Category: Poetry & Tall Tales

Roll, Play

My love, you’re a Tahitian girl

That dances on the sand

Who charms the breeze with every twirl

And gesture of her hand.

My love, you’re absinthe through the veins

Each time my lips are kissed

A cruel elixir bringing pain

Which no man can resist.

My love, to me you are a song

Whose chorus fills the air

Inviting men to sing along

Allaying their despair.

My love, your powdered skin’s as soft

As petals on a rose

Its luring scent designed to waft

With each layer you expose.

Alas! Another’s at your door

I thank you for your art.

In truth, our love’s a game, no more

And you have played your part.

Over, Lord

I bade my love compose an ode

To prove her heart was true,

Reciting To Him All Is Owed

She blushed the whole way through.

I bade my love prepare a feast

Befitting of her Lord,

She cooked for me the finest beast

Her dowry would afford.

I bade my love take out a boat

And clear the moat of trolls,

She took my dagger to their throats

Then fixed their heads on poles.

I bade my love tend to my aches

With liniments and oils,

She rid my skin of every flake

And lanced a string of boils.

Then comes a time when passions end

When leaves droop with the frost,

I bade my love invite her friend

That’s when she said… Get lost!

Coming Achoo

Winter stops us in our tracks

With biological attacks

Perhaps to kick us into touch

Because it doesn’t like us much.

The common cold, the experts note,

Is still without an antidote.

As for the ‘flu, we get the shot

Which seems more like an afterthought.

Coughing, sneezing… who’d desire us?

It’s our friend, the winter virus.

Ironic, because when it strikes us

It’s just saying that it likes us.

Everyone’s a Critic

In ancient Athens, lived a man who did not suffer fools

Who scorned the rich and powerful, disparaging their rules.

Renouncing laws and social norms from which he felt exempt

Diogenes The Cynic viewed convention with contempt.

He called an earthen jar his home, forgoing earthly goods

Promoting a philosophy which few Greeks understood:

We need not work! Food should be free!

We’ve been robbed of our liberty!

A dog needs only food and sleep

So, worry not about your keep!

Revolting, in more ways than one, he never bathed and took great fun

In mocking local passersby unlucky to have caught his eye.

Once Philip, King of Macedon, discovered what was going on

He fetched him from the marketplace to meet this heckler, face to face.

Philosopher, comedian, Diogenes first drew him in

Then seized the moment to berate the trappings of the civil state.

The king considered all he’d heard and pledged Diogenes his word

That he would try to make life fair for all his subjects everywhere.

Then Philip’s son, the Late & Great, who relished seminal debate

Next headed for the rebel’s lair to bump heads in the open air.

Soon Alexander found the spot and asked Diogenes his thoughts

On justice, kings and slavery to test his rival’s bravery.

Diogenes, quite unafraid, lamented: We have been betrayed.

The reason for our very birth is to enjoy fruits of the earth.

Young Alex, in your palaces, you drink from golden chalices

While I do nicely in this jar… am I no better than you are?

And now you claim to be divine, directly drawn from Zeus’s line

Yet, as I spy your horse nearby I fear, like you, it cannot fly.

The Great One knew he’d met his match, aware that he would never catch

A cynic who cared not for kings, nor for the folly each reign brings.

Amused, young Alex asked his host which thing in life he wished for most:

Was it a wife? Slaves of his own? Or simply to be left alone?

Reclining in the summer breeze, his eyes now closed, Diogenes

Admitted there was only one: for Alex not to block the sun.