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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

In Defense of Nonsense

I want the world to always be ridiculous.
To put its shirt on backward.
To be unforgivable but kind.
I want to discover a city on the moon,
show children where fairies live,
write books called facts that never were.
Watch balls bounce down instead of up.
Sell homemade caves for bats.
Invent a gun that shoots backward.
Let kids play sports outside
instead of on TV.
Invent games everyone can play.
Cotton candy football, puffball soccer,
ping-pong golf, short stuff basketball.
Newspapers be rinsed everyday before delivery.

I want the world to declare a holiday
from violence.
Doing it, reading it, watching it,
365 days a year.
Courses be taught in school,
how to use nonsense in a good cause,
and not find a reason for everything.
That intelligent design is for dummies.
That infinite care be taken
not to step on ants,
and wait for centipedes to catch up.
In other words,
how to be strong enough, smart enough,
wise enough,
to be silly, like the universe itself.

Published inIndex of all Poems