Another great short talk by Beau thanks to Forgottenman.
Carey Wedler, a cohort of Beau of the Fifth Column, shows us what the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance looks like when you remove the chaff:
Beau, as you might expect (if you recall my past postings of his rants) has a wonderful follow-up critique:
Remember many years ago when roads were just two-lane
and strings of Wally Byamers would drive across the plain,
swarms of silver trailers, in a never-ending chain
that made passing all of them a headache and a pain?
With oncoming traffic to take into account,
It was an endless chore of weaving in and out.
As a little girl, I’d stand beside the highway,
watching all the traffic whizzing by my tiny byway.
And once I saw a cherry top wave a trailer down
that was leading a whole caravan of airstreams through our town.
“Yada yada yada,” said their leader to the cop
when he gave the orders for their caravan to stop.
What was their infraction? They’d done not done one thing wrong!
The problem was their caravan, the cop said, “It’s too long.”
Thirty airstreams in a row was courting a disaster.
Couldn’t half of them just try to drive a little faster
to create a distance, giving other cars a break.
A little space between them before they overtake
another clump of traffic that will have them in-and-outing,
rolling down their windows and gesturing and shouting?
But, proud as any Samurai, the leader shouted, “No!”
“Without me here to lead them, they won’t know where to go!”
And that’s why thirty airstreams are parked in our back field,
waiting for their leader, who has refused to yield.
He’s camped out in our jailhouse, relieved if truth will tell—
rescued from constant wandering and cozy in his cell.
Word prompts for the day are yada yada yada, only, caravan, proud and samurai.
Heliconi
Executing
Do-It-Yourself!
He’d written the definitive how-to-do-it guide,
but needed a good editor, so I had applied.
He was a woodsy sort of bloke, self-confident and curious,
but once I got to know him, I found him to be spurious.
Though he seemed independent, when I asked him to replace
a light bulb in its socket, he did a turn-of-face.
He balked and had a certain emergency of bladder
when asked if he would simply climb up on a ladder!
It seems the very sort of jobs he taught us to be doing,
due to his acrophobia, were ones he was eschewing!
When it came to home improvement, he was words upon a shelf,
giving literal meaning to the term “do-it-yourself!”
Prompt words today are woodsy, replace, independent, editor and spurious.
Framed
When I’m tired of television, my digestive tract
draws me to the kitchen and there we make a pact.
Shoe by shoe, approach the fridge and though the hour is late,
We stuff ourselves with what’s inside ’til appetites abate.
Making sorties on the fridge with just my own collusion?
The thought I’ll get away with it it’s merely an illusion.
They’re bound to miss that half a pie, but then the plot will thicken
when they note the absence of half a tub of chicken.
I leave the fridge a bit ajar, the Colonel’s box in front of it,
hoping when it’s time to blame that I won’t take the brunt of it.
I put the pie plate on the floor, increasing the odds that
if I spread bones around it, perhaps they’ll blame the cat!
Prompt words today are illusion, television, late, tract and shoe.
