.
The Limits of Hospitality
_While I was working in my garden
_A traveler said, “I beg your pardon,
But could you tell me where to find a church?”
_Said I, “Just look around you, man;
_Experience the Masterplan.
No earnest pilgrim ever needs to search.”
_He said that he was looking for
_A whitewashed structure with a door
On which is posted: PLEASE DO ENTER IN.
_I told him to roll up his sleeves,
_To grab a spade or rake some leaves,
For that’s where true salvation will begin.
_It seemed I’d taken him aback,
_And so I showed him to my shack,
Where we sat down to corn and lima beans.
_He spent the night in my spare bed,
_And when the morning came he said,
“For breakfast I would like to try some greens.”
_And so it went for several days,
_Through morning mist and evening haze,
Which made me think he ought to pay some rent.
_At suppertime I told him that
_He needs to pull his weight, or scat.
He smiled and said, “No need, I have a tent.”
.
.
The Last Yugoslav
_Nikola was belligerent
And always wore a dagger and a frown,
_With not enough refrigerant
In all the world to cool his temper down.
_He rendered judgment on his captives:
If they were healthy, he cut off their heads.
_He had no time for maladaptives—
If they were sick, he just cut off their meds.
_He wanted women soft and fluffy,
Like feather pillows stuffed to bust a seam,
_And yet they said this Balkan toughie
But rarely slept and did not ever dream.
_A couple of his distant cousins
Complained about his brutal iron fist.
_He reasoned that, since he had dozens,
This pair of fools would likely not be missed.
_When people learned he’d fallen ill
And gone to meet his Maker, no one cried.
_They hated him and always will,
And some still celebrate the day he died.
.
.
C.B. Anderson was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series, The Victory Garden. Hundreds of his poems have appeared in scores of print and electronic journals out of North America, Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Australia and India. His collection, Mortal Soup and the Blue Yonder was published in 2013 by White Violet Press.
Kip, these are hysterically funny. No boring sentimentality, no tedious edification, no moralistic sermonizing — just impish fun and sharp verbal swordplay!
Two great fictive ideas: a freeloading churchgoer who has a thing for fresh vegetables, and the last of a defunct Yugoslavia’s citizenry (they’re all Croats or Serbs or Bosnians or Monenegrins now, as they were in 1914).
Yeah, Joe, I been on a roll lately. I think there are still at least a few persons who identify as Yugoslav: naturalized Americans who emigrated to the U.S. before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A few years ago I worked beside an extended family of Bosnians, good masons and good general workers all. The second generation was as American as I am, and none of us had any trouble getting along with each other. Balkanization might well be a very good thing. Who stands against the preservation of cultural identities? Only those who have never had anything to lose.
And I’m happy to have coaxed a chuckle.
I, too, really enjoyed the humor in these!
C.B. As they say, “Stick a fork in it!” These tales are medium rare, just the way I like ‘em! And, of course, well seasoned to perfection!