday in the language that we speak.

Every Minute

I paid a guy five bucks.
For a gullibility test.
He disappeared. This sucks!
You fill in the rest.

Calvinball

If you think Calvinball 

Has rules that are strange, 

Don’t worry at all 

They will rapidly change!

Distance

I was invited to write a play for an online 10-minute play festival. It's always nice to be invited! So I agonized in the way I usually do, and wrote one and sent it in. I hope they like it, because otherwise I will probably feel the need to write another one. The main stipulation is that the play should be designed as what I would call a "Zoom-native play". Each actor appears on a screen, and there's no pretense that they are "really" in the same physical location. The story somehow must involve people relating at a distance. Like a "telephone play" but with visuals.

 
It may be silly, but one of my worries, when writing for a short play festival, is that my play not be too much like the other plays in a festival. It's a danger when there's a shared theme.

Of course, the immediate inspiration for this is the way so many of our relationships moved online with this Covid crisis. But they specified that they were not looking for a negative take on the technology of long-distance interaction. They said they would be happy with the celebrations of our ability to communicate vividly over distance.

We've been living an existence
With an extra wall of distance.

 

Just Wait

If you have momentous news 

And you’re feeling fit to burst 

I still recommend you choose 

Some day other than April First.

Going for the Gold

I'm seeking an Olympic win 

In jumping to conclusions. 

I'm putting an aggressive spin 

On breaking-news confusions. 

The stories that you hear Day One 

Might change a bit Day Two, 

But red hot takes are so much fun 

Whether false or true!

Equality of a Sort

I'm just getting over the changing clocks, 

But my mind has fallen prey 

To this puzzle: Why call it an equinox
Instead of an equi-day?
I'm sure there's a very good reason,
But what it is, I can't say.
Welcome to the next season -
Let's celebrate anyway!

Little People Investments

 Leprechauns hold

Their pots of gold

As hedges against inflation.

They’re starting to tiptoe

Their way into crypto

With hesitant trepidation.

Edward, Originally

e e cummings 

liked lowercaseness 

regarded punctuation regulations 

as basically baseless

DST Short for DISTRESS

Why not spring forward one minute - 

And do it for 60 days? 

It works out to be equivalent, 

And spares me a horrid haze!

Characters

Not one, not two, but three alphabets - 

Japanese is the best language yet! 

Excuse me, now that I recollect, 

“Alphabets” isn’t really correct, 

Maybe I even said that for laughs - 

They’re syllabaries and logographs!

Elegant Antelope

An impala's horns point toward the back, 

Which seems to suggest that I'm safe from attack. 

But I'm avoiding them just the same 

On account of "Impale Ya" is right in their name!

Metamorphoses

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 

People get turned into birds. 

In Kafka’s Metamorphosis, 

Conversion-to-cockroach occurred.

In Ovid such changes are typically wrought 

By some offended god’s word. 

For Kafka no explanation is sought, 

His world is simply absurd.

Intellectuals

Sometimes intellectuals 

Seem rather ineffectual 

But over the longer haul 

Their efforts affect us all.

First Monday in March

Many ask: just what is Pulaski Day for?

We honor a Polish nobleman who died, 

Leading cavalry for the American side

In the original Brits vs. Colonists war.

Chicken Pot Pie

Chicken pot pie? 

The name is such a lie. 

It doesn’t contain any pot! 

You’ll feel quite full, but not... 

High.

Hard to Walk Without

Lately it occurs to me,

How much can hinge upon a knee.

I’m rambling on without a point,

But it may be my favorite joint!

Starved Rock Video

 

In the midst of pandemic doom,
We produced it on Zoom.

Possibly a Misleading Clue

Icicles on my eyebrows are a clue 

That snow removal's what I love to do.

In A Past Life

In a past life, I had some other job. 

Not a computer programmer, that's for sure. 

I doubt I was the leader of a mob. 

I'd hate to think I was a stuck-up snob! 

But fortunately my past lives are obscure, 

Wonderfully lost somewhere in the mists of history, 

Without hypnosis, doomed to remain a mystery, 

And that's a good thing - it means I cannot regret - 

I cannot recall, and analyze, and fret 

Over what I did wrong through all those lives. 

Perhaps I was a sharpener of knives, 

That would have appealed to my conscientious side, 

Putting a glistening edge on tools gone dull, 

Singing while working, keeping my own heart full, 

Making up words for tunes the world supplied.

