First Quarter Squibs

 

Like a fledgling on the edge of the nest, we wait for a push into the abyss. 

To get into the Kingdom of God, there’s a need that I do a one-eighty. 

If I only turn one degree at a time, my fear is I’ll get there too latey. 

When you do something right, let your back pats be longer. 

And when you screw up make your dope slaps less stronger. 

It's ok to use clichés as long as you turbo-charge them.

Had Van Gogh survived suicide and become rich and famous, he still would not have been happy. 

We marvel how contingent our existence is upon our parents meeting and mating. 

A moment’s silence now for all the people who don’t exist because our parents didn’t marry someone else. 

The old are scorned for resisting change. Take pity on them. They're still adjusting to all the previous changes in their lives. 

I love the lord Jesus, he fixed my esteem. 

To tear down yourself is to trash your own team. 

A great chef can make a fabulous meal out of celery stalks. Good ingredients just make his job easier. 

On man’s infantilization is another man’s wife. 

When I first retired I used to worry when I could no longer keep track of the day of the week. Then I understood what I had lost was the mind of a slave. 

The poet is the athlete of old age. 

The nine muses have a new sister: Interneta, the Muse of Idle Hours. 

The solution to your problem is locked behind a door. You and your therapist search for the key until you realize the door is standing open. 

Since slowness to heal has become now our option. 

The old folks and I will move forward with caution. 

Being ugly is no tragedy. 

Hollywood needs ugly mugs for its tragedies. 

I used to say man is descended from the worm, but I recently read that is false. We’re actually descended from a different long, squiggly creature from a neighboring phylum. 

When I grab too big a halo, it tends to slip over my eyes. 

If we had our hangovers before starting the glee, we’d all of us drink more strategically. 

Philosophy builds instructive ruins while the lover of knowledge herself is continuing the hunt far away. 

I feared that by using a GPS I’d miss the treasures I found when lost. But the goof-prone device could just as well be named Going Places Serendipitously. 

The people who vote for the other guy don’t personally wish you ill. They leave that to the people they elect. 

Banality of banalities 

All is banality. 

Bless the artist who can make it

Seem not so.

For Lent the lecher gives up eye candy. 

My consciousness runs not in a stream, but in a tidal pool; renewed each night in a sea of sleep. 

I left the cave of shadows and banged into an elephant’s leg. Blinded by the light, I thought it was a tree. When the tree walked away I tripped over a pile of…?!

I returned to the cave where at least they know how to do mashed potatoes. 

Some subjects are over my head. Even books about deeper things lose me in their undertow.

In Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel God sends a spark from His finger to Adam’s. In Darwin’s Chapel, God sends the spark to a bacterium. 

The algorithm asks does God exist?

If Y: continue to Mount Olympus. 

If N: run program. 

It took me billions of years to get here, so what’s my hurry now?

Your plane is leaving, sir. 

So what? They’re building another one in Seattle. 

Your ticket is non-refundable, sir. 

Clear the way!

There are many approaches to death. Best is the illness known as old age. 

I listen raptly when you describe your disease. When you tell me of another’s, my mind wanders. 

If I get one more first world problem, I’ll no longer be able to enjoy my white privilege. 

It’s storytelling, not story showing. The listener’s job is to provide the stage and props, the lighting and the greasepaint. 

There’s no profit in judging others. 

Assess them instead and send a bill. 

The week is a seven chambered Russian roulette. Which day you will die has not yet been set. 

No gossip in Heaven? 

The answer is no. 

If you wish to talk trash, 

come join me below. 

Flattery is cloying. Better the oatmeal of clear-eyed love.

The old religions lose adherents like leaves off autumnal trees. Islam is still in its high summer. 

The mega church provides economies of scalvation. 

The truly humble admit they deserve an ‘F’ in humility. 

Forethought is the nanny that prevents us from wandering into traffic. 

When I look into the past I wonder how people could have lived the way they did. 

If I could look into the future I would wonder why people have discarded all the good things of my era. 

First a pebble, then a stone, sometimes a boulder falls into the limpid pool of my awareness when I arise from  my meditation.

Couples can have none, or one, or two or three little trolls. 

But a fourth gets no congrats but lots of eye rolls. 

None to three  is your normal allotment of rug rats. 

One more gets you eye rolls instead of congrats. 

Some poems are felicitous; others are not so clear. 

Many make no sense. Is the fault in my ear?

A Convenience Store Checklist: The food and the drink make us fat. The fuels and the gas soil the air. The B.S. runs deep and costs just our time, while the lotto fends off our despair. 

