Eater Bunny and Easter Hare

Chocolate Easter Eggs are savored by all children but the joy is so fleeting and the only evidence of the event is some chocolate stained fingers and maybe some stains on a child's clothes and the waning evidence of a sugar high after too many eggs. But the knowledge and experience gained from reading or having been read too may last forever. Hope your Easter Bunny had a Gutenberg Hare laden with children's books as his Wingrabbit. Joyous Easter and hope you enjoy this poem I wrote 13 years ago.

The Easter Bunny and the Easter Hare

During Easter week the Easter Bunnies are so busy, free time is very rare,

Picking chocolate eggs and rabbits, Easter grass and candies for children to share.

On Easter morn, hard to find a doorstep without the signs that  an Easter Bunny has hopped there.

But in this chocolate kingdom, a new suggestion voiced from the Gutenberg Hare,

“Fellow rabbits I do not want to break tradition,

Never accuse me of treason or sedition,

We all bring the joy of Easter in a long anticipated rendition,

But in your sweet baskets, perhaps a small welcome addition?”

Now rabbits may squeak but they rarely complain or moan,

Yet from the twitching tails and noses came a collective complaining tone,

“Our baskets are overloaded; handles already cut through to the bone,

Any addition would be too much weight to carry alone!”

The Gutenberg Hare slowly raised his paw above the rabbits’ complaining din,

Even though a gentle, studious hare, this was a dispute he must win,

For the joy of Easter should not be only a chocolate web to spin.

Slowly, he bent over into an open, non candied laden bin.

He lifted and put into his Easter basket a book every child would want to read,

“Friend rabbits, chocolate is divine; on it children will always draw a bead,

But to leave a good book to read

Is like a farmer planting the seeds,

Of morals, thoughts, fables, or heroes to do good deeds,

Teachings and lessons to show the way or teach how to lead.

Lucky is the child, who has a large chocolate to savor and not waste,

While reading a book for sweet knowledge is also a long lasting taste.”

And so with a voice vote that closed the friendly debate,

For no rabbit on Easter morn wished to be late,

To the lucky houses chocolates and candy baskets left on porch or stair, 

Followed by a basket of books left by a Gutenberg Hare.

Michael P. Ridley

Aka the Alaskanpoet

www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com

© 3/24/2005

Obama Is MIA As Baghdad Is Soon To Fall To ISIS

The headline of Fox’s “Asleep at the Wheel” to describe the Administration’s blunder is graphic but in error

Implying exhausting efforts to fight the likes of ISIS on their march to Baghdad to install a reign of terror

In this case, Obama turned off the military engine, took the keys, locked the door

While walking away he and his minions touting “Al Qaeda thanks to me is no more!”

“ISIS is a jayvee team trying to imitate Kobe Bryant in a Laker shirt!”

This ISIS team is pure all star varsity, playing like Kobe Bryant before he was seriously hurt

The only jayvee team on the world stage is an experienced inept Obama and security advisers

Who see the world through rose colored glasses and reality glare shield visors

Listen to a Baghdad Bob type statement on Monday from Marie Harf

“ISIS not gaining territory”—excuse me while I find a place to barf

Not only are with playing with a jayvee team, it is still in the locker room waiting to suit up

While around the world jihadist fanaticism continues to violently erupt

Obama is and has been and most likely will completely MIA remain

As Iraq and the sacrifices of our brave men and women in uniform go down the drain

The only group that is today on the run

Is Team U.S.A. saddled with a CinC who wants us to our great power role shun

Chamberlain at least had a piece of paper from Hitler in his hand

When Britain and France ceded over to him the Sudetenland

When Saigon fell with a Conga line of refugees in to the embassy roof dance

We at least had Paris Accords and a slim hope that peace might have a chance

Here we have nothing, zero, squat, no honor, no plan and no CinC iron will

Only memories of billions spent, lives maimed and lost as ISIS moves in for the kill

Make no mistake about it Afghanistan is next as sure as the sun will rise

Obama gave the Taliban the exact date we will be gone so should not be a surprise

Look off into the future and Nigeria with its oil may make the Islamic-to-be-acquired list

Hard with only hashtags and shifting red lines to these fanatics successfully resist

Where is the President? Where are Rice and the NSA? Where are the Joint Chiefs?

