Pedagogical Exegesis

In reply 
To my question 
As to why 
She looked so 
Haplessly glum in her 
Third grade class photo, 
My wife came back with 

You can’t tell but 
The skirt I was wearing 
Was threadbare and torn, 
And I was holding it so 
The tear wouldn’t show, 

The teacher smiling 
In the middle of the back 
Row was petty and mean 
And struck us with an olive switch 
He kept on his desk if we didn’t know

The answers to his questions; 
He flunked me in the second, 
Said more learning’s what I needed 
To make the grade, you tell me now 
How could I not hate him so? 

Detachment Rush

Damn it— 

Drop everything 
You’re doing before 

You’re ready and you’ll find 
Yourself with two severed hands 

And nowhere to rest 
Your bloody head. 

Pussywhipped

Enough’s enough, my bitter- 
Sweet catty sex kitten— 

Better a stiletto to the heart 
Than to heel 

Back to the doghouse 
A whimpering cur. 

Balancing The Account For The Duration

I say we get it over with 
And let whatever’s up 
In the air remain there— 

Like most of you hangers-on 
Out there, I too have more 
Than a passing interest 

In spending the rest 
Of my life loving being 
Suspended there. 

Epitaph For A Morbidly Wannabe Witty Poet

His sense of humor was so 
Dark he couldn’t see 
For the death of him, 
His corpus wasn’t light enough. 

A Poem Should Be (16)

Two things at once— 
Unforgettably well written 

And too good 
To be true. 

Desolation

The mountain trail you chose 
To walk today was once 
Full of the echoes 

Of peasants going back 
And forth from one village 
To the other; by the time 

You finished you’d walked 
Six miles and heard nothing 
Human but the sound 

Of one foot talking 
To the other, both yours 
For the asking.