Letting the Rhymes Write 'Em

*

So which ideas will it be
for rhymes? It’s always a surprise.
The ineffable pops up like serpent eyes.
The train arrives, whichever way

it’s headed. The door bangs shut.
It’s hard enough to put up with all the crap—
now you’re not even allowed to take a nap,
so you stand and scratch your butt

and wonder when this dreadful party ends.
The only interesting people are threatening
to leave, so you rush off to get more wine,

but when you come back again, your friends are all gone,
not lingering behind for the resentment testing.
Or you never can find your way home, ol’ pal o’ mine.

*

The animals are escaping from the zoo,
disguised as humans. The lion wore a false nose,
but it tried to take a drink out of a garden hose,
and that’s when somebody saw through

to the real lion underneath. The streets
were almost deserted, and an onion cried.
And you woulda’ thought somebody’d died
And there was blood on the nuptial sheets

hung out the hotel window. What a harsh, shaming
culture we are! How inhumane! Always trying
to find reasons to blame the innocent! It’s flaming

hot for us down here in Pandemonium,
no modicum
of decency at all. I’m going back to lion taming!

*

You know, a sonnet’s like a villanelle;
only, you can’t just predict several of the lines.
So, all the more, you can’t ever tell
which way the cosmic thumb inclines,

and you’re pretty much adrift and on the street.
It’s as if you’d had a row
with your roommate, and you had to break your lease,
without a home to go to now.

Well, the birds wung in just fine. We saw a finch
before we all went into cardiac arrest,
or sprained our ankle, or got the flu.

We were flexible and refused to give an inch,
and we put our dead ideas to the test,
until our time expired—and about time, too!

*

Do we like night or day better, do we think?
Day is a million eyes
blooming together on the brink

of time, till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

You know, you violated your poet contract
when you didn’t want to pick a fight with God.

Nobody denies that God’s a pretty odd
dude, mainly good at putting on an act,

the old agony, you know,
putting on the style—
that’s what all the prayin’ folks are doin’ all the while.

Thanks, Pete. You had your say, you ran your mile.
We hated to see you go.
Now you’re just a shape in the bathroom tile.

*

Will you ever get back to the original topic? that’s the question.
Remembering the time you won honorable mention
in a track race—you didn’t drop the baton,
and the judges voted for you in abstention.

You hobbled to the finish line with kleenex in your pants.
Then you had to get a broom and sweep up the ants.
And when I sing my song, I hope you’ll sing along,
on the chorus anyhow. Forget the shoulds and can’ts!

We’re all poets here, and we excel at wild rants.
So unhitch your tongue from whatever cloud you’re on,
and practice your conjugation and declension.

If anyone looks at you at all, they’ll look askance.
You’ll be the boy with the inexhaustible crayon,
but no use trying to telephone—you won’t have the extension.