Haiku

Eddies and whirlpools --
waves crash against each other
in a Van Gogh sky. - Jeff Barnes

Letter to Santa: An Easter Story by Jeff Barnes

 Dear Santa:

This is just a quick note to thank you for filling in and taking my route, especially on such short notice. Thank God for cell phones, or I might not have been able to contact you. And I am truly sorry that I had to interrupt your vacation on Christmas Island, but I know that you and I share the same priority: not letting the children down.

To be honest, I got a bad feeling when I stopped at this particular house and saw the huge pickup with truck nuts on the trailer hitch, but I proceeded against my better judgement. Big mistake. Some redneck who no doubt considered hunting camouflage the ultimate in haute couture saw me and decided that he wanted to bag himself a bunny.

He managed to get off a few shots with his automatic rifle, one of which wounded me in my right rear leg. Dickhead!

I managed to limp to the house next door. Fortunately, the people there were a lot nicer. They took me to an emergency veterinary clinic. Don't even get me started on how embarrassing that was. The vet got me patched up. Unfortunately, hopping will be out of the question for a few weeks and there was no way I could limp around the world and get all the Easter baskets delivered in time.

Thank you, old friend, for saving the day, and a big thank you to all your reindeer. It was rather amusing to see all the news reports about how confused everybody was to see Santa flying around on Easter. It made everybody's day more surreal, but the important thing is that you got all the Easter baskets delivered and nobody had to go without.

I owe you one, buddy. I expect to be fully recovered by next Easter, and I promise that I am going to put copious amounts of chocolate in your basket. As for the hayseed who shot me, let me just say that he will also have copious amounts of something in his basket, but it won't be chocolate, if you get my drift.

Very Sincerely Yours,

Easter Bunny

Peanut

 Recently I was telling my wife about the cartoons I used to draw of co-workers, and showed her a few.  She asked, "If you drew a cartoon of me, what would it look like?"  So I scribbled this and I think it looks like my wife if she were a character in "Peanuts."

Jonah Silly Socks

 

Jonah is a silly cat.

His fur is completely gray.

He likes to brighten his looks

by wearing silly socks each day.

It started when he was a kitten

and wrote to Santa Claus.

He asked for a bag of silly socks

small enough to fit his paws.

When Santa read Jonah's letter

he filled his biggest sack

with silly socks for Jonah to wear

on his paws, front and back..

Some of the socks have tiger stripes

and some have leopard spots.

Some have swirly colors

and some have polka dots.

Others have patterns

of all sorts of different things,

like unicorns and dragons

and pigs with silver wings,

pickup trucks and airplanes,

choo-choo trains and cars,

astronauts and rockets

and aliens from Mars.

Many of his socks have stripes

in every color and hue,

hot pink and lemon yellow

tangerine orange and electric blue,

lavender and magenta,

and many colors in between,

like periwinkle purple

and bright parakeet green.

Jonah loves his silly socks.

The colors bring him cheer.

They are the only gifts he asks for

when he writes to Santa every year. - Jeff Barnes

This silly poem was inspired by a dream I had, in which our cat Jonah wore green and white striped socks.