In Place of Dew

The grass is embossed
With silver-gray frost.

TGIF

Pity now the Ancient Greeks
Who didn’t mark their days by weeks
And as a result forgot to take
Their weekend break!

Sniffle

Why do anteaters rarely catch colds?
Is it from drinking hot toddies?
The answer’s so simple, you’ll gasp when you’re told:
They’re just full of antie-bodies!

Duck

Why does a duck have feathers?
To cover its butt quack, of course!
If I tell this joke to my wife,
I fear she’ll want a divorce.

Gnomic

Forget that elf on the shelf!
I’m getting a troll in a hole,
So instead of observing myself,
I’ll be mocked by an underground mole.

Gnite

Some say sleep is overrated
But I think that’s best debated
After a nice long snooze
To illustrate my views.

Protagonists

There's a simplified schema for storytelling, in which there is a single protagonist on a mission.

And there are a lot of great stories like that.

But they don't all have to be that way. Romances, for example, whether comic or tragic, are more often of the "takes two to tango" structure. This does not prevent them from having a very strong, rather archetypal, story structure.

The hero with a thousand faces
Entangles with a heroine with superior social graces
And then it takes while
For things to reconcile.

Divergent

I haven’t a clue
So please tell me how
It can be that thou
Doesn’t rhyme with you?

Damage

"In the late 1940s, the United States experienced a “lobotomy boom” where the use of the lobotomy expanded exponentially... We argue that government provision and funding for public mental hospitals and asylums expanded and prolonged the use of the lobotomy. We support this claim by noting the lobotomy had virtually disappeared from private mental hospitals and asylums before the boom and was less used beforehand."

Somehow the guy who developed it was given a Nobel for his efforts:

"In 1949, the Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his development of the prefrontal lobotomy — a procedure in which the connection is cut to a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex in mentally ill, depressed or learning disabled people. As the procedure can send patients into a vegetative state, lobotomies are now believed to be wildly unethical."

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me
Than a frontal lobotomy.
But in the 40s, this form of doom
Enjoyed a boom.

Cryptic Critters

Wombats, for what it’s worth,
Are certainly not of this earth.
They are aliens of high IQ,
Disguised to spy on me and you.

Weatherwise

My phone says snow.
My eyes see rain.
So I don’t know
What to tell my brain.

Wachagudfer

Decades ago, someone gave me a story called Tanner, set in a struggling Western frontier village named Wachagudfer, which was a humorous reformatting of "What'cha good for". The idea was that the town had an ethos that you should only move to the town if you had something to contribute. The story was about a dwarf who was an expert tanner and leather worker, who is eventually welcomed into the town, not because of a desire for diversity, but strictly because of his talent and hard work. I'm a sucker for such stories, and found it quite heartwarming. I was the poetry editor for a little magazine named Nomos at the time, and expressed some interest in publishing the story. I was not in actual contact with the author. Someone had passed the story along to me. And they passed back the information to me that the author, one Alexander R. Smyth, didn't want to publish it quite yet.

It seems that Smyth died in a car accident in 1999. And in 2012 his widow, Linda L. Fraser, published The Wachagudfer Stories, Simply Told, Book 1.

There are 3 stories. The first one is Tanner, which is just 18 pages long, and which is just as heartwarming as I remember it. But the next 2 stories are quite a bit longer, since the book runs to 450 pages or so.

The odd thing is that there is no online record of this book. So I cannot link to it! It's amazing, since it has a nice distinctive title. I was able to find information about the author, but not about the book.

I am in shock, over this search engine fail.
For now I will proceed to the next tale.

Visit Complete

Let there be no doubt:
Childproof doorknobs work great at locking me out.

Now that the grandkids aren't in town anymore,
Who will help me get this thing off the door?

Time Distortion

Why on earth is it called a fast?
Slowly, slowly the hours go past.

CDC

Amid the scary hoopla
Of the dreaded Romaine purge,
I have ventured toward Arugula,
To satisfy my lettuce urge.

Mystery Most Fowl

This has happened twice to me: I encounter a cardboard box outdoors, in a public place, containing a big dead bird.

The first time was during the summer, and the situation was smelly. I saw the bird’s feathers were speckled, but I didn’t poke around to get a view of the head or feet. I thought it might be a pheasant.

The second time was yesterday. This time I took s better look, and it turns out the bird was a decapitated Guinea Fowl. Its feet were tied together with string.

I think it was the same kind of bird each time.

It is weird that someone would kill these birds, which are poultry, and leave them in cardboard boxes in public places.

There are some religions that kill birds of this variety. For example, voodoo. But I have the idea they usually eat the poultry they sacrifice.

This seems an offense
Against moral sense.

Thankful

May your travels
Not unravel,
May your dinner hosts
Serve up the most
Scrumptious food,
And may your mood
Be warm and mellow
With all your mealtime fellows.

While We're On The Subject Of Times To Avoid

If a time-traveler offers you a trip,
Be wary, and request an an itinerary
That's specific, not vague.
I've found it's best to skip
The Year of the Plague.

536

'Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he's got an answer: "536." ... A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months.'

According the article, massive crop failures followed, resulting in a mass starvation of human beings. Some scientific researchers believe that the mystery fog was probably due to the eruption of an Icelandic volcano. This claim is based on some very high-tech ice-core studies.

When it comes to years, 536
Is apparently the roughest of picks.
I don’t remember it, but as you can probably intuit,
I did have ancestors who lived through it.

Chilly

Is it true cold showers
Give you superpowers?
Well, make no mistake,
They sure do jolt you awake.