Common Threads

 

Father’s Day

Off to St. Simons

Visiting Dad on his day

Dinner and talk time! 

 

Stories

Savor the stories – 

memories of adventures

that sustain moments! 

 I need vacation

I need vacation

Bar Harbor, Maine sounds perfect 

for about five days 

Widdle Wooser Twumpwing

My, oh my!

Staged an insuwwection at the Capitol

Most with fwags and one with horns

Widdle Wooser Twumpwing

My, oh my! 

 

Trumpty Dumpty, Fuzzy Wuzzy, Bye Bye Bully Trumpster 

Trumpty Dumpty built a huge wall.

Trumpty Dumpty took a huge fall. 

All the clown’s puppets 

        and all the clown’s friends  

Stormed the Capitol when he’d reached rope’s end. 

Fuzzy Wuzzy didn’t care.

Fuzzy Wuzzy had orange hair.

Fuzzy Wuzzy’s Covid Kool-Aid: 

  said to swirl some bleach in there.

A little Jim-Jones-fuzzy, was he? 

Bye, Bye, Bully Trumpster 

What a sickening dumpster! 

Insurrection……

mass defection 

a Biden ballot bumpster! 

Two Dozen Ways to Dress a Hippie

peace-sign fringed vest for guitar strumming

bell-bottom jeans for Woodstock humming

halter top for quick hitchhiking

tie-dyed shirt for peaceful piping 

peasant blouse for sunlit meadowing

shoulder bag for camper van showing

Birkenstocks for pet rock walking 

Henna tat for campfire talking 

daisy chain for long hair crowning 

go-go boots for gettin’ downing 

macrame belt for chia pet growing

mood ring for answer-in-the-wind blowing  

platform shoes for mountain movin’

gaucho pants for soulful groovin’ 

mini skirt for disco lighting 

maxi dress for barefoot nighting

shag-cut wig for Deadhead-wilding

far-out shades for flower-childing 

hemp-bead choker for tree hugging 

psychedelic hip huggers for doing nothing 

floppy hat for sunshade-wanting 

boho headband for bouffanting

leisure suit for paycheck reaping 

birthday suit for ballgame streaking

 

Little Boy Blue’s Mother Goose Truth  

That little old woman who lives in a shoe? 

She’s there ‘cause she didn’t raise Little Boy Blue.

He was ‘spose to be tending the sheep each day;

instead, he was having a roll in the hay.

Each day he rolled with a different girl-

It began with one flaunting her forehead curl. 

He’d heard from Jack Horner she was “very good.” 

Jack BeNimble said she was “horrid” – but would. 

So Curl Girl was Friday’s roll up in the loft; 

Bo Peep rolled on Tuesdays, that same hay so soft. 

Miss Muffet rolled Thursdays, checked for spiders first –

(in all things arachnid she was quite well-versed).

Boy Blue rolled Hill Jill on Saturdays at three, 

and each of them thought, “someday he’ll marry me!” 

The rolling continued along through the years,

with Bo peep the first one to end up in tears.

“I’m pregnant.” she cried, as Blue slept on the job. 

“He’s worthless,” she knew, and continue to sob.

Each rolling girl came, one by one, with this news – 

but Boy Blue just lay there,

continued his snooze. 

Miss Muffet knew spiders – thought of Black Widows, 

so she called all Blue’s hayrolls and all his kiddos: 

“Let’s go in together and get our revenge,” 

and watched as their faces contorted and twinged. 

Their ideas took root as they simmered and stewed – 

they gave him the boot…..now they’d give him the shoe. 

So off to the hayloft they stormed in a huff, 

rolled him their own way, clicked his wrists in handcuffs,

marched him down to his mama, told her their plans.

With Blue in his handcuffs, they’d tied her own hands –  

and just as they’d said, she knew just what she’d do: 

she’d give up the family farm for a shoe! 

She’d be tending her grandkids 

as she’d been told 

all leathered and laced up and Mother-Goose-soled

And as Boy Blue sleeps on in the shoe’s dark toe,

his mama tends grandkids – 

her offspring is woe! 

A Newfangled Nursery Rhyme by Kim Johnson 

 

Ants Go Marching Two By Two Haiku 

under an upturned

leaf a tiny tea party: 🫖   

ants’ #raindaysocial 

cups and saucers clink ~ ☕️ 

colony gossip occurs

ants have affairs, too

12 were seared alive

in a deadly ring of ^fire^ 🔥 

touring other hills

10 marched off in tin 

to tend war-seeking beetles 🪲 

{ they lost the battle }

8 selfishly ate

the dreaded killer ☠️ granules* 

(*that they did not share)

6 ants fallen sick – 

Coranta 🦠 virus [sic] sweeps

their toxic queendom

ant sorrow brings

this mound is full of mourning 

this world is too sad! 😔 

4 stepped out for a 

picnic 🧺 week ‘fore & have not

returned – all feared dead!

2  smooshed by a _shoe_ 👞 

like a too-weighty spacecraft 

crashed to earth: splattered!

1 egg-lain mistress:

drone stepping out on his queen??!!

👑 Queen won! ate them both

ant drama brings gasps;

this hill is full of shockers 

this world 🌎 has gone mad!

ants 🐜 decide to swap

#teaparty for #happyhour

…Long Island Iced Tea! 🍸  

 

 

Two Blue-hued Haiku 

two blue-hued kayaks

in the bed of the pickup 

we’re river ready! 

 

Quandary

How should one respond 

when an outspoken 

community member

dead set 

and vocal 

against masks

and tracking-juice vaccines

because the virus 

is a “huge farce” –

and just in case 

it’s not, he went ahead 

and injected that 

household disinfectant

in his veins

like some genius 

suggested –

gets it 

and is near death

and probably going to

exit stage left

leaving his wife and two 

kids with sky-high

hospital bills

two months later?

Does one contribute 

a box of masks in his memory?

or offer fresh-baked cookies 

to those in line to get the shot?

Because these responses 

and that Go Fund Me page

someone set up for him all

seem like things

he would not want 

to have holding him

in silent agreement

with a virus that 

he adamantly proclaimed

doesn’t exist. 

Asking for a friend in a quandary

who believes “I told you so”

isn’t quite appropriate here either.