Whiskey, Whimsy, & Rhymes

A big preface

By graduating,

I had to decide

whether to continue in English,

or let my poetry slide.

I decided, I guess sensibly,

that law school would be

the place for me,

so I set my poems free.

Thirty years later,

with pen in hand,

I go back to campus

and start over again.

Vatican Two

Sister Rosary beamed

and took my kids on her knees.

She looked up at me, saying,

“I remember you well, John;

you threw rocks at the bees.

I cried for help from Sister Marie,

but the poor old bat

just couldn’t see.”

Chucking the kids on their chins,

Sister Rosary said this to them:

“Babies, your daddy

was one crazy monkey.

He was a very bad boy.

Always climbing from tree to tree,

singing rhymes and ignoring me;

and he threw rocks at the bees.”

Pork Potato

I get credit for nothing,

yet something is what I am.

I got credit for what I was,

a lawyer, a lover,

a winner, a chooser,

a so-called Renaissance man.

Now I’m just a tuber in a ham,

roasting on my laurels,

spit on my petard,

long indifferent, barely sighted,

imprisoned in astigmatism,

glazed, blighted,

paradigm displaced,

pig-prism yam of time.