Folk vs Faux Etymology

 The neighing of horses stabled nearby

Use to bore people senseless - so much they would cry. 

This I have always understood 

Is the source of our modem day term: “neigh-bore-hood”. 

Today's Adventure

Got car stuck in snow, 

Called up Triple-A tow. 

But dug it out myself 

And canceled the call for help. 

Be careful when you sally 

Forth in a snowy alley!

They told me they'd get to me in about 16 hours. I'm sure they're backed up with calls like this. But I didn't want to leave my car in the middle of an alley that long!

Degrees of Difference

In most of the world, minus degrees 

Are said to start when you C water freeze. 

But in the United States, I am told, 

The negatives start when it’s too F-ing cold.

Barriers

He battled widespread age discrimination

And became the oldest leader of our nation -

I believe that's cause for celebration!

At least it helps me overcome my fear

That it's too late for me to start a career

In politics - I might just run next year!

Garment Free

I wonder if babies feel stressed 

At being born undressed. 

Do they notice that everyone's staring 

At what they're not wearing?

Medical History

Measles, normal and German, 

Chickenpox and Mumps... 

There were no vaccines yet for them, 

When I was a kid. So I took my lumps.

To Do List

Whether or not it meets with your approval,

My goal today is mostly snow removal. 

I’ve cleared the whole thing twice but it’s still falling,

And so I hear my blower duty calling.

Headrest

 Before pillows were invented

People sometimes used rocks

And woke with faces dented,

Which often came as a shock.

Not So Noble

Scientists have recorded the sound 

Of helium atoms joking around. 

Typically when there's only three 

The sound you hear is: HeHeHe.

Speculative Investment

I buried my bucks behind a row of bushes. 

Somehow I never made a gosh darn dime. 

Now I find out - that's not the same as "Hedge Fund". 

Misleading name! I tell you, it's a crime!

Diagrammatic

I once believed I was a grammatical menace, 

Able to diagram every possible sentence, 

But then I started to sweat, and things got hairier 

When I encountered this: "The more the merrier!"

Too Friendly

Friend requests

From bikini-clad ladies,

I must confess

I regard as shady. 

And if they’re bubbling 

In hot tub dreams,

I find it troubling 

In the extreme!

Reductio Ad Adbsurdum

I weigh much less in kilograms. 

 So I switched my digital scale. 

 I look the same on conference cams, 

But the numbers tell the tale! 

I resolved to lose weight in ‘21, 

I thought it might be tough, 

But now that resolution’s done - 

It really wasn’t rough!

Q

I did not follow Q-anon. 

I take it Q-anon is gone. 

At least the mysterious Who, 

Presenting himself as Q, 

Whose views got so much traction 

Is mostly missing in action.

Rumors

The 25th amendment puts the bar high 

To evict the elected White House guy. 

If he says, "I'm capable. I'm staying in it," 

You need two thirds of the House and the Senate.

Advertisers Love These Two

Nutritious and delicious -
What a convenient rhyme!
But they overlap on dishes
Less than half the time.

YIP

 In ‘68 my dad said no,

To the downtown riots thou shalt not go!

The prez nomination was in contention -

The Yippies besieged the big convention,

But their revolution proved short and fleeting 

And I missed out on the tear gas and beating.

A Walk

 It was just above freezing, temperature-wise,

And clouds were supposed to be clogging the skies,

But somehow they cleared, and the power called solar

Lit up my face - how perfectly polar -

To walk through the snow, while basking in sun,

Briskly enjoyable - glad when it’s done!

Resolution

New year’s dietary resolutions 

To be thin

Cannot begin

Until all the Christmas candy

Is consumed...

I am doomed!

Plunging Into 2021

I drove to the lake. 

I took a dive. 

Cold water makes

You feel alive!

At least I felt

Highly motivated -

To get myself 

Evacuated!

Inside the car

Was toasty and warm,

Which I prefer

As a general norm.

Lingua Latīna

In Latin America, Latin is not spoken, 

Which makes it clear: our naming system is broken. 

Latin does retain a national home, 

A tiny city-state surrounded by Rome, 

A place it's difficult to be democratic in - 

Since there's just one ruler at the Vatican.

Yule

They say the source of “Yule” is Norse.

The Vikings overran England, of course.

