On Being Asked to Tell a Tall Tale and Make it Funny

 

But I’m not feeling very funny right now – 

not, anyway, in the sense of amused.

Or amusING. And I don’t think I have

any tales tall enough to top the reality,

the unbelievable reality of what’s going on

in the world right now. 

                          

Once upon a time

there was a race of creatures on this planet,

a species, I guess you’d say, that grew fast

and large – too large in the end for this earth

to encompass them. You think I mean dinosaurs?

No, I mean ourselves, breeding and breeding.

You see it with other animals. Overcrowding

leads to aggression; fights to the death. There 

were all these experiments on rats…. Sometimes,

earth produces a plague or a famine to deal with

the burgeoning numbers. Sometimes that’s not

enough. Nowhere near.

This species became 

so big that it blotted out the sun. Well, in a way.

Or perhaps it was the opposite. Anyway,

climate changed. (Oh, you’ve already heard 

this impossibly tall tale?) A sudden plague, 

which wiped out many, didn’t quite do the job.

Then the new wars began – even though 

many of the species knew this was not

the way to a habitable planet, a safe space

to live out lives of harmony with nature.

The powerful didn’t care. Survival? I think

we haven’t a prayer.

I've been combining prompts from NaPoWriMo and Poem A Day at Poetic Asides. Today, one was to tell a tall tale, the other to write something funny. Luckily both are optional.  My pessimistic piece ended up veering to today's prompt in Rajani's April list at her Thoughtpurge blog: Prayer. (And I guess subverting that, too.)