Eve sat by the river

“My heart is breaking,”
Eve wrote her sister
Lilith, Adam’s first wife,
residing in the land of Cush.
Eve scribbled the words
with the ink of her tears.
“My son has murdered my son,
and the murderer is a ghost
haunting the valleys
and the rivers between
the two of us, you and me.”

Eve sat by the river
mourning her baby child,
mourning her first born man.
Eve sat by the river,
the blues in her eyes shedding
one hundred forty-six tears each day
‘tween the sunrise and the moon.
“River, my heart is bleeding,”
she sang, her grief rising
like smoke up to the ears of God
while the clock kept faith with time.

Eve went down to kneel
in the church down by the river Cry.
She lit a votive candle
and prayed the rosary
one hundred and fifty times
for the souls of her sons.
For the one whose life was taken away,
and the one who took the life
she prayed.

If on a summer’s day,

the windows rattle. Perhaps, which is another way of saying maybe, perhaps there might be an enormous spaceship landing in the field behind your house. There is no field behind your house, you say. Actually there is barely enough room for a tree. And the tree that is there is scraggly. So there can’t be a spaceship landing behind your house.

Well, what is causing that rattling? What about an earthquake? You live in Florida. Florida doesn’t get earthquakes. Hurricanes. Yes, but you would have seen that sucker coming. Tornadoes? Yes. Sinkholes? Yes, but the house would be sliding.

You checked the Weather Channel thirty times already this morning. No tornado watch and your house is not sliding. Africa has not flung a tropical storm your way off its coast for weeks. Absolutely no earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, sinkholes..

So why are the windows rattling? You could go outside and check. Remember the last time you heard the windows singing like they are tonight? You ended up lost in time. You were gone a month of Sundays, and you kept going every whichaway. It definitely was not fun. Talk about nausea, you had nausea big time.

One moment you were in Kansas with Dorothy and Auntie Em. Toto was barking his butt off, wanting out to pee. The next thing you know you were about to be roasted by the Spanish Inquisition. You had discovered a time warp. Quite accidentally, of course. How did you know it was a time warp? You passed Spock, and he gave you that live-long-and-prosper hand signal all the Trekkies know.

That time you walked out your front door, saw your neighbors doing what neighbors do on a Saturday afternoon in front of their houses, and walked right smack dab into that time warp. It was like being shanghaied and shipped off on a slow boat to China. You were flying to God-knows-where because you didn’t have a clue.

Only thing good to come out of the whole experience was that you met someone. It was not just anyone. It was The Someone. Pretty soon sparks were flying between the two of you. The fire was hotter than the one the Inquisition set you on fire with. It was like bazinga. You were smitten. Can I use that word smitten? Darn right I can. It’s my post and I’ll write it if I want to. Yep, you were smitten. It was The Someone. You were Soul Mates.

So you got married. It was a big wedding. All The Someone’s relatives showed up with gifts up the wazoo. Your partner’s Uncle Irving gave you enough cash to buy a modest three bedroom house, this house that doesn’t have much of a back yard. You didn’t do bad with your relatives either. Then you bought the house. The two of you started careers. You liked your jobs, even though you didn’t like the nine-to-fives. Before you knew it, you were raising the 2.5 children the average American family is supposed to be raising. It was a happy time. Until now.

Oh well, guess you’d better get off your duff in this comfortable chair and go see what is causing that rattling. You pull yourself up out of the chair and make the long walk to the front door. Actually it’s not long. It just seems that way. You’re really dreading opening that front door. But you do and…

Use your imagination and imagine what happened. Put it in the comments section or use it for a Prompt for a post on your Blog.

George Washington Slept There, And So Did A Few Others

When GW, and I am not talking Bush here, when GW moved into the White House, do you know the first thing he asked the Secret Service? “Where’s the cherry trees? I think I need another set of teeth.”

When John Adams moved into the White House, he tried to find the cherry trees.

When Tommy Jefferson moved into the White House, the first thing he did was check out the female staff…I mean, books.

When Jimmy Madison moved into the White House, his wife, Dolley, went to decoratin’. She was nowhere pleased with Abby Adams’ choice in furniture. “That Franklin stove has to go.”

When Jim Monroe moved into the White House, he asked that booze be named after him. That is why we have a fifth. (He was the fifth President, you know.)

When John Quincy Adams moved into the White House, he requested that folks quit calling him Quince. ‘Course nobody listened. Nobody ever listened to him.

When Andy Jackson moved into the White House, the first thing he went for was the booze…and the dueling pistols.

When Martin Van Buren moved into the White House, he put in a cabinet in the kitchen.

When Tippecanoe moved into the White House, he died.

When John Tyler moved into the White House, he moved Texas in too.

When Jimmy Polk moved into the White House, the first thing he looked at was the maps. He wanted a country to invade, and Canada was out of the question.

When Zack Taylor moved into the White House, he died too. Need I say more?

When Milliard Fillmore  moved into the White House, he didn’t stay. He was moved out after one term.

When Franklin Pierce moved into the White House, people kept forgetting his name. When he passed them in the hall, his staffers would say, “Oh, there goes old what’s his name.”

When James Buchanan moved into the White House, he still couldn’t find a wife. Or an intern, for that matter.

When Abe moved into the White House, he asked about the Lincoln bedroom. He had heard so much about it. Then he discovered that the bed was too short.

When Andy Johnson moved into the White House, he became the first Johnson to move into the White House.

When General Grant moved into the White House, he made sure the typewriters had an S. After all, it was his middle initial. He didn’t want the country to confuse him with Ulysses W. Grant.