These rugged ransackers, scrappy and scary,

Invaded our vocabulary.

Loophole

If Trump were to pardon Pence
And then resign,
Could Pence then pardon Trump?
I've boggled my mind.

Dehydrated

I bought a dehydrated water packet. 

It looked kind of empty - was this just a racket? 

But I emptied the empty packet into a glass, 

Mixed in some water - and Lo! What came to pass! 

I sure enough had a nice glass full of water, 

Just like the instructions said I oughter.

Free Advice

Excuse me if I seem a bit aloof, 

But In the drama, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, 

I twice have played the doc - and it went to my head. 

So please, just take two aspirin and go to bed!

Context

 Being on the bench:

In sports it suggests you’re not a star,

But at a piano concert 

It means you are.

Digital

 It’s a question so dumb

But somehow it lingers:

How can your thumb

Be one of your fingers?

Pink Hat

Some context makes excuses. 

Other context offers damnation. 

Personally I prefer

The kind that yields explanation. 

 My life advice here is to not get photographed wearing a swastika or the hammer and sickle. And everyone has a camera with them nowadays, so just do not wear a swastika or the hammer and sickle. Because you will have explaining to do, and it's unlikely your explanation will satisfy everybody, unless maybe you're acting in a movie.

Salem

The plot line of Miller’s The Crucible:

When basic protections are losable,

Everyone ends up accusable.

Derminology

There was an ad on TV where the actress 

Said something about "my derm", 

Meaning her dermatologist. 

This usage made me squirm. 

Is that for for real, is "derm" the slang 

For this medical specialty? 

I need to get up to date on this stuff. 

I only know: "O B G"!

Positive Attitude

You can lower the positivity rate
By only testing those who feel great.
My plan will work - I know it will:
Just stop testing folks when they're ill!

Reflecting

Unless you’re a lip reader
Looking in a mirror
You cannot “watch what you say” -
The facts couldn’t be any clearer.

My Mother Tongue

The plural of knife is knives,
So I figured the plural of fife would be fives!
It turns out that fives IS a word,
But not the plural of fife - quite absurd!
I’m glad that I learned English first,
Since learning it later would just be the worst!

Safety

If everyone were locked in a cell, 

For a year of isolation hell, 

Would that be enough 

To kill off this stuff? 

Or would virus particles remain here and there 

To infect us again when we stepped out for air? 

Will this ever come to an end? 

Asking for a friend.

American Theatre in the Twenty-First Century

 

Two of my short plays will be in this book, due out soon.
Needless to say, I'm over the moon.

You can preorder here.

Strong Conjugation by Back Formation

Heard someone say froke
As the past tense of freak.
Sometimes I'm amused
By the way people speak.

This was while watching Made In Heaven, a sort of soap-opera-ish streaming show on Amazon, about high-end wedding planners, which is set in India, and which you have to watch with subtitles because the language is a mix of English and Indian language or languages.

But this use of "froke" is apparently not strictly an odd Indian thing. When I looked it up, there is American usage too.

There's also a completely different usage where it's a noun meaning a "frozen Coke".

Pun-ish-ment

Use fascinate in a sentence? Of course!
I'd love to, in fact, I can hardly wait:
I have nine buttons on my coat
But I can only fascinate.

Forecast

Weather’s much too nice. 

Where’s the snow and ice? 

What? It’s on its way? 

Stay, fair weather, stay!

Kennedy-Nixon

During the Kennedy-Nixon election of 1960, Illinois was a closely contested swing state. I was 8, and I was in favor of Kennedy, as my parents were. 

Kennedy's electoral college victory was narrow, and dependent upon Illinois. There was some question, at the time, about the honesty of the elections in Illinois. My father suggested to me that the Democrats stole votes in Chicago, and that the Republicans stole votes Downstate, and that it roughly balanced out. I suspect this is correct. 

Normally, you can only steal so many votes, because there are a lot of safeguards in place. The relatively small volume of stolen votes only makes a difference when the election is close. 

Nixon conceded. There were people who thought that was a mistake. I don't know. 

What I remember puzzling me at the time, is that the Chicago Republican newspapers, the Tribune and the American, kept running headlines, maybe for a week, about various ballot audits finding additional votes for Nixon in the aftermath. 

So, even though Nixon conceded, audits went on. But the audits never added up to enough to get Nixon declared the winner of Illinois. 

