Going South
My friend Edward
Headed home.
He went drawlward
to Palindrome.
--
Maudlin Verses on Reaching Eighty
with apologies to A.E. Housman
Brightest of trees the maple now
is flaming red along its bough,
and counsels in its autumnal way
to number each remaining day.
So: of my three score years and ten
I’m overdrawn, and in the red again.
And since my years surpass four score
I dare not hope for many more.
So to the village I shall go,
where the healing spirits flow;
there to sip a glass or two
of our local micro-brew.
Until supernal voices come to say,
“It’s time for you to go away.
Please, Go away.
Just GO AWAY! “
--
AMERICAN LANDSCAPE
Charles Sheeler
Makes me feel a
Sense of what is fine
In industrial design.
NONSENSE VERSE, OR WORSE
I grew a sense of humor on my nose,
Big and bulbous, bright it glows.
Other senses in retreat
Have taken refuge in my feet.
Sight, and smell, touch, taste and so
On, each has its distinctive toe.
A sixth sense lives elsewhere,
Perhaps amid my orange hair.
A sense of where I’m at
Is enfolded in my belly fat.
But no clue to who I am
Comes from my ‘well-taut diaphragm’.
Prurient folks, I must suppose,
Wonder what’s beneath my clothes:
“Any sense of wrong or right,
He surely keeps well out of sight.
“Love of beauty, sense of awe
Are stuck, no doubt, within his craw.
His skin with pustules festers red
With thoughts of exploits in the …
[Here several verses I excise,
As quite unfit for virtuous eyes.
What’s left you may find boring
But still worth some time exploring.]
Do those motley sleeves conceal
The scabs of entrepreneurial zeal?
Or are some marks of vestigial wit
Tattoo’d where he is wont to sit?"
To such queries I here reply
Not with evasion, nor a lie:
‘Pay me dollars; pay me cents.
Silence is just common sense.’
--
Bob Hellenga’s response:
Connor's gone over the top;
Will someone please tell him to stop.
Take away his computer,
Or get him a tutor,
Or else call a poetry cop.
--
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