Good Fortune

    Good fortune, when I am dead,
    may my poems be one time read
    by a winsome summer's lass;
    though she murmur, "Oh how crass!"
    let her bestow her magic ring,
    the glistening circle the iced glass brings
    to the open page.


    All Simple Things but Time

    Time's perception is a puzzle.
    Childhood's day seemed so very long,
    awake at dawn, the early morn,
    the summer's day
    with swim and shower bath,
    meals rushed through for endless play,
    then dusk and the long sweet
    end of day.
    Time accelerates with age.
    Morning toast and sweetened tea,
    luncheon with the zenith sun,
    and in half a wink,
    "Can it be already five o'clock?"
    and time for drink.
    What makes our clock run slow then fast?
    Is youth formed at the center of the Potter's wheel
    and age spun outward towards the rim?
    We know hub and rim
    inseparably spin, yet each moves at
    greatly different speeds.
    Late summer flowers cut to the vase,
    petal to the oaken floor,
    the taste of snow will be upon the air.
    All simple things but time
    for childhood's sums of day plus day
    were somehow multiplied away.


    Between the Twitter and the Tweet

    Our fingers can't stay still
    between the twitter and the tweet.
    The tinier the device,
    the grander the paradox,
    the broader the bandwidth,
    the narrower is our life.
    Our fingers can't "stand" still.
    We're "Morphing Baby"!
    Between the twitter and the tweet,
    Our idols race by
    swiftly, upon clay feet.


    Treadmill, Life on the Run

    Treadmill, life on the run
    or, if you prefer, on the climb.
    It is not the Classic shady stroll
    where woodland nymphs and
    nightingales hide in metered rhyme.
    Now well lit,
    the climb is upon a moving stair,
    with the pinch of hurry.
    It's a healthy bill of fare;
    or try the treadmill's tread
    programmed for hill and vale,
    where earphones
    sing to Nature
    demurely dressed
    in designer tights and sweats.
    Life on the run, on the climb.
    Is there a need
    for Poets' shady brooks
    when shapely Youth,
    running,
    demands
    we take a look?


    Tarry with the Check

    Ah, the roast.
    What cannot this genius chef do
    even to the lowly toast?
    Not to say, to Gâteau St. Honoré, or Profiterole.
    Wait till you taste his crowning glory
    Coup de cholesterol.
    Forget not Lord Bacchus,
    waves of reds and whites
    burnish the pebbles on our way.
    Lovers, friends, sisters, brothers. All
    speak out in make-believe French, to gentle garçon,
    comely waitress, guides to this day,
    "l'addition, see vu play."
    We shall bake the Piper in a cake.
    We're brothers all,
    what the heck.
    Were not the cards of credit made
    to tarry with the check?


    One for Bacchus

    Bacchus, dear Bacchus,
    pardon, Dionysus, Olympic Greek,
    for with the touch of age, one...