I imagine that's what's going to happen with Trump in Pennsylvania. But, hey, run the audit, do the investigations. We have laws in place for all this. It was an unusual election, particularly with the heavier-than-usual mail-in voting. 

So, let the president sue. 

Let the courts do what they do. 

Let plenty of light be shined 

And we'll find what we can find.

Oops

Pollsters swear on the bible 

That their numbers are reliable, 

But on election day 

You often hear them say: 

Opinion shifted in the final week, 

We’ll get it right next time - with just one tweak!

Lost and Found

When UPS loses a package of mine 

I never suspect an evil design, 

I simply assume that the darn thing got stuck 

In a crack in the back of that big old brown truck.

Emergent Properties

I ask myself, do I like pancakes, 

Or maple syrup and butter? 

Or is it the combination 

That’s simply utterly utter?

Piece of Silver

I’ve retrieved a bit of silver 

From a failing filling; 

It’s really just a sliver, 

Do you think it’s worth a shilling? 

I don’t know what that is, 

Except it’s British money, 

And somehow or other the sound of it 

Always struck me as funny.

Bayesians

Bayesians like to change their beliefs. 

It’s one of their fondest desires. 

New facts make them itch, and the only relief 

Is reexamining priors.

Contrast

You cannot see the Milky Way 

During the day. 

Darkness allows light that is faint 

To paint the sky.

Unbelievable

If your hard drive has stuff 

That would make heads pop, 

Don't abandon the thing 

At some random shop.

Hadron Collider Contacts Parallel Universe

The headline is too clickbaity to click, but I love it: 

Researchers At Large Hadron Collider Are Confident To Make Contact With Parallel Universe In Days

The people from the parallel 

May perhaps be able to tell 

How poor Columbus ran aground 

Which meant the new world never got found. 

 And don't tell me that the new world would have been found by someone else. Nope. It turns out that Western Civilization collapsed again in about 1530, all because they failed to get to America.

Nominate Me

It may be true I didn’t go to law school, 

Or “pass the bar”, whatever that may mean, 

But I have spent some time upon a barstool, 

And studied Law & Order on the screen, 

And I believe I’d like to be a justice - 

I’ll just face down those senators’ long faces, 

And say: “Why do you find it hard to trust us? 

I’ll know the answers when I've heard the cases!”

Mildly Disappointed

I'd like to be told that I already had
This thing that is spreading, this bug that is bad.
I'd like to believe that it did once infect me,
And somehow or other did not much affect me.
But do I have antibodies to show?
You've already guessed it - my tests all say NO!

Round

They say at King Arthur's Table,
The roundest of the round,
Was a certain Knight who was able
To really pack on the pounds.
I mean the great Sir Cumference,
Who loved to gobble Pi.
His belt more than tripled his radius,
And Pi was the reason why.

Experimental

Can someone on the internet send
A sample of the Chinese vaccine?
I’m just asking for a friend,
If you know what I mean.

Dominance

 I say that I’m right handed

But if we’re being candid 

I’m told that it’s the brain

That’s driving the hand-preference train. 

Donation

Gave blood. 

Did not fall with a thud. 

I hope that someone else gains 

From this stuff that ran through my veins.

Plagiarism!

I wrote a little play involving Iago and Othello in the afterlife. At the gates of hell, actually. And I wrote it in verse. So someone asked me if I had worked in any lines by Shakespeare. I didn't think I had, but I had written it a while ago, in a hurry. So I thought I would feed the play through some online plagiarism-detection software. And it found something. But not from Shakespeare. It found this:

"It’s a lesson that I learned the hard way."

I thought to myself, that's practically a cliche, anyway. How can that be plagiarized? But it turned out they only had an 80% match. They had:

"Lessons I learned the hard way readings: Some modest advice for graduate students"

This plagiarism detective
Seems to be defective. 

In a Hole

When you’ve dug yourself in a hole, 

Consider halting the dig. 

Unless you are a mole, 

In which case, it’s your whole gig!

Inadequate Surveillance

I'm registered to vote. 

I got my shot for the flu. 

But ads online keep telling me 

That these are things I should do. 

They need to do a better job 

Of keeping track of my actions. 

Pointless redundant reminders hurt 

Customer satisfaction.

Recovering

Post-race, my mitochondria 

Seem to feel apathetic. 

Might they have hypochondria? 

