PR-233 (Published in Ascent Aspirations)
Serious Eyes
There is a small baby behind everything
If you look carefully
You will see
Her serious eyes
And the selfless gesture
Her chubby fist
Offering you her rattle
You must see past your
Surface of things or she will go
Unnoticed unattended
Orphaned
PR-248
We Had Vengeance Issues
My mother used to tell us boys
About the best classical composers
There was Haydn:
The hack just cranked them out
Hell he wrote over a hundred symphonies
And in the other corner
Was Cesar Franck
Who only wrote one
But with loving care
And painstaking craftsmanship
Which was why he only did the one
But it was a masterpiece
One day she came home
To hear us playing a symphony
“What ‘s this music?” she said
“It’s beautiful”
We had vengeance issues
So we lied
“It’s Franck” we said
She got all excited saying
“See what I mean?”
Speaking of mean
Then we told her the truth:
It was Haydn’s ninety-seventh
PR-329
A Dash of Dignity
The baby speech was bad
A touch like Elmer Fudd
Or a duckling daffing
All aglower was his little face
From his highness’ chair
From a store he’d had before
Of vestigial kingly air
Or some such mannish mime
Some earlier authority
As he cried
“Stop faffing!
I’m fighting mad!”
Which dash of dignity
A knock-off from a former race
Didn’t make it to the finish line
But held us helpless as the more
He tried the more we died
Faffing on the floor
PR-474 (Published in Ascent Aspirations)
Children Have the Right Emphatic
Children have the right
Emphatic
Big talking emphasis:
Their entire speech
Is their new
And artistic
Poetry:
They re all mused
And fused-enthused
To discover
Words
Change things