One low buzz, eleven beep-boop
Ba-ba-ba beeps
Then six seconds of static
That gives you the creeps,
Then the death metal chorus
Played on a child’s toy
And the internet is yours to use.
Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy!
If You Don’t Remember “Hang Up The Phone, I Need To Yahoo Search Something,” You’re Too Young To Get This Poem
Filed under Poems
Idioms, Like Pubic Hair, Are Better When Short
When life gives you lemons
You make lemonade
Then you give it to children
Who sell it and get paid
Then give you their money
Which your wife will then spend
And life gives you more lemons
And when will it end?
Filed under Poems
Legalize Normalcy
If you call yourself a poet
You’re judged by your degrees,
The person who you voted for,
How often you hug trees,
Whether you can rhyme things
Or use semicolons right
And, most important, whether
You have a penis or are white.
I am not a poet,
Though to you that’s no surprise.
I’d rather sleep in Saturday
Than watch the sun arise.
I do not care for wheelbarrows
On which so much depends.
I’m one of the mere commoners
Whom nobody defends.
I write, not for an audience,
But for the ones like me
Who want to dance the rain away
And feel completely free
But have to read a book about
What things are right to say,
Waiting to dance in private
Once the poets go away.
I feel like a geode,
Full of color, trapped in stone,
But thanks to anonymity
I needn’t be alone.
I can be with all of you
And hold you in my heart
By failing to see beauty
In what poets call their art.
Filed under Poems
Unfair Practice
Back when I was an athlete
In high school, I was late
To almost every practice
Which didn’t turn out great.
Coach made me do pushups,
Which would normally be fair
Except my father was the coach
And he’s the one who drove me there.
Filed under Poems
Find Someone Who Loves Your Crazy?
I asked this girl that I just met
“What things make you feel upset?”
She said, “When I need to cry
“But alligators attack me from the sky.”
Then, like kind girls tend to do,
She asked “That’s me… how ’bout you?”
“Mostly milk, but also a falling gator.”
Then we agreed to marry later.
Filed under Poems
The New American Dream
Anti-racism
Is when white people
Protest against white people
For being white.
Filed under Poems
Forever Mine
I’m not afraid to make it known
I want this more than you.
I want to find a partner
Who is loyal, kind, and true.
I only want to have one talk,
A talk that never ends,
And to be more than lovers:
To be two forever friends.
I want you to have my kids,
To raise, protect, and feed.
I want to be your every want
And fill your every need.
I want to text you memes at night,
House hunt with you on Zillow,
And when we are a world apart
To smell you on my pillow.
Tonight and every night from now
I’ll wish upon a star
And ask whatever gods may be
To show me who you are.
Until the stars or gods or fate
Fulfill this wish of mine
I’ll work to be the man you want
To call “Forever Mine.”
Filed under Poems
Ordinary Things Can Be Special Too
Somewhere near you
There’s a puppy in a blanket,
A warm spot of sunlight,
A bright blooming flower.
You may never see them,
But still you are blessed
Because to look for them
Is your special power.
Filed under Poems
The Arborist’s Dilemma
In the pandemic work has been scarce
And rent is still not free
So I was ecstatic when an old hermit
Said he had yard work for me.
He showed me what once was a noble old cedar
That once proudly stood in the park
Until some young people, for whatever reason,
Stripped the old tree of its bark.
The old man had hired me to glue to the cedar
A fresh set of bark, to restore
A tree to its glory. That ends not the story
Because, yes, you guessed it… there’s more
For In the pandemic, unemployed and discouraged
I’d taken to habits of drinking,
And on that bright morning I set off to work
I was out of the habit of thinking.
With heart full of vigor and head well hungover
I glued on a bucket of bark
And though the idea at first seemed uncanny
The contrast, in hindsight, was stark!
And then the old hermit came to see progress
And laughed with a senile glee,
Saying “I meant the cedar beside the bench, boy.
“I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree!”
Filed under Poems
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility… For About 90 Milliseconds Before You Dissolve
I’m not just an average Tom, Dick, or Harry.
I’m a powerful person. How powerful? Very!
I quit being an average Harry-Dick-Tom
When I was bit by a radioactive nuclear bomb!
Now in my blood a great power is pulsing
And my every finer of being is convulsing
Until, like a hero, I burst into flame
And fly into the air and learn power is lame.
Filed under Poems