Beware of endeavors athletic!

Chemical Evidence of Life on Venus

The Russians sent probes a couple of times 

Which probably carried bacterial slimes.

Now they’ve gotten planet-sized 

And simply need to be sanitized!

Mother of Invention

When human language 

Was first invented, 

Did the inventor 

Feel contented? 

No - it made her 

Kind of blue: 

She had no one 

To speak it to! 

So she taught it 

To a friend 

And this continued 

Without end.

A Theory of Something

I'm told time crawls 

When reading Rawls. 

You find your alertness failing 

Into a sleepy veiling.

Thinking Ahead

I believe that the Covid vaccine 

Should have a marketing mascot. 

I propose that we name her Maxine, 

And give her a hat from Ascot.

Next Sunday in Holland, Michigan

To satisfy the Health Department powers, 

The marathon start is spread across three hours. 

The race director had to jump through hoops, 

Breaking the race into several separate groups. 

My hat is off to him. He got it done, 

And opened the way to 26 miles of... fun?

The Other LIst

There's an opposite to a bucket list. 

It's what you might call a ****-it list. 

Ponder it as extreme eschewing - 

Stuff you'd rather die than start doing.

Call Me Samson

A woman without a mask 

Lured me to cut my hair. 

In case you have to ask, 

She buzzed my noggin bare. 

Well yes it was my wife 

But still it was a set up! 

When will this Covid strife 

At last begin to let up?

Choke it Down

I guess those stickers you get for voting 

Are like a sugar coating

For a pill

That doesn’t thrill.

But Who's Counting?

Venus has none. 

Mars has two. 

Moons are fun, 

But what can you do? 

At least we have one.

Destination Dubious

I bicycled to Kenosha once 

From beautiful Highland Park. 

I wouldn’t mind doing that ride again, 

But I don’t want to stay after dark.

Indefinite

The English indefinite article lacks a plural. 

So while it’s proper to say, “Look - a squirrel!” 

If there are more, you have to switch to “some”: 

“Look - some squirrels!” Somehow this seems dumb. 

But, hey, it’s just the way our language evolved, 

And “some” is the workaround by which it’s solved.

Putin Has Met 3 Popes

One of these days, when I am pope 

And Putin asks for a meeting, 

I’ll just say nope, and quietly hope 

He leaves without a greeting.

Two Meanings

In math, the study of "calculus" 

Concerns continuous change. 

But over in Renal Medicine, 

It means kidney stones - how strange! 

They both derive from a Latin word 

Which means "little pebbles", you see - 

The kind that just might help you to count, 

But surely will hurt you to pee.

Due to Arrive Just Before Election Day

It's just a little asteroid, 

Mostly likely a near-miss fail, 

But just in case the earth is destroyed, 

I recommend voting by mail.

The

I'll go along - I'm not urging defiance. 

But when did "science" 

Turn into "the science"? 

We need a definitive article 

About this definite article!

At The Zoo

They say there's a baby boom at the average zoo 

During this time when the animal missing is you. 

Lots of us thought the critters didn't care 

About the visitors who point and stare 

But maybe they do.

Tonight

Saw three of Jupiter’s moons
Through my own telescope.
The truth, as they say, is out there.
Galileo was no dope.

Tonight

Saw three of Jupiter’s moons
Through my own telescope.
The truth, as they say, is out there.
Galileo was no dope.

Mid August

Late summer, and the sun is setting sooner, 

The grass is not so green as once it was, 

Children wonder whether school is scheduled, 

While mothers mutter that the world’s gone wack.

Old Glory

Lots of countries have stripes 

And plenty have stars 

But rarely so many 

Of either as ours. 

It’s a busy design, 

Way out of hand! 

I think it is time 

For us to rebrand: 

One red stripe, one white, 

One star on some blue! 

But whoops, Texas took that, 

So what can we do? 

I guess we are stuck 

With this flag from B. Ross, 

Bizarre in its way 

But too classic to toss!

Stronger Together

Here’s a secret. 

Please don’t blab. 

My running mate 

Will be a Lab.

Democritus Meets Bohr

Philosophers worked out the idea of the atom, 

A solid tiny object, quite un-splittable. 

But physicists proved if you throw the right stuff at ‘em, 

They burst apart. How very inhospitable!

Hard to Figure

If two plus two

Does not make four, 

Is it less 

Or is it more?