When Rutherford B. Hayes moved into the White House, he left saying, “You won’t have Rutherford B. Hayes to kick around anymore.”

When James A. Garfield moved into the White House, well, he didn’t stay.

When Ben Harrison moved into the White House, he sang, “Here a billion. There a billion. Everywhere a billion.”

When Grover Cleveland moved into the White House, he said, “I’m back. Did you miss me?”

When William McKinley moved into the White House, he said, “Send in Teddy. He’ll take San Juan Hill.”

When Teddy Roosevelt moved into the White House, he brought that big stick he’d been talking about.

When Willie Taft moved into the White House, he threw his weight around.

When Woodrow Wilson moved into the White House, he retired the big stick and started talking. He kept making his point. In fact, he made it fourteen times.

When Warren G. Harding moved into the White House, he dated his secretary. And her secretary too. He is also famous for saying, “Who put the pineapple juice in my pineapple juice?”

When Calvin Coolidge moved into the White House, he quit talking.

When Herbert Hoover moved into the White House, he got depressed.

When FDR moved into the White House, he decided to stay.

When Harry Truman moved into the White House, he charged everybody a buck to see him. After all, the buck stopped with him.

When I-Like-Ike moved into the White House, he told Dick Nixon, “There’s only room here for one President and I am it.”

When JFK moved into the White House, so did Jackie.

When LBJ moved into the White House, so did his hound dawg.

When Dick Nixon moved into the White House, he asked the Secret Service, “Where can I buy some tape? Preferably eighteen minutes long.”

When Gerald Ford moved into the White House, he tripped.

When Jimmy Carter moved into the White House, toothpaste sales went sky high.

When Ronnie Reagan moved into the White House, he congratulated himself on getting back into show business.

When George H. W. Bush moved into the White House, the broccoli moved out.

When Bill Clinton moved into the White House, he started the internship program. “Give a girl a good start in life,” he said.

When George W. Bush moved into the White House, he put in a direct phone line to God.

When Barack Obama moved into the White House, he discovered that George Bush had taken out the phone line to God and moved it to Texas. Rick Perry needed it.

When Mitt Romney moved into the White House, oh, that’s right, he didn’t move into the White House. After all, he was part of that 99% of people who ran for President and lost.

When Donald Trump moved into the White House, he moved the darn thing down to Mara-a-Lago in Florida.

When Joe Biden moved into the White House, he forgot to stand up when the White House Band played “Hail to the Chief.” He thought they were playing it for somebody else. After all, he’d lost all them other times he ran.

Happy President’s Day everybody.

Rejection Letters to Famous Authors

Have you ever asked why so many writers take to drink? Well, you would drink too if you received a rejection letter like these writers might have received.

Dear Mr. Faulkner (Absalom, Absalom): You are very good with the long sentences. But you seem to be stuck way too much in the past.

Dear Miss Mitchell (Gone With the wind): The Civil War is over. Get over it.

Dear Mr. Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea): Our audience is an adult audience. Unfortunately your sentences are not above the sixth grade reading level.

Dear Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer): Could you give us more sex and less story please?

Dear Mr. Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath): We don’t do wine books.

Dear Miss Austen (Pride and Prejudice): Nothing seems to happen in your novels. If you could write something with a story like Fifty Shades of Grey, we could see our way to publishing. Call it Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy.

Dear Mr. Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby): I am sorry but I don’t think our readers will be able to identify with your Gatsby character. He is way too rich and those parties he throws are much too sinful. Now if he loved Jesus, and was a lost soul that converted to the Lord, you would have something.

Dear Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet): Your detective, Sherlock Holmes, is much too smart for our readers.

Dear Mr. Dickens (A Christmas Carol): That Scrooge fellow makes all us capitalists look bad. Then you have to go and turn him into a communist.

Dear Mr. Heller (Catch 22): Very interesting book. It really isn’t about baseball, is it?

Dear Mr. Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five): There are no such things as aliens.

Dear Mr. Tolstoy (War and Peace): Make up your mind. Is it war or is it peace?

Dear Miss Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird): We are not interested in instruction manuals on how to murder birds.

Dear Senor Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude): Nobody around here reads Spanish. That is Spanish, isn’t it?

Dear Mr. Adams (A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy): In what galaxy is hitchhiking allowed?

Dear Mr. Dante Alighieri (The Divine Comedy): We did not find your book funny. Not funny at all.

Dear Mr. Gibran (The Prophet): If you are a prophet, why didn’t you predict that we wouldn’t publish your book?

Dear Mr. Joyce (Ulysses): Where did you hide all your commas anyway?

Dear God (The Bible): Not sure what genre to put this one under. Geneology? History? Poetry? Motivation? Fantasy? Biography? Besides nobody will ever believe that story about the guy and the whale. And that book about a guy named Job is a real downer.

Superbowl Blues

In memory of Superbowls of yesteryear.

We don’t watch the Superbowl for the plays.
We don’t watch it for the ads for cars.
We only want to see another day
When Janet Jackson’s thirty-twos were a star.

It was a tragic turn of events
When Justin Timberlake left his prints
On Ms. Jackson’s thirty-twos.
It made all the evening news.

We may not remember the game
But nothing ever will be the same
When Justin’s hands made history.
That day Janet lost her mystery.

It was another bust the next year
Katy Perry wouldn’t drop her gear
Lenny Kravitz’s hands were tied
On his guitar they did reside.

So we may have to wait till next year
To rah rah rah and to cheer
Till then we’ll review the video
When Janet’s thirty-twos were a star.

We don’t watch the Superbowl for the plays.
We don’t watch it for the ads for cars.
We only want to see another day
When Janet Jackson’s thirty-twos were a star.