For Better or Worse

The poem 
You just put down 
Has a life of its own, 
Forgiving no one for words 
Put into its mouth by one 
Who should know better, 
Save that someone be a suicide 
Speaking strange tongues. 

Lost Cause (#45)

In this proverbial 
Race against time, how 
Lucky we are indeed to be 

Always on the verge of being 
Continually great, if only 
We weren’t always so 

Habitually late. 

Take That, You Dirty Rat! (A Tragic Farce in Five Acts)

1. 

The saucy mouse said tit, 
The sassy rat said tat; 
Seductive in the kitchen, 
Lady de la Roquefort, sitting pat. 

2. 

The gnawing was ferocious, 
Le dame delicious, too; 
Enamored with their gnawing, 
They gnawed till they were bleu.

(A classic case of biting off 
More than you can chew.)

No sign of consternation, no inkling of chagrin, 
No reining in of hubris—O overweening sin! 

(By Zeus! Such uninvited cheeky din 
Was doomed to do our duo in.) 

3. 

His catnap abruptly truncated by the ruckus, 
Our couch potato Tom exclaimed 
Sounds like hocus-pocus woke us!

With drat and drat and double-drat, 
That’s quite enough of this and that, 
He went gumshoeing to the kitchen. 

 4. 

Zounds! 

Brazen raiding scoundrels out-of-bounds 
Ravishing our Lady Roquefort! 

To arms! To arms! 

5. 

And with that, dear denizens of the land 
Of cheesy fictions, his Tommy gun 
Reverberated—ratta-tat-tat! 

Cut the knaves down 
To modest wedges, 
Just like that.

Renewable Energy

The refugee from who-knows-where who spent all night freezing 
On a park bench while you were feeding your fireplace 
With presto logs does not want to hear what you’ve been doing 
To save the planet; he wants to see you walk over a bed of hot coals
Holding your head on a silver platter and not get burnt. 

Loss Is

what remains 
when you find nothing 

but grieving 
remains