POEM: SOME DITTIES FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT

Caveat Emptor

She walks across the room

offering everything

in her eyes.

And you’ve not inclined

to pick and choose

this time.

Higgledy-piggledy

Higgledy-piggledy, pudding and pie,

they crossed their wires, then down from the sky

they dropped their bombs; now we must die.

Higgledy-piggledy, pudding and pie.

Cuts

The prize inside

was daily revised,

yet stood neither talk nor vision.

For quiet derision,

like a surgeon’s incision,

cuts deep even after you’ve died.

On Viewing

the Sub-Atomic

Particle

Professor Zuzzle

was in a puzzle,

for he held the modern view,

that microscopic

was a one-way optic,

not with eyes staring back at you!

Said the Proton

to the Electron #1

“You know, I’ve had other relationships

before we got together. I’m still attracted to you

but you’re so negative these days.”

War and Bees

Armoured RVs,

and trendy Humvees;

balloons filled

with Zyklon B.

Now radiant fleas

and atomic bees
in an insect march

to the sea.

Said the Proton

 to the Electron #2

(Quarks But No Sparks)

“I used to find you attractive,

but you’ve put on a little weight.”

Upon Discovering

Your Generals

The General is a barbarian, dear.

I thought I’d made that crystal clear.

And from our side there’s much to fear;

he’s not one for the voting.

They say that he is out of touch

because, they say, he’s lost so much.

But, they say, his one true crutch:

it’s others that he’s loathing.

I think we’ll leave the chandelier.

Taking it, we might seem queer.

A quiet exit we must steer.

Revolutions are such a fuss!

For now, no balls, no tuxedos worn;

no doffed hats, no carefree scorn.

No limousines—I am forlorn!

No Silver Ghost to drive us.

We’re safe for now, the General needs

to pillage more and plant his seed,

revenging such “unholy greed”

he's found there in the city.

Our neighbours have already gone

to palaces and summer lawns.

They wake with tea at foreign dawns.

They write of lives so pretty.

You ask me where it all began,

where and when it turned to sand,

our castle lost along the strand;

why the General is so hateful.

I’ll only say that once upon

there lived a king (and on and on),

a fairy tale without the yawn.

Where we were ever-grateful.

Where men in robes each day composed

the laws of life, 'til there arose

the fairest city God had chose!

But the Devil never sleeps.

And pious men, like pious song,

need their choirs to get along,

and all to follow one baton.

Thus do castles turn to keeps.

But the General is a mortal soul,

peasant-fathered, a single goal:

to make diamonds bright from dirty coal.

He’s stable pretending manor.

We leave intact with most our wealth.

You’re still young, I have my health.

In foreign lands we’ll not need stealth;

we’ll soon unfurl our banner.

But quiet, love, (and if you please)

for now we bow and scrape our knees.

Our carriage waits beyond those trees

to whisk us away completely.

...

Those born to live, to have the best,

whose lot in life is sweet arrest;

will Generals put them all to rest,

such lives that run so neatly?

Words Don’t Hang

Words hang like glowing

gossamer line,

like dew-kissed spider's thread,

like fine silk weave

warmed by the morning sun.

Hey!

Words don’t hang.

They don’t gossamer about

or glow.

They’re not kissed or warmed

or anything like that.

Words are hard. Like stone.

They form with great difficulty

over long periods of time.

Or else they flow lava-hot

down spillways,

burning everything in their path

until they cool again

(if ever).

Words empty barrels

full of meaning

into thimbles and teacups.

They can be as cold

and unforgiving 

as a winter’s wind.

And as lonely.

They howl in busy streets

like wolves over a dying cub.

No, words don’t hang.

SO, HERE IS A FEW DITTIES THAT I THOUGHT MIGHT BE AMUSING to read: Electrons and insects, war and sex, pain and puzzlement, all the usual suspects found in your daily newspaper, or sitting across the room from you. And will the wealthy wanker and his trophy wife manage to make their great escape to another land of milk and honey? Well, we can only hope, because if the General ever catches up to them, it’s game over! 
And about “Words”? Well, what can I say?

So, I’ll just let them all sit here and gather dust for a while. (I might look at that under a microscope later, or just wipe it off and keep going.)
 

Cheers!