Balthazar Bumbershoot

Balthazar Bumbershoot had a mouth on each hand
and a shiny gold bugle where a mouth should be.
Most people, as you know,  have two legs
but Balthazar Bumbershoot had three.

He had two eyes under his eyebrows

and two more on either side of his nose.

He had purple fingernails on his green fingers

and green toenails on his purple toes.

He had a horn much like a unicorn

sticking out of his forehead.

The tip of it had a little light

that  at night glowed a bright shade of red.

One day wings sprouted from his ears

and he flew away like a big bird.

He said he couldn't stay here anymore

because this world was just too absurd. - Jeff Barnes

Tanka

Outside the window
Sunday passes more quickly
than it does in here.
Dogs' barks fade in the sunset
as I light the room with lamps. - Jeff Barnes

The Bluebird (With apologies to Edgar Allan Poe)

On a day quite bright and cheery, I was feeling rather eerie as I read a volume of my favorite writer, Edgar Allan Poe. While I read a tale so gruesome, a brisk breeze suddenly blew some annoying visitor through some, through some forgotten window. A bluebird of happiness blew in through some open window and he tweeted, "Cheer up, bro!"

I sat in my chair not heeding, determined to keep on reading

and ignoring this stupid bluebird who through the window had come,

with his cheery disposition, unlike any apparition,

he was clearly on a mission, a mission to make me succumb.

To a happy disposition he wanted me to succumb.

Quoth the Bluebird, "Why so glum?"

I tried to read of woe and gloom, the bluebird wouldn't leave the room

save when he flew out and brought me in his beak a yellow buttercup.

I was feeling vexed and crappy, he was being blithe and sappy,

determined to make me happy, happy, carefree and brightened up.

He wanted me to laugh, smile, be mirthful and to brighten up.

Quoth the Bluebird, "Lighten up!"

At this point I'd had quite enough of all this mawkish maudlin stuff.

I wanted to be left alone and now I was in a terrible snit.

I went and brought in my pet cat and I told him "Have at that!

It's a bluebird tasty and fat, a fat, delicious tidbit!"

My hungry cat went after that fat tasty looking tidbit

Quoth the Bluebird, "Holy shit!" - Jeff Barnes

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Beauregard Sweet Potato and his sidekick Lemon Basil went out to the garden to spread their seed about. Beau put the moves on a glacier tomato who told him to buzz off and then gave him a clout.

Basil went after a small red bush dry bean

and suggested they have a roll in the dirt,

but she shunned him for a devil's tongue looseleaf lettuce

who, it turned out, was a much more skillful flirt.

Beau then approached a goldenseal

but she was too upper crust.

Basil propositioned a scarlet runner bean

but she left him in the dust.

Beau hit on a cherry tomato but she

told him she preferred to remain chaste.

Basil struck out with a chickpea who said

long red peppers were more to her taste.

Basil was ready to pack it in but

Beau told him not to fret.

He said, "Don't give up, my friend!

There is hope for us yet!

"Somewhere there must be horehound

or maybe some fast lady cow-peas.

We'll have better luck with them.

They're always eager to please!"

Beau and Basil decided

they had ho reason to hang around,

and so they left their garden

and went in search of more fertile ground. -- Jeff Barnes

Haiku

My foot his pillow, tired gray cat stretches out. Rainy August night. Jeff Barnes

Haiku

Two wooden boxes.
These ashes were once our cats.
Rainy summer night. - Jeff Barnes

Harvest

Green tendrils rise from the ground, wrap themselves around my legs.

Stone Buddhas sit oblivious as watermelons fly like zeppelins strafing the garden.

Their seeds pierce

my flesh

like bullets.

Falling,

I see sunflowers

tower above me.

Their golden-lashed eyes

watch helplessly as my blood permeates the soil, nourishing the next crop. -- Jeff Barnes