The Queen of Cups

The Queen of Cups is happy tonight.
Her wavy silver hair reflects
the blue dusk and sliver
of moon

and swirls 
like a vortex of moving sky
as she dances
to the songs of 
a northern mockingbird.

Her eyes reflect the stars,

her laughter a counterpoint

to the calls of

the spring peepers

and when she lies down

in the grass 

her sleeping breath harmonizes

with the sound

of the stream that runs

just beyond the trees. - Jeff Barnes

Creation Myth #8,693,212

The sun didn't come up this morning,
but a giant fried egg rose in the sky.
A purple gorilla waved at me
as he flew by on an atomic pie.

Blue jays were swimming in the river.

A blue whale went out for a walk.

A giraffe flew by in a helicopter,

in hot pursuit of the Jabberwock.

Three platypuses played poker in my living room

and asked if they could deal me in.

"No thanks," I said. "I just bought a new unicycle

and I'd like to  take it for a spin."

As I rode my unicycle around the block

a man with a bow and arrow came by.

He looked up, took aim, and shot

an arrow at the egg in the sky.

This archer's aim was quite flawless.

The nucleus of the giant egg broke.

And that's how the world as we knew it

became an endless sea of yolk. - Jeff Barnes

In the Beginning

After the used bookstore closed
and everyone with us had fled
to wherever they were going
we stood alone in the parking lot
and decided to have our first dessert
together, pumpkin ice cream
served up in waffle cones.

We stayed until the ice cream joint

closed and even afterwards

we lingered in the parking lot

on that October night.

The blue outfit, complete with blue boots,

you wore to the movie the following week

brought to mind the lyrics from a Rolling Stones song

about seeing the sky in front of you.

Shortly before Halloween we went to a party

and met a self-styled psychic who said our love

was forbidden and that you would move

to California and marry a doctor and that I

would end up married to a blonde woman

I would meet at work.

Eleven years later, you and I

still look back on that day

and burst out laughing at that dumb bitch. - Jeff Barnes

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