The inedible heart, indelibly etched

Think I'm bitter. Well, eat this, friend.

It is none other than my own heart in poem-form. It's a million times bitterer and blacker than yours will ever be, I reply most humbly.

In all seriosity, for we live in cities most serious, my last posting was an attempt at being funny, but I've been told that it was a stab in the dark. I meant to clothe the sardonic bitter-heartedness of that post with a veil of inanity, but it just didn't work.

And I apologize. I'm normally fairly, well, um, not exactly happy-go-lucky, but perhaps gappy-lo-hucky is more like it. : )

Again, I wish that the Bombeck contest was every year, to reiterate--because I think there's a lot of talent out there. I would not have wanted to judge this year's contest. My beef, if there is any beef, is that Erma Bombeck was not an eternal grandma. She was a younger woman, and mom, once too, as we all know. So, I'm not sure why the top picks were all about menopause. I won't say that the judges are biased, for that's not what I mean. Just that they have menopause on the brain, ha-ha.

Me, I have anti-menopause on the brain. I'm fighting the men with both my paws, without pause, and with red tooth, nail, and claw, too. I'm naturally in tune with Nature, and I refuse to grow old. Take that, arthritis that runs in my family! Kapow to Parkinson's. I'm kicking the annoying ar*e that is Alzheimer's. I'm decimating the diabetes that decimated my grandparents. Fie on the fat bags under my eyes. And a rancorous, rocky raccoon to the rings under my already dark eyes.

Old age, don't you come around here no more. To paraphrase a poet named Tom. And, without further ado, thank you Stephen Crane (read "In the Desert" here, in preparation for National Poetry Month--April: http://poems.com/Poets%20Picks/Rusty_Morrison.html) and my dear readers, all 2 of you. Love ya!