In case you're thinking of Christmas. And I'm just getting started. ;-)

Balz, Horst, and Gerhard Schneider. Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament. 3 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990-93.

Melander, Rochelle, and Harold Eppley. The Spiritual Leader's Guide to Self-Care.

Spicq, Ceslas. Theological Lexicon of the New Testament. 3 vols. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994.

Ziglar, Zig. Staying Up, Up, Up in a Down, Down World.

The income tax has been abolished and the IRS will be closed.

The cleaning lady, a friend of our family, is here today and she's starting strong, dousing the place with some liquid cleaner that's perfumed the whole office with its pungent smell. I'm outta here for an hour or two.

She said: "I can kind of understand the [one] but I haven't a clue with the others! Write some that rhyme and have a clear Christian message for a 3 year old and I shall enjoy it!"

So, here's what you asked for: Cloudburst Poetry.

by J. Randal Matheny (c) 2003

I never met a man I didn't like,
except the commandant of the old Third Reich,
a man too short for greatness named Chirac,
the future former tyrant of Iraq,
a lying-through-his-teeth ex-pres called Bill,
his wife still after power on the Hill,
a class of talking heads like flapper Pete,
and, last and least, the dovish Carter feet.
A few more names could join this lowly list,
but you by now have got my general gist.
My list is short in light of teeming earth,
and there's a few whose deeds are just not worth
another line or minute in the light --
and one I didn't mention just for spite.