Photo by Wil Stewart on Unsplash
Good Old Dad
Had enough of it,
pushing along with
his job and family
and gave up.
Game over.
Good old dad,
always liked trains
and that's where he went.
Coming out
of the roundhouse
a couple of yardmen
couple a baggage car
full of old
newspapers
and dad
riding out west
out of style,
alone and happy
in the boxcar.
Big wheels turning,
chug chug
goes the locomotive,
struggling up the mountains,
rolling, whoo-hoo, down the dales.
Shed of us,
dad's free and easy now.
Before the rain stops
and the silent snow
starts to fall,
crossing the Rockies,
he'll be singing.
Kids and all, the wife
weighed in the balance;
the right thing
too heavy a load
for a restless rambling soul.
Sooner or later
he'll pay through the nose
for his selfish evasion.
Offenders will be prosecuted!
Railroad cops
and God's avenging angels
will be on the lookout
for a middle-aged newspaper
bearing the headlines,
"DAD GOES OUT WEST,
OUT OF STYLE."
That's for sure;
out of style,
out of bounds,
and out of our lives.
So thoughtless, so uncaring,
how could he do that?
Wherever he goes,
whatever he does,
bad cess to him
but keep him safe!
Nuns Fret Not
Wordsworth said,
in a well-shaped and
self-satisfied sonnet
and I don't believe
a word of it.
These nuns
meandering around
the grim cathedral
standing near the sea,
its stones stained black
as the Fastnet Rock,
don't seem to be
unhappy, unhoused
for a brief span,
walking along
in their dark habits
and chattering away
and the white gulls
screeching around
and the sea around them all
and the gulls wheeling around
and beyond the black cathedral
and beyond, the lighthouse looming
at day's end,
around and around
turning its blinking eye.
In this unfettered landscape
the nuns wander together,
for the nonce
seeming quite content.
And beyond all of this,
it seems
the whole world turns
just as well without
the grace of God,
that on this merry-go-round,
whirling on its axis,
these brides
and servants of Christ
in this life
living in His waiting room
are bereft,
knowing that to serve
does not ensure faith
within or beyond the four walls,
the restrained reach
of their frail humanity.
Certainly, they have doubts
and God in any guise
as father, son or holy ghost
is far away, beyond
the back of time
hidden from sight of all,
so how to believe
sight unseen and fretting
in a narrow room?
Of course they fret
and know as well as we
the stark reality of the world
and all that's in it,
good, bad or indifferent;
not easy to overcome
the uneasy thoughts
brought home,
the seeming fact
that it's only here on earth,
beginning to end,
that we find our destiny
and no room small enough
to hide us, to hide away
out of sight
the enormous tumultuous outside.
Quis ut deus?
For these nuns
a long time for growing
ever inward, ever more silent,
a long time doing without;
in this world below
such is their fate
in passion and sorrow
broken away from God.
That’s All, Folks
Donald Duck is
dead as Kelsey’s nuts,
deceased in the magic kingdom;
not ten tons of old celluloid
can bring him back again.
Mickey Mouse,
black-eared
in his big black
prideful shoes,
sweats like Porky Pig,
pink-slipped with Minnie
at the last.
Zoot-suited Hollywood
plays ducks and drakes
in all sizes and shapes
instead of swans;
yellow beaks
that speak and speak
long before they die.
Bambi and Bombast,
two more such
at the right time
couldn’t find Chang or Chen
so General Ching’s
chicken was shat upon;
reds and blues
went down
by the light
of Chairman Mao,
rising like a
new Sun Yat-sen.
What a day!
Or call it
on the long march,
a nice night’s work.
The play’s the thing
to catch the commune’s conscience,
cartouche to cartoon.
Disney, dubbed a fink
by the forces of labor
spoiled the kinder rotten
with Schneeweiss and such,
forced sugar
down their throats
for years.
The hell with it.
The duck died;
that’s awful
but done is done.
So set your face
against the reruns;
not ten thousand
Andalusian dogs
can charm him back again,
out-strutting Hitler
behind the Pathé news.
Sleep in peace
duck of dawn,
in the long night
dead and
nailed to the wall now,
cold as
Eskimo sleds or
witches’ broom.