Dessert Day
Jobs were scarcer
Than conscientious UN workers.
Buying food for our tables
Meant a flurry of hits
To the family pride's midriff.
Far cry from yesteryear
When eye of round and sirloin
Greased our greedy lips.
Cheap meat could only clear
A now b-movie budget.
All eyes turned away
As the pacifier for hunger's ache,
A bum-deal of a meal,
Made its short trek from
Rooms kitchen to dining
Having the aesthetic
Of hastily hacked machete spaghetti
And worse, a dog's breakfast,
When lying on our plates.
It was but one concession
That kept sorrow's visit
From growing unwieldy bold;
My sister's school raffle
Won us a rarely seen treat,
A gallon of top shelf
Maple swirl ice cream.
Now isn't that sweet?
Dog Fight
Static signal of archaic vestiges
No longer made contact
With human sense.
T’was a foreign radio station
Aboard a sinking vessel
Finding the hopeless side
Of the ocean's surface.
Fingers of life sipped at sugared water
Mustering the supply
For a conflict percolating
Just beyond this present day.
Earth's familial coddling made
Extreme physical delicacy
Rare as salt water on
The tops of mountains.
Kites in strong hands
Pulling and maneuvering
In a school-yard dog fight
Was later used as allegory
Best preserving the motions
Of this gentlemen's battle.
Creatures of deep sea mythos
Making their way atop
Yellow waves of might,
Crescendoing into indigo foam,
Circling impassable shores
Like floating rubble
Working on a planet's behalf,
Keeping watch in uniform rings.
Without help from human imagination
Their powers held as much sway
As forgotten leaves gathered
On pond silt.
Daisy U.S.A.
Hers
Were flare
For feminine patriotism
Fore-ordained before day's birth,
Being conceived
Under the warmth
Of an American flag print quilt
And parental watch
By overhead framed
Venerated Saints.
Once loosed
From childhood's limitation,
She traveled
Round and round the country's coastline;
To taste
Every personality blooming
Off her beloved nativity scene;
Round and round,
Like the home-built carousel
Painted
With her grandfather's sentimental strokes
Under the promenade.
Her ways ripe with care;
Her head
For a dignified discipline;
She doted
On her flawless coat of skin;
A blessing
Allotted by the American God,
Pouring forth
Oils naturally sourced
To the exclusion
Of heretic versions
Lining the grocer's shelves.
Her hair
Daily fed nutrients
Of wild honey
And juice berries,
Applied with betraying force,
Not common to womanly hands.
One could not be blamed
For suspecting her visionary sights
Were set for a title,
America's sweetest sweetheart.
Dangerous Living
Sitting on fresh cut lawn grass
looking for the romance
In Old Testament pages
Helped us take our minds off
The ammunition kisses;
The limbs grazed by bullets.
They told us it's easier
To murder a robber
Than attempt to rob a murderer.
No end to expressing oneself
In uncouth ways,
Making motions left of sideways.
A common chore
Was our hug to the floor
As Hellion hit squads,
And wanna-be lackeys,
Those little weasels,
Took pot-shots more than not
Making touch downs
On us human end zones.
We, the slow ones,
Bled inside our shirts
While the ghetto businessmen
Raised their own mild smiles
At thoughts of unavoidable hikes
In dry-cleaning bills;
Our coats and trousers
Trying out the color red.
One of these men,
It was repeatedly said,
Was Sesame Street's
Mr. Hooper look-a-like.
Mean girls claimed
His manhood was smaller
Than a poppy farmer's paycheque.
Passed down to us
Were morality's lessons
Teaching us right
The order of value:
It's better to lay atop
The hills of poverty
Than make wallets handsome
With the collected loot
Of an American's ransom.
