1. FORT WORTH, 1987
I have never before
shown the slightest interest
in a platinum blonde
dressed urban cowboy
sitting on a bar stool
sipping something pink
from a tall glass
while singing along
in a soft twang
I have never before
shown the slightest interest
in a platinum blonde
dressed urban cowboy
sitting on a bar stool
sipping something pink
from a tall glass
while singing along
in a soft twang
to a maudlin jukebox song
about a couple breaking up
and then their three kids
perishing in a house-fire.
But I’ve been turned down
by petite girls-next-door,
long-haired spectacled bohemians,
gray-suited professional women
and boisterous sporty types.
Sometimes no precedent
is best.
***
2. TRYING TO MAKE A BAD POEM GOOD
Her poem was to her dog,
a companion of twelve years
that had latched onto one of
those unfathomable diseases
that trot along beside dog life-style.
.
It was the first death
in her life that mattered
and her first poem.
Her husband, George,
inspired no such ode,
post office employee for forty years
who, under the influence of more
conventional diseases, had fallen
down in a supermarket aisle,
clutching his heart,
like a movie extra in a battle scene.
With the cocker spaniel, she remembers
the times it licked her hand,
stroking her self-esteem across
her rickety knuckles with soft, lathery tongue
George's legacy is forgetting
to close the latch of the birdcage,
allowing a lovely song to escape.
So there's a poem for the beast
and none for George,
ten lines of rhyming doggerel
with lumpy melody., meaning stiff
as the frozen sweep of her hair,
as saccharine as cake frosting.
I feel obliged to take this thing
and polish it up,
in memory of what I know to be right,
for love, even in the parody
of its last years, is still love,
and we lovers must protect the least of us
and who needs one more totalitarian weep
for some poor dog who didn't know from death.
So George, this poem's for you.
You best of breed. You leader of the pack.
about a couple breaking up
and then their three kids
perishing in a house-fire.
But I’ve been turned down
by petite girls-next-door,
long-haired spectacled bohemians,
gray-suited professional women
and boisterous sporty types.
Sometimes no precedent
is best.
***
2. TRYING TO MAKE A BAD POEM GOOD
Her poem was to her dog,
a companion of twelve years
that had latched onto one of
those unfathomable diseases
that trot along beside dog life-style.
.
It was the first death
in her life that mattered
and her first poem.
Her husband, George,
inspired no such ode,
post office employee for forty years
who, under the influence of more
conventional diseases, had fallen
down in a supermarket aisle,
clutching his heart,
like a movie extra in a battle scene.
With the cocker spaniel, she remembers
the times it licked her hand,
stroking her self-esteem across
her rickety knuckles with soft, lathery tongue
George's legacy is forgetting
to close the latch of the birdcage,
allowing a lovely song to escape.
So there's a poem for the beast
and none for George,
ten lines of rhyming doggerel
with lumpy melody., meaning stiff
as the frozen sweep of her hair,
as saccharine as cake frosting.
I feel obliged to take this thing
and polish it up,
in memory of what I know to be right,
for love, even in the parody
of its last years, is still love,
and we lovers must protect the least of us
and who needs one more totalitarian weep
for some poor dog who didn't know from death.
So George, this poem's for you.
You best of breed. You leader of the pack.
