[Roger Slater]

OK, Brian, I have taken your challenge and gone for the bacon, though I'm not sure the string will hold:

The Journey

Follow your heart where it leads you.
Always be open and caring.
Be there when somebody needs you.
Be modest, yet also be daring.
Stand up and give your opinion.
Sit when you've nothing to say.
Lead, and be nobody's minion.
Tomorrow begins with today.
Always know truth is the master
Yet truth is your heart, so pursue
The passions that make it beat faster.
Your soul's destination is you.
And though on the day that you get there,
if you have the pluck to arrive,
the sun of your brief life will set there,
you'll know you were truly alive!

[Brian Allgar]

Ah, now that one is starting to provoke the gag reflex!

[Roger Slater]

Not Just Bacon, The Whole Pig!

Never only take a bite.
Consume the whole darn thing.
Don't just have a point. Be right!
Why hum when you can sing?
Do not walk when you can run.
If you have wings, then fly!
Be the bullet, not the gun.
Succeed, don't merely try!
Do not tap your foot, but dance!
Complete what you have started.
It's better to have pooed your pants
Than never to have farted.

[Janice D. Soderling]

The journey gags me wonderfully. The whole pig makes me laugh out loud, you don't want that. (OK, I am going to shut up, this isn't my turf, I am just an idle bystander.)

[Brian Allgar]

Roger, Janice is right, the whole darn pig made me laugh! Personally, I prefer laughing to gagging, but who knows in which direction Lucy's tastes may run?

And Janice, don't worry about turf:

"They also serve who only stand and laugh"

[Roger Slater]

Thanks. I'm not sure which way the judging will go. After all, this is supposed to be a humor contest, no? There are more ways to parody motivational advice than simply to take it over the top.

Pearls

Sometimes when you're weary
it is hard to keep a cheery
disposition and you find you
need a good friend to remind you
as your eyes grow moist and moister
that the world remains your oyster!

[Roger Slater]

Actually, I should shorten that:

Pearls

Though you sob and your eyes grow moister,
the world remains your oyster.

[basil ransome-davies]

Originally Posted by Esther Murer

this is off the self-help topic, but I can't resist putting it in:

To my muse

"An example of [sentimentality] might be a poem in which an excess of emotion is lavished on a floor lamp." — Ted Kooser

I wooed a lovely standard lamp,
So elegant, so sexy;
Her fuse a mighty 15-amp,
Her cable long and flexy.
For many months her gorgeous glow
Lit up my lonely life,
Until the day I courted woe
By pleading 'Be my wife'.
She almost broke her bulb at that,
So loudly did she sneer
'What! Marry you, a balding, fat
Old dork? Get outa here!'
That ended it. But still I weep
To think the light that shone
And woke a love that slept so deep
Is gone, is gone, is gone...

[Roger Slater]

Funny. Maybe change "What?" to "Watt?" Well, maybe not.

[Brian Allgar]

Oh, Basil, that is so sad ... sniff, sniff ... I'm reaching for the Kleenex ... Damn! That's the one I'd already used to pick up the doggy-poo.