Your poem speaks to me more than any time in my life. The last year has given me time to reflect and contemplate. I turned 60 in December 2020. I asked myself, "How do I want to live the rest of my life? Not word for word came to me. Randy, but your sentiments hit very close to home.
MINDFULLY HUMOROUS
The Old Man has taught me more about being spiritually “woke” than many of the sages, mystics, and gurus I have studied.
Sacred Rituals
My sacred ritual starts at six am as my iPhone alarm gently shakes me awake during the week. I am a creature of habit. My first spiritual act is to visit the porcelain goddess to offer her a drink offering. She rewards me with bladder appeasement.
After the drink offering, I stumble into the kitchen like a drunken sailor while reciting my sacred OM, “Coffee-e-e. Inhale, then exhale — Coffee-e-e. Inhale then exhale — Coffee-e-e.” I know tea is supposed to be more spiritual, but coffee is my stimulant of choice to raise my level of present awareness.
SATIRE
Another Whole Toad News Service Exclusive
After recently declaring his home — Mar-a-Lago — an independent nation at the estate state, elections were held for the first time. After hours of counts, recounts, and double recounts, El Supremo Presidente Donald J. Trump, was unanimously declared the winner. He is now the first elected leader of the newly founded United Estate of Mar-a-Lago.
Immediately orders went to Trump Hats, Inc to begin manufacturing red ball caps with the Make Mar-a-Lago Great Again on the front.
For a mere $25.99, anyone who owns a MAGA hat can send theirs in and have it altered. New hats go for…
Fiction
As of yet, the FDA has not approved them
I drifted in and out of consciousness. A dull headache and the fog over my head have besieged me for several days now. The blood-red haze from the fever covers my eyes. Every aching and burning breath feels like a punch in the ribs. In my ears, I hear the continuous pounding. Do I detect my heart rate slowing?
Spasms of pain shoot through my body with each cough. Have my lungs come out of my throat and inverted? I am completely immobile. I cannot adjust to ease the discomfort.
How long have I been like this?
How long will…
SATIRE/HUMOR
Or, How My Interview with The Chief Editor was Interrupted by a Black Ops Team
What began as a routine interview with the Old Toad, owner, CEO, and Chief Editor for the Whole Toad News Service, resulted in an emergency evacuation. The special ops guys were gracious enough to give me a lift back to civilization.
Here is my account:
I, Barton Feldagelder of the Daily Spectacle, started an interview with the Old Toad at his hidden compound. I planned to discuss his perspective of the Biden administration and the Whole Toad News Service's future.
As planned, I was to meet The Old Toad at a gas station near Luray, Virginia. Out of the Dexter…
With the pandemic, the divisive presidential race, the economic crisis, and the violent civil unrest, 2020 warranted change. I’ve called this shortform essay The Meditation upon Warrant.
Warrant (as a verb)– justify or necessitate (a certain course of action).~ https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
By nature, humans resist change. We’re fearful of change even when warranted. If we accept change, we’re afraid of the outcomes.
Regardless of our attitude toward change, the universe, the laws of nature, Life in itself continually exert forces of change.
2020, I complied but resisted internally until the light dawned upon me and gave me a new course of action. If I am to live with inner peace despite the external disturbances, my internal dilemma warranted a necessary course of action: live in the present moment, change what I can, accept what I cannot, and marvel at the ordinary. In this, somewhere God abides.
https://donfeazelle.medium.com/washingtons-lament-812c471ab45d
FICTION
The Collapse of the Grand Ideal
The rising mist off the waters dissipated by a cold northerly breeze. Spontaneously, innumerable witnesses gathered at the Potomac River’s Virginia shore. The throng stared in shock as the smoke and flames billowed over DC.
Someone yelled from the crowd, “Has our Capitol fallen and how did this happen?”
A gentleman of renown spoke, “Did we not give them the best we had to offer? Through avarice and an unquenchable hunger for power, the political establishment has squandered our gift. The elected have scammed the electors.”
Father turned to the crowd and noted how quickly it had grown. Multitudes lined…
HUMOR
The Biden New Deal
In a recent press conference, President-elect Joe Biden announced his primary initiative for his first term. “My slogan for 2021 is to Make America Well Again. I thought of it myself while reading a Reader’s Digest story while on the toil…at my desk. Kamela and I have discussed the plan. We intend to give every American a Democrat blue mask when they receive their first COVID-19 vaccination. The mask will have my slogan — Make America Well Again — embroidered on each one in fancy letters.”
“Pardon me, President-elect Biden, Jeff Birkenfeld of the COVID-19 Task Force, the Whole Toad…
According to the timekeepers, we have entered a new year, a new era. The movement to a new year, a number set by some ancient monk to commemorate the birth of Jesus the Christ child. Historians believe the monk miscalculated by four or five years.
Nonetheless, this calendar system is the standard by which most of the world tracks years. We plan our lives around the calendar, which is fine until the calendar becomes the straps that bind us: a stressor and harsh taskmaster to rule our lives like commands written on the stone from God.
Look at the natural…
Don Feazelle
Writer, philosopher, humorist, observer of life, an all-around lovable guy.
