My Dearest Ana
My dearest Ana,
You lied to and enslaved me
For which I bear animosity
Because of your “generosity”
My body has become an atrocity
Category: Poetry
Charity?
You were so thankful, and my friends
Were so proud of my gracious
Charity, seeing
I had aided
You…
Barney Fife! Thou Shouldst be Living at this Hour
Police chiefs are costumed as admirals these days
Or as generals, with medals and eagles and stars
Peaked caps and polished boots, more Patton than Patton
In stern command of parking-lot plywood lecterns
An Unskilled Rotor-Tiller Tiller of the Soil
The morning was fresh and cool and damp and still
I wheeled the tiller into the garden patch
Fresh gasoline, then primed the little bulb
And turned the red plastic lever just so
Your Browser is No Longer Supported
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Browser HELP CENTER that worked just fine and met
All your home and business needs but which some
Shaven-headed twit in a cartoon tee
Ditched…
Colorful Carrots
Springtime is here!
So full of color and cheer!
The flowers reveal their pretty heads
Green is coming instead of brown and red
What Happened to the Guards Posted at the Tomb?
Perhaps the duty officer had it in for them:
Some privates, a corporal, maybe a sergeant
Grousing about pulling a night watch
And in a Jewish cemetery – why?
A Second Covid Easter
Last year the Holy Mass was forbidden by law
An eleventh plague blighted land and air
And so for us there was no exodus
From the brick pits in which we found ourselves
A Sequence of Poems for Holy Week
The air is thurified – the incense given
Our Lord upon His birth is fumed at last;
The censer’s chains, clanking like manacles
Offend against the silence at the end of Mass
Communing With the Eternal
A meal’s prepared,
The Spirit waits to welcome them there,
Or here,
Palm Sunday Well-Sanitized
There is social distancing in Jerusalem
Mostly among Romans and Greeks and Jews
Who don’t much like each other anyway –
How is this day different from all other days?
Making Maids
I fell asleep thinking about swollen river banks – it’s
Rained for two days straight. Overnight,
Thunder rolled outside as I rolled over
In my sleep, and woke
Thinking of Moses…
When You are Chosen as Poet Laureate
Do you suppose someday you’ll see your name
In the content pages of an Oxford book
An Oxford book of verse for this or that
Among the greats (who will want your autograph)
The Ministry of Clockery
Change for the sake of change – spare change? Spare change?
There must be a Ministry of Clockery
With Cratchit-y clerks drawing clocks at their desks
Supervised by a Scrooge of Clockery
A Response to Q-ness – I Will Never Take Instruction from a Consonant
Whenever I’m down, and feeling a little blue
I wonder whatever it is I can do
What traditional learning I can pursue
To recover the happiness I once knew
Citizen Potato Head is a Class Enemy
“Mr.” indeed! No, no, Citizen Potato Head!
Bourgeois titles are forbidden by law
As are toys lacking in social realism
Clearly you are no good Comrade of ours
Someday a New Arthur
Someday a new Merlin among the ruins
Will give a new Arthur a trove of hidden books:
Chaucer and Milton, Shakespeare, Coleridge, Keats
And maybe even long silent Malory…
Ice Wednesday
Many crosses of ice but no ashes
Trees sagging from the icicles dragging
Little birds desperate for last summer’s seeds
The ice ground whitening, whitening, disappearing
An Alphabetic Acrostic
Abba Father, what am I that thou wouldst knowledge me?
Behold, I am iniquitous and unclean!
Cleanse me and clean me within!
A Saint Valentine’s Day Gift for my Daughter Who Lives Far Away
An agent of the federal government
May or may not deliver a package to you
Tomorrow, or not just one but maybe two
Or maybe one package at one time…
LogoSophia Magazine 