Penny Postcard

(Click image to enlarge.)
(This is a re-post from 2017.)

This poetic Valentine’s Day card was postmarked Perry Ill., 4 p.m., Feb. 13, 1911. The man who mailed it could expect that his beloved, “Birdie,” would have it in her hand the very next day—Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day. In those days, first-class mail was delivered morning and afternoon and postcards required only a one-cent postage stamp. Note also that in this case the card was mailed and delivered sans street name or number. Small town—everyone knows everyone else—therefore, no street address required. What ever happened to that wonderful postal system? Well, for one thing, Time happened.

Today’s Gag

Copyright 2017, Jim Sizemore

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Halloween Poem

The Physics of Pumpkins

By Florence Newman

“The top’s too heavy, too much space below,”

my neighbor says. “’Spect she’ll start sagging soon.”

He’d lugged the massive thing out front for me.

I realize with horror that he’s right.

I’d carved my share of pumpkins through the years,

protected them from predatory squirrels,

from Mischief Night marauders: hubris had

at last undone me. A slightly wider grin,

an extra tooth or two—I should have known

the plan was flawed, the architecture tenuous.

Before too long the carriage will collapse,

sides slump, rind pit and wrinkle, pulp dissolve

and putrify. The oblique eyes, the arching brows,

isosceles nose are doomed to droop and molder.

Look on those overweening teeth, ye mighty,

and descry their graying edges fold and sear,

like the striate skin of a stitched cadaver.

Now soon a press of princesses, pop stars,

pirates, pixies, vampires, ninjas, sprites,

enchanters, supermen, and bumblebees

will throng the street, importunate to take

their turn, while my poor jack-o-lantern, claimed

by gravity, sits rotting at the door

before I’ve even got the candle lit.

Copyright © 2017, Florence Newman

Halloween Poem

The Physics of Pumpkins

By Florence Newman

“The top’s too heavy, too much space below,”

my neighbor says. “’Spect she’ll start sagging soon.”

He’d lugged the massive thing out front for me.

I realize with horror that he’s right.

I’d carved my share of pumpkins through the years,

protected them from predatory squirrels,

from Mischief Night marauders: hubris had

at last undone me. A slightly wider grin,

an extra tooth or two—I should have known

the plan was flawed, the architecture tenuous.

Before too long the carriage will collapse,

sides slump, rind pit and wrinkle, pulp dissolve

and putrify. The oblique eyes, the arching brows,

isosceles nose are doomed to droop and molder.

Look on those overweening teeth, ye mighty,

and descry their graying edges fold and sear,

like the striate skin of a stitched cadaver.

Now soon a press of princesses, pop stars,

pirates, pixies, vampires, ninjas, sprites,

enchanters, supermen, and bumblebees

will throng the street, importunate to take

their turn, while my poor jack-o-lantern, claimed

by gravity, sits rotting at the door

before I’ve even got the candle lit.

Copyright © 2016, Florence Newman

War of 1812

Click image to enlarge. These four cartoon characters, among others, were created to represent actual people who were somehow involved in the battle to defend Fort McHenry from the British on September 12-14, 1814. Three years ago, the images were published in a Jr. Rangers booklet at the fort. This composite image is now available for printing on mugs, t-shirts, and various other products at: zazzle.com.

Today’s Quote

“Whoever tied the Mylar birthday balloon to the dead squirrel on Main Street thinks big.“

Jennifer L. Knox

Days of Shame & Failure, Bloof Books

Note: I rarely buy poetry, but I like to read about poets—especially one who writes a poem titled “Iowa Plates,” with a first line that would make a great caption-less gag cartoon. I just received the collection in the mail; the poem plus the book title alone is well worth $15 . . .

Today’s Poem

Solstice

By Florence Newman

All year we’ve banked the embers of our rage

and gathered brittle bitterness and grief,

stacked cords of hardened sorrows high to feed

the bonfire built against the darkening days.

Tonight a fiery feast at last repays

our abstinence; upon the pyre we heave

our heartache, the sacrifice we bleed,

bottomless libation, offering to the blaze.

Cast in the broken hopes, the stifled sighs,

recriminations, doubts, defeat, despair,

the fruit of many seasons, grimly grown.

Fill up the void with self-deceit and lies,

with unshed tears, unspoken pain and care,

and beat the drum until the very depths resound.

Copyright © 2015 Florence Newman.

WPA Color, 1939-1943

Signs

When my bother, Vernon Leroy (Lee) Sizemore, retired from the military, he earned his living as a sign painter, a skill he had picked up in vocational high school and sharpened by—among other things—painting pin-up girls and fancy lettering on the noses of airplanes. In the years before his death, he was doing broadsheet window signs for grocery stores and night clubs. Some of his expert brush lettering signs were finished with glued-on glitter, especially those promoting bands and singers. Near the end of his life, he fell off a ladder while hanging an exterior sign and wound up with a severe right-side head injury. He was in a coma for months. Once he woke up, I visited him several times in Denver. He always had something interesting to say, riffs that would start O.K., then wander off into fantasy, not making much sense—but to my ears they were weird poetry. And when he drew Picasso-like portraits of people, me included, he always left the right side of the head blank. When I asked why, he said because that was the way they were.

Lee was a wonderful older brother. Because of all the good things he taught me during trips to museums and theaters, letting me tag along when he shined shoes in South Baltimore  bars, and schooling me in basic sign layout theory, I’ve dedicated this post to him.

(Click images to enlarge.)

A collection of photographs like the ones above, on a wide range of subjects, are in the archives of FSA/OWI (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information). These rich color images, taken within three years of the invention of Kodachrome, serve to inspire as much as to document. To see more of them on this site, type “WPA color” into the small search window in the sidebar on the right of this page. For the complete collection, visit the WPA site by tapping the link in the sidebar box marked “Photography.”

Today’s Poem

Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1841-1935

Cacoëthes Scribendi

(An itch for scribbling.)

 If all the trees in all the woods were men,

And each and every blade of grass a pen;

If every leaf on every shrub and tree

Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea

Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes

Had nothing else to do but act as scribes,

And for ten thousand ages, day and night,

The human race should write, and write, and write,

Till all the pens and paper were used up,

And the huge inkstand was an empty cup,

Still would the scribblers clustered round its brink

Call for more pens, more paper, and more ink.

 

Oliver Wendell Holmes

—The Oxford Book of Comic Verse

Edited by John Gross

Today’s Poems

Gavin Ewart, 1916-1995

The Black Box

As well as these poor poems

I am writing some wonderful ones.

They are all being filed separately,

nobody sees them.

When I die they will be buried

in a big black tin box.

In fifty years’ time

they must be dug up,

for so my will provides.

This is to confound the critics

and teach everybody

a valuable lesson.

 

‘It’s Hard to Dislike Ewart’

—New Review critic

I always try to dislike my poets,

it’s  good for them, they get so uppity otherwise,

going around thinking they’re little geniuses—

but sometimes I find it hard. They’re so pathetic

in their efforts to be liked.

When we’re all out walking on the cliffs

it’s always pulling my coat with ‘Sir! Oh, Sir!’

and ‘May I walk with you, Sir?’—

I sort them out harshly with my stick.

If I push a few over the edge, that only

encourages the others. In the places of preferment

there is room for just so many.

The rest must simply lump it.

There’s too much sucking up and trying to be clever.

They must all learn they’ll never get round me—

Merit has nothing to do with it. There’s no way

to pull the wool over my eyes, no way,

no way . . .

 

By Gavin Ewart

—The Oxford Book of Comic Verse

Edited by John Gross