One For Laura

C’mon let’s go
I’ve been waiting for hours
Time to conquer
All poetry’s towers

Open the doors
Let loose the knowledge
I gotta learn this stuff
If I wanna get into college

Dickinson and Eliot,
Starting with Gilgamesh,
But trust me, you’ll lose me
If you include ole John Tesh

So, let’s learn about rhyme
In all its naïf pentameter
Hey, this isn’t too bad
For an old rhyming amateur

Poet’s Last Word

Oh, where in the world can your poet run
When the words fall flat, and the rhymes won’t come?
Oh, what hard trials arise to squash younglet poetry,
Like a weeded up, oak-wilt, unlovely and broken tree?
No thesaurus, no dictionary, nor dog-paged Bartlett’s
Can save a poor rhymester when the scansion he forgets.
Arched over his blank page, a pen rusting in his hand,
He remembers clever phrasing that once lofted grand.
But today, too many hours passed, when imagery faded away:
No paragraphs soar to shine, no dark truths for a heart to sway.
Just letters on a keyboard accompany the page gleaming white—
Is it old age, or a brain cancer, or Alzheimer’s that’s blanked his inner sight?
Swirling leaves, the pelting rain; no, just tears to wet another empty page.
Crashing thunder, volcanic explosions; no, just writer’s blocked impotent rage.
Was all this alleged talent just Life’s joke on the unwittingly absurd?
What do you say to the one who cannot find the poet’s last word?

Aloning on New Year’s

Tried to share her in a poem,
But the heart would not scan.
Trying to forget all about her—
I fail, trying as hard as I can.
Winds turned to colding;
The heater runs all day;
I can see each wispy breath—
Singled out in about every way.
Staple-gun together some words,
But joy and doubt won’t rhyme.
Aloning it again on New Year’s—
It’s Love for sometwo else’s this time.
But, it’s all good for this po little coda.
And, yes please, a lil more rum for my soda.