The prayers from my rival church join with mine and ascend to heaven.

While our devilish deeds unite on the drive to perdition.

If no one was in a hurry, the scenic route would be as busy as the highway.

Plato did well to escape his cave of shadows. But his eyes never adjusted to the new world lit by a brighter fire. 

Protestantism’s innovation was to fly from earth to heaven, skipping the slog through purgatory. If your wings failed on the way though, there was no plan B. 

No male writer can know what it is, a woman to be. 

Though some have set forth a fair facsimile. 

At times our muscle memory will lapse. 

Then Humpty will fall; the bridge will collapse.

Downsizing frees up storage space, which was the initial cause of our hoarding. 

We furiously dust; exorcising the dust to which we shall one day return. 

The lengthening nights come too early;

The lengthening days come too late. 

If the world did not tilt and there wasn’t a moon,

Then the seas and the seasons could mate. 

Your idle curiosity keeps social media hopping. 

The stars in their movement through the heavens are beautiful. When they fall to earth and stay as yard lights, they become annoying. 

Every year summer finally defeats winter. But then winter makes a comeback and defeats summer. On and on it goes. So far the score is tied. 

Hablo español con acento de Google Translate.

When lost in the weeds, don’t make things worse by spraying herbicide. 

When lost in the weeds, look for a rabbit hole. 

Humility’s the hardest virtue to ride. 

As soon as you’re on, the horse turns to false pride. 

Animals watch the seasons  go round and think of the world as their friend. We look upon our decline and our fall and think of the grave as our end. 

In my youth, a hit in the NFL might put me out for a week. Today, it would put me out for good. 

On Mondays he’s unliked as a smart-ass; on Tuesday, unloved as a know-it-all. On Wednesdays he takes a break to prepare for the weekend. 

Theologians tell us to view the Universe as a mighty clockwork. While some of the cogs have opted not to participate, it still keeps remarkably good time. 

My guilt trips grow shorter the older I get. 

I once rode the bus. I now go by jet. 

Those infatuated with the stars would destroy the sun and moon to see better the galaxies. 

A blindfolded person can be convinced a bag of Romano cheese is vomit. But I doubt that would work the other way. Besides, where are you going to get a bag of vomit?

My little house sits on the edge of a cliff,

Though I built it, I thought, far inland.

As the waves beat below, this question occurs:

Has the rock that I used turned to sand?

Our dog lives as happily in the moment as we do in the universe. He knows not from where comes the rising sun, nor do we know who set off the Big Bang.

Should men be told to put on their big boy pants when they haven't first been toilet trained?

If you haven't yet figured out the truth about yourself, you're not likely to accept an outside opinion. 

Give wine to the introvert,

And the truth he’ll soon blurt.

Though often his veritas, 

Just proves he's an ass. 

The old book lover should say goodby to his books before the end of his story. 

Jesus healed the ills, forgave the sins of those he met. But he didn't turn them into saints.  He left them that as a yes/no option. 

We must fail before we succeed. Try not to practice failing in a life-and-death situation. 

At the concert I felt one with the world, till the band had to go. Then we all drifted home on our separate floes. 

Coffee is to my my morning brain as ether to a cold engine. 

The world is full of meaning. 

Our first mistake is thinking we know what that meaning is. 

The only thing I can really know is my own thoughts, which so quickly turn to vapor. 

If I tell a joke, you’re welcome to tell one of your own. But I’ll be more impressed if you’re able to pick up the thread of conversation I so rudely broke. 

I can handle too much flattery. It’s dead silence that gets me. 

To read Beowulf straight off,

You must be a scholar. 

And Chaucer is gotten by few. 

Far into the future will the language we holler,

Be called then Middle English Part Two?

“I love rabbit holes,” he said with a shrug. 

“It comes with the turf when your first name is Bugs.” 

If al-Qaeda, Isis, et al. made targeted donations in Congress, would my decapitation be green lighted?

Do the Inuit really have 40 words for snow? Or is it like us with our many kinds of meat? 

Slushy snow, sleety snow, snow that gets tracked into the igloo. 

Which tooth of yours has the upper jaw?

Savory or sweet. 

You can’t buy love, but you can buy a dog , which is the same thing. 

 A café can’t last when one night it is great and the next it serves up a burnt flan. 

Mediocre’s the goal, stay between the white lines;

You’ll find that’s your best business plan. 

The shy person stands behind a mirror of ice awaiting a warm face to find it.