Sounds of Silence as this nation with its MIA CinC is heading into a world of grief

© June 12, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

Reflections On The Troutdale Shootings--A New Norm For School?

It seems that it is almost impossible for a school shooting not to be on a News Alert

Isla Vista, Seattle, Troutdale just to name a few where students were killed or if lucky only hurt

In Oregon the shooter boarded the school bus with a duffel bag and Guitar case as if music to play

But the strings were an AR-15, the only notes were bullets by the score intent on making a choir of victims to slay

After learning of latest school shooting in Oregon, two teens meeting a far too early demise

One a freshman bystander only 14, the other the shooter 15 by his own hand dies,

Wondering what in heaven’s name is this world coming to with all these shootings on the rise

I read a study by a learned professor from the FBI murder stats that was a surprise

The number of mass shootings and victims is essentially a flat line trend

Even if the definitions of mass shootings one tries to bend

Any fatal shooting is a tragedy that leaves for family and friends

A huge gaping emotional hole of grief and sorrow that takes almost forever to mend

Before the internet, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Cable News, we lived in ignorant bliss

Living in L.A. a mass shooting in New York might be buried in a paper that we might miss

No longer in a 24/7 world where events are in real time

Hard to escape the latest shooting, the latest heinous crime

But although the trend line may be flat, our nation is very dangerous place

Our abandonment of the mentally ill is a total disgrace

While the First will not let you in a crowded theater yell “Fire”

Any discussions of limits on the Second are shot down in the rhetoric and expire

One does wonder if there is a lowering of the shooters’ average age

A truly deadly combo of lack of youthful judgment coupled with mental rage

Like the poor who we will have with us so will we have the mentally ill

Time to focus more on minds of the potential shooters to reduce the victims they might kill.

© June 11, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

New Zealand Taxes Low Unlike U.S. Its Taxpayers It Does Not Fleece

It is great news from the land of 20 million sheep
The Kiwis are climbing out of global hole dug far too deep
4 percent a year growth is not shabby at all
Especially when compared to ours that falters and stalls
Their growth rate cannot be the result of having all those sheep
It could be that some taxes are not there and others are not steep
No capital gains, no payroll, top corporate rate of 28 percent, no taxes on estates
Simple, predictable, and fair--no wonder the Kiwis have raised their interest rates
Would be nice if over a banquet of legs of lamb our Reds and Blues would strive to the Kiwis imitate
And with Obama's famous pen elect to lower our taxes instead of each other continue to berate

 © June 11, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

Cantor Sings His Last Song, Loses To Brat

It is not over until the fat lady sings

But in Virginia an upset in swing

Cantor’s song ended on a sour note with no room for an encore

Come January he will no longer be seen on the House floor

Money may be the mother’s milk of politics and PACs may rule

But Brat’s upset proves that even millions spent will not many voters fool

Cantor may have seemed remote, more of interest to the national scene

As majority leader, an insider, friend to Wall Street and recipient of their green

This will be a much studied upset, a first and only one of its kind

Out of nowhere an unknown college professor with little money came come from behind

It will be the subject of many a talking head

But in the fog of the loss, immigration reform is probably dead

Since we do not have to give reasons for why we vote the way we did

We might not learn why Cantor his Republican voters chose to rid

I hope it was not Cantor’s support of a form of the Dream Act

Which is swamping our borders with a tide of minors that will not slack

My hunch is that Cantor symbolized the well meaning politician who was turning service into a career

Something the founders must not have intended and what today we voters should fear.

In his flush of victory as a drinker of Tea one would hope Brat does not put victory into the jaws of November defeat

In dealing with the Great Pinocchio, we need to add not lose any House seats

© June 11, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet