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