Endgame: Gotcha There, Didn't I?

All through 

Your topsy-turvy 
Life, more than once 
You thought 
You’d always be 
Basking in the 'eternal 

Sunshine of the spotless 
Mind' but where 
The longest day of the year 
Always turned out blotted
By the shortest 

Night. 

Demise Of The Overweening Demiurge

You kept twittering I am 
What I am, God’s gift to you 
I am so blusterously 

Brooding I think 

Said morose twits made 
Of you a blundering 
Twitching dodo, too.

Getting Comfortable With Trying To Write Like Someone Whose Poetry You Really Like

--for J.L., master locksmith


Say he’s called 
Jim (though that’s not his 
Real name) and you want 
To sound a lot like him, 

So after reading reams 
And reams of almost 
Everything he’s written, 
You try your hardest 

To unlock the mystery 
Of his poetic mastery, even 
Using many of his words 
In the same order he does, 

Though you’re extra 
Careful not to be too exact, 
Because in all fairness 
To the poem 

And to your suffering 
Self, what comes out 
Has to be yours and clearly 
Not someone else’s—how 

Else could you live with it?

Votive

After eighty harsh 
Years of living 
Off the inscrutable 
Face of the Earth, 
When it came time 

For him to leave, 
My father took 
The chiseled wrinkles 
Of the centenarian 
Olive with him. 

Will The Real Hayseed Please Stand Up?

Listen up, 
You know-it-all 
City-bred dandy 
Wordsmith—the poem 
You’re writing should end up 
Down-to-earth discriminating, 
Say a finely winnowed product 
Triggered by wave upon wave 
Of gulls lifting off 
From the nearest 
Harbor some thirty 
Miles away only 
To land here 
In the boondocks 
With the first light 
Of day, foraging 
For sustenance 
Amongst bales and bales 
Of—you got it—freshly cut 
Seedy hay.