You can learn a lot from animals,
especially if they are talking animals
that teach college level science as their part-time job.
How Thoughtful
If someone wrote
thousands of pages
about paper shredders,
a paper shredder
might be a nice gift
to give them.
How Refreshing
The gardener sprayed me with the hose.
I had no place to hide.
I smiled at him until I saw
that it was pesticide.
staying alive
We need some people
to live to tell
to eat some ice cream
and all be well
to pass the torch
and plant a tree
so I keep going
in case that's me.
animal poem
What if in heaven
animals have jobs
and your boss turns out to be
the guinea pig from your childhood.
In the books
What if every time you bought a book at a bookstore
They started an account in your name
And you had to pay them back
A quantified value of anything good that ever happened to you
Because of what you learned from the books.
Like if you bought a study guide and passed an engineering test
then you had to pay them ten percent of your salary for the rest of your life
and if a picturesque fairy tale cottage influenced your house decorations
you had to donate all your old furniture to the store.
and if a pet care book helped you own a dog,
you had to give a bookseller one of the puppies.
And if tale of two cities convinced you to trust in God
then you had to give back half your blessings for all of eternity,
And if you avoided the bookstore but found certain book titles
inspiring when other people mentioned them,
The bookstore people would hunt you down anyway and demand your wallet
no matter how much you decided to be far from the madding crowd.
The Christmas Elephant
I like the real St. Nicholas and hope to visit him at the north pole in heaven
but for now some of the Santa Claus stuff at Christmas is bothering me
and I am wondering if it isn’t time
for a new tradition, such as the Christmas elephant.
people could let the Christmas elephant loose in the mall
and as it wrecks all the stores
kids can just pick out whatever they want right then.
kids will be like
what happened to santa claus
and the good moms and dads will say
the Christmas elephant sat on his lap.
Ice cream poem
what if people called you a fraud when you were eating ice cream.
like if they said, you don’t really like ice cream
and you are just pretending to eat it.
In all seriousness
The purple goose with the silver streak
Flies through the mist of the heart’s shadowy path
To the tower of shining memory life.
Who knows what it means.
No one even knew it was happening
Until I listened to that song.
And now they will want to capture it.
But the bird can only be lured
By the snacks from a bakery built with forgiveness.
That is why the bird will always be free.
And where it seems like a cage, there’s a well,
And where it seems like a wall,
An expanse of mountains,
With a corridor to the fluttering skies.
iDEA
If I ever don't know what to say,
maybe I could just ask people
if they are going to the picnic.
and they will say "What picnic?"
And I will say "I don't know."
hmm
If you are a cashier
and you are mad at people
then instead of saying
"Have a great day,"
You could say
"Have a gray day,"
and people would probably not know.
a phone call
If I ever go to jail
I am going to use my one phone call
to call the jail and tell them
that I think people in jail
should get one phone call
and a deck of cards.
Scene
When I get to heaven
I am going to start a group
called the Bandits of McGillicutty
and we are going to go around
stealing everyone's stuff
even though it's heaven.
It's going to be pretty funny
and kind of like
stealing bibles
except it's going to be things like
TVs and games and cake that we get
from breaking in to the mansion
that Jesus promised everyone.
Stealing a Bible
is actually how you get to heaven
but people make it sound
more complicated.
It's because they want
the best rooms in the mansion
with all the best games and electronics.
It's kind of like trying
to steal people's stuff
before they get there.
But I am waiting
until we're actually in heaven
and people are not expecting it.
I will point to the east
and say "look,
a new light is dawning with the tides,"
and when people turn to see,
I will take their last muffin
that they were saving
for the afternoon wishing march.
They will never turn back
and never know what's gone
because a new light
actually is dawning
with the tides.
It is a bright and kind
prism with beams
and no one can look away.
Blue and Green
People who have lost their marbles
should take comfort in the fact
that everyone has one big marble
which is the globe.
How to Take a Compliment
Act like you don’t hear
when people tell you something nice.
That way they’ll repeat it
and you’ll get to hear it twice.
thinking of others
I think of others all the time.
I do it constantly.
I think of all the selfless things
that they could do for me.
What if?
What if there was a
"Hypothetical Shock Collar"
that shocked you
whenever anyone
did something bad
that you also would have done.
Idea
They should make whole hospitals
be an x ray machine
so everyone gets an x ray
by just walking around.
Pi
What if in a mental hospital the patients filled out check in sheets every day rating their moods on a scale of one to ten and then a therapist who was a schizophrenic math genius retired after thirty years and revealed that he was so good at therapy that he had decided what everyone's mood would be ahead of time and made them feel how they felt on purpose and if you put all his patients' check-in sheets in order their ratings matched the first ten thousand digits of pi.
The Easter Frog
Something that people don't talk about much is the Easter Frog. The Easter Frog is friends with the Easter Bunny and stops at some of the same houses, but also stops at some houses where the Easter Bunny doesn't go. The Easter Frog doesn't usually visit people on Easter, because he can't risk getting caught. The Easter Frog has to keep out of trouble so he can visit the people who most need him. The Easter Frog doesn't leave candy in a basket out where people can see it. Instead, he sneaks some nice surprise into people's ordinary days when they are least expecting it. Usually people don't even know that they have been visited by the Easter Frog. They simply find a wonderful smooth stone on their way home from school, or they get an extra cookie on their lunch tray one day, or they find five dollars in an old wallet when they are cleaning. Sometimes they get something big like a surprise day off that the Easter Frog arranged with their boss. But it is always supposed to be a secret. If you suspect that something nice has happened to you because of the Easter Frog, you should not tell people that you think you got visited by the Easter Frog. In fact, you should say "I doubt that this is because of the Easter Frog."