14-8

Advice

Don't cry over milk spilled
in your half-filled cup of tea.
A bird by any other name
is worth two in the tree.

Feed a silk purse to an old dog,
but you'll never make him drink,
'cause the grass always greener
in the other kitchen sink.

You shouldn't count your chickens
in a house made out of glass.
Don't stop to smell a rat
or look a gift horse in the ass.

Each time it rains, it might pour
cats and dogs on your parade;
so dance like a fish out of water,
or you'll be a wet blanket's old maid.

Fight frying pans with fire;
chase the goose who ate your hat.
Never whistle in the belfry;
knock your socks right off the bat.

You won't find camels threading
needles in a stack of hay.
Remember, even broken clocks
are cleaned two times a day.

by Laura Garrison

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Laura Garrison lives in a small apartment with her husband and an evil gnome. She has never actually seen the gnome, but she knows it's there because something keeps hiding her shoes in weird places and stealing all the good jellybeans out of the candy dish. She studies American literature but secretly dreams of becoming a wrecking-ball operator. She likes turtles, carnivals, and blueberry pancakes.

14-7

Knitting as Marital Therapy

Needles. Click click click.
Knitting occupies both hands.
I can't strangle you.

by Kathy Ferrell

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Kathy Ferrell writes and makes art from the confines of the free range asylum known as West Virginia. Dissenting against the current Appalachian pastime of seeing how much mud one can get on one's teeth in a 24 hour period, she instead advocates a return to the more staid cultural practices of her ancestors; sin eating, widow pickin', snake handling, and xenophobia. She maintains a blog that is not consistently stupid, and in this economy, that's saying somethin' cuposwank.wordpress.com

14-6

Inequity

"Watch
Blind Pedestrians"

it says
but not in Braille
and I watch them
without fail
but isn't this unfair
to those who see?
Do the blind, I wonder,
Listen protectively for me?


by Timons Esaias

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Timons Esaias is a satirist, poet and writer of short fiction, living in Pittsburgh, and teaching at Seton Hill University. His work has appeared in fifteen languages. His News Nots satire column appeared in seven newspapers, and convinced many readers that the Vatican was relocating to St. Louis and that the Pittsburgh Sewer & Water Authority had decided to add Prozac to the water supply (along with sodium pentothal at tax time). He tends to go on and on about stuff.

14-5

The Rhyme of the Patient Dog Owner

with a nod to Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Pee pee, pee pee everywhere
They lift their legs in sync.
Pee pee, pee pee everywhere
And how the place does stink.

So very deep the spot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yes, naughty things do lift their legs
Upon all that they see.

Get out, get out, I scold and rout
The spritzing day and night;
They water, like a pitcher's spout,
As though it were all right.

And they in dreams assured were
Of their bright streams that plagued us so;
Our love so deep we had pardoned them
For all acts inapropos.

by Diane de Anda

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Diane de Anda is a third generation Latina and retired UCLA professor with expertise in teen pregnancy, STD, and violence prevention. No longer grinding out academic papers, she writes short stories, satires, parodies, children's books, and poetry. She has short stories in Rosebud and Pacific Review, poetry in Light, 7 published children's books, and hopes to make time to learn how to play her collection of 24 drums.