Work and Play Pomes

071031

BEAR, LAMB, RHINO

For Halloween,
our mascots, the armadillos,
wore animal-head masks.

They were promptly given
coworker-inspired names:
Eddie-Bear, Dee-Capitated,
Brad-the-Impaler.


071030

CONTEST

You don’t have to win
to win.


071029

AMERICAN CREAM

Cream and sugar,
cakes and pies,
malts and liquors,
burgers and fries.

We guzzle and gobble our way to success;
nothing does for us but best.

It’s “best of the best” we’re wooing.
Nothing does for us but cream—
but cream is our undoing.

Cream and sugar,
burgers and fries
make us ill
and supersized.

Time has come for us to revise—
or let demise—
the “great” American Dream.


071028

UNDER STUDY

Happiness
surely
comes at will.

Happiness
is purely skill.


071027

DAILY GROUND

some days
I hate my work

it turns me
slow
inept
confused and stupid
frustrated
frazzled
and demoralized

more than I
already am

and caffeine
is no remedy


071026

HI WAY

old white lady
old black man

(that says so little
of who we are)

catch ourselves
smiling, waving

from back of truck
from front of car


071025

THE TRUTH OF IT

Balanced diet plans
are so unrealistic!

Eat that many servings
of fruits and vegetables
and you’d have little room
for anything else.


071024

ARID TIMES

Everything beloved
must be abandoned
now and then,
left fallow and forgotten
to be romanced once again.


071023

THE GAME

fortune, fame,
felicity,
famines, fears
and cancers

poems are impossible
when you know
the answers


071022

VOICE BOX

Don’t HAVE a voice!
Don’t WANT a voice!

I choose to voice
a voice for CHOICE!

[ASIDE: Poets are advised to be consistent, to project a certain persona, if they want to be published.]


071019

FALL IN LOVE
for Becky and Matt

All is fall, from low to high;
fall is all around us.

Copper leaves—brittle, dry,
still-warm breezes, cobalt sky,
glories that astound us.

All is fall, above, below;
fall is all around us.

Here we stand, groom and bride,
both our families at our side;
fall and love surround us.


071010

RESERVING JUDGMENT

I don’t know for sure
what life is all about.

So, thankfully,
I don’t know for sure
that I’m failing
miserably at it.


071009

FAVE RAVE

a daily lunch
that’s hard to beat—
peanut butter
and apple on wheat