Very Delicatesse
A liver-spotted gentleman
Is preferable to younger, when
The latter thinks himself too suave
To say a simple ‘Mazeltov’
Or serve you brisket with a pickle;
Such young bucks are cheap and fickle.
I prefer the well-worn style
That does a mitzvah with a smile
Squirrelly, Now and Formerly
Pipkin was a rascal lad who disobeyed his mom and dad
Pestered his teachers, pinched the girls
Among the young chipmunks and squirrels
And threw hard acorns from the trees at passing mice and birds and bees
He chewed on rafters, jambs and screens
Teased babies, oldsters, in-betweens
Stole in through windows left ajar—
Alas! Could not outrun a car.
Nothing particularly wrong with being a strange bird.
Strangeness may be my only truly notable characteristic. I may not be particularly memorable to most people, what with being a mere mortal and all. Superpowers, I’ve none. Standout knowledge or skill or charisma? Nope. But being just a teensy bit weird, yeah, I’m all over that.
So I like to make art sometimes that is as pointlessly silly and eccentrically absurd as I am. I just feel I’m in a larger company of fringe characters than ever. And that, after all, is very probably exactly where I belong. I kind of like it on my perch. From here, the view is quite quirky and therefore strangely appealing. Come on over if and when you like, all you other odd birds out there.
Room for Everyone
My friends, you are welcome to sit in my house,
admiring my other friends, family, spouse,
each one of us charming, delightful and sweet
as any convention of people you’ll meet,
as brainy and clever and heartwarming, too,
as anyone can be, and that includes you;
come in and enjoy the great company,
come in and be welcome, as welcome can be,
but please keep in mind, while you lounge in this spot:
compatible, yes, but the same we are not!
Opposites Distract
Lavinia, dressed in leopard print,
And Leopold in stripes,
Were destined to collide and clash,
Descend to snips and snipes—
She drinks her coffee black; he sips
Sweet tea with heaps of cream,
And every conversation
Escalates to near a scream—
Yet every fray defuses and
Dissolves in hugs and tears,
For they’ve adored each other
Through four-dozen blissful years.
. . . after all, most of us are fools for love . . .
My Preference, by a Hare
Next to a soft warm rabbit, I
Love naught so much as a broad bright sky
A picnic under a chestnut tree
A bunch of kids in a spelling bee
A crazy quilt on a big deep bed
Sweet summer breeze playing ‘round my head
Cashmere and silk, or a good night’s rest,
But in truth, I still love bunnies best.
Beauty is in the Mirror of the Beholder
Brenda, trendy modernist, zips through her ultra-racy home
Her super-powered vacuum on a wave of pearly foam;
Her sexy subatomic voice, her skirt of crisp chiffon,
Her to-the-minute kitchen wares, her wildly brilliant spawn,
Her microscopic facial pores, her savvy in her biz,
Convince nobody that she’s great, but make her think she is.
Worlds of Peace
In the sleepy little world where
kindness can prevail and thrive
The beasts and people live in peace,
all happy just to be alive
Their gracious ways, generous hearts,
their gentle speech and thought and will
Protect them all throughout the day,
and through the nighttime hold them still—
Would that this dreamy little world
could bloom and flourish here on earth
And that such hopeful tenderness
pursue us all straight on from birth
My wistful wishing is not vain;
this virtue could embrace us all,
For we do know how to be so,
if only we would heed the call
And so each morning as I rise
I make a small and silent prayer
That by the night’s new-darkened skies,
we’ll find ourselves all living there
None Escape It
Here in the crematorium, a lily
escapes the flaming heat in Esgard’s grasp;
Esgard, though, won’t escape the same way, will he?
He’s much too far beyond his final gasp.
No need to mourn excessively, though, fellows,
for Edgard doesn’t need your tears and dread;
while he’s now in a form that quickly mellows,
the lily, too, will soon enough be dead.
It Takes All Kinds
I am the back end of a pantomime horse,
and I say this without much embarrassed remorse,
because I could never have claimed too much class
to have let people see I’m a true horse’s ass.
No reason to laugh, though, or mock me in jest,
since I’m in such fine company with all the rest
of the others (this, straight from the true horse’s mouth),
for we know every north end requires its south.
No cause for weeping, dear friends of my heart,
for prancing behind is its own kind of art,
and no matter how foolish the fine equine farce,
better far than play dead to just play the arse.
Peace of mind and clarity can be mighty hard to come by these days. Half of the time I have a tendency to suspect they’re things I once had access to or even owned in small quantities but somehow misplaced. Don’t mind me, I’ll be crawling around here on hands and knees with my compatriots. If we look like we’re hunting for lost contact lenses while not actually awake, you might well be right.
Respite
Among the herds and hordes that clamor for attention undeserved,
Some few remain that will not yammer but sit back, demure, reserved—
Odd, in the cacophony of wild, attention-grabbing rush,
That what finally wins from me my focused notice is mere hush—
The effect of surfeit, excess, ultimately in the riot
Of the maelstrom, is what checks us in our racing: simple quiet—
So I seek the silent moment, empty spaces, basic form
Of absent noise and crush and foment, then go back to face the storm.
Art-Colored Glasses 