Planned Obsolescence

Death, it seems,
was evolutionarily optional.

Microbes are immortal.
Redwoods grow taller and stronger
over the course of centuries.
Lobsters and clams do not age,
are only killed from without,
never within.
Flies and worms in a laboratory
have received a death-ectomy,
removing the senescence gene
and living on.

And so, somewhere, somewhen,
in our vast, mutual
and ancient family tree,
a well-meaning ancestor
must have realized
that survival of the fittest
might not require literal survival;
that true growth might entail
a shedding, not only of skin,
but of our very identity;
that complete and utter transformation
could be our ultimate destiny,
if we will only allow our Selves
to follow evolution
to its logical,
glorious
conclusion.

Things That You Are

You’re the cat’s pajamas,
the bee’s knees,
the mullah’s llamas,
the elephant’s sneeze.

You’re the alpaca’s backpack,
the crocodile’s smile,
the jackrabbit’s flack jacket,
the peacock’s style.

You’re the snakes hips, the chicken’s lips,
the aardvark’s awkward birthmark,
the kipper’s knickers, the octopod’s ticklers,
the butterflies’ orange monarch.

You’re the toucan’s two cans of canned tuna fish,
You’re the delicatessen’s most delicate dish.

You’re the pepper’s doctor,
the mountain’s dew,
the koala’s cola,
the bear’s Irn Bru.

You’re the crème de la crème,
the sine qua non,
most fatale of the femme,
the c’est in c’est bon.

You’re the go in a tango,
the wing in a swing,
the dot in a polka,
the highest land’s fling.

You’re the bee in my bonnet,
the slice in my bread,
the rhymes in my sonnet,
the tune in my head.

Anything I can name that’s too good to be true
may be great, but it can’t hold a candle to you.

The Dragon, the Lady, the Knight

To be enjoyed as: 

1. Choose Your Own Adventure 
2. Mad Libs 
3. Poetry 

1. The Dragon 
2. The Lady 
3. The Knight 

1. did flame 
2. did flee 
3. did fight 

1. upon 
2. unto 
3. before 

1. the castle 
2. the lair 
3. the moor 

1. but when 
2. until 
3. unless 

1. despair
2. defeat
3. distress

1. enshrouded
2. exposed
3. dispersed

1. the fortune
2. the armor
3. the curse

1. the white knight
2. the woman
3. the wyrm

1. discovered
2. forgot
3. confirmed

1. its tail
2. her dress
3. his steed

1. was burnt
2. was torn
3. was freed

1. forever
2. but never
3. and so

1. the fearless
2. the fair
3. the foe

1. was vanquished
2. was honored
3. was praised

1. in glory
2. in shame
3. always

Mastery

Wednesday noon, Campbell Recital Hall, Stanford University,
the piano students of Fred Weldy perform for a scattered audience
of friends, miscellaneous staff and faculty quietly eating their lunches.
One by one, pupils who have been studying since they could walk,
practicing hours a day, for fifteen or twenty years,
perform Beethoven, Chopin, Scriabin, Brahms, Rachmaninov,
blurring one flawless performance into the next.

The final student on the program is sick that day, and absent,
and the professor apologizes. “But we’ve got a few more minutes,” he says.
“Why don’t I just play you a little something I’ve been working on?
This is Aaron Copland’s Three Moods.”

He drops casually onto the bench, as if he’s just invited us into his living room,
but at the first touch of a key, I feel something inside myself,
something that I hadn’t even known was holding itself on edge, relax,
relax in complete surrender to chords that sing out
with such a clarion inevitability that they create their own reality,
a universe predicated on the sheer impossibility of doubt or error,
a universe dedicated to the apotheosis of music and musician,
a universe in which each one of us listening find ourselves,
in this moment, forever, complete in our own perfection.

The Fiddle’s Infiltration

for Merida

When the mood takes her, my fiddle
will put on a violin’s ballgown,
and spend an hour coaxing her curls
into a semblance of propriety,
before excavating my tuxedo
from the closet and thrusting it towards me
with a meaningful look.

The first flyaway ringlet,
like a loose bow hair,
had already made its break
as she turned away from the mirror.
Stray specks of garden dirt and rosin
adorn her fingernails, and her bare toes
peek out beneath her petticoats.

Each partner she passes in the cotillion
is left slightly disoriented
for no reason they can name,
but not unpleasantly so,
and when the dance returns her to my side,
I catch a wink behind her mischievous decorum,
and a subtle poke in the ribs.

She dances the sarabande
like an Argentine tango,
the quadrille like a square dance,
and when we polka her laugh
trails behind us in a wake
of ruffled hoop skirts and coattails,
and arched eyebrows.

But well before the evening’s end
she blows a kiss to the orchestra
and we twirl out the door,
leaving shocked whispers behind us
as we run into the night
to find a pub, a ceilidh,
and some fast Irish reels.

A Discount Love Sonnet

Yeah, but I really really really like you.
No, srsly, I mean it, don’t you see?
That’s why I’ll write a sonnet, not a haiku,
to read to you while sipping your iced tea.

(That’s you who’s sipping it, of course, not I—
I mean, I’ll get my own if I get thirsty—
but anyway, where was I?... oh, that’s right...)
I’ve worked on this since practic’ly last Thursday.

Okay, that’s only yesterday, but still
I hope you know I mean it when I say
that if you say you love me then I will
immediately jump and shout hooray

and dance and laugh and sing and spin and hop
and… what? Enough? Okay, I guess I’ll stop.

Poetry Jukebox

Put in a dollar, and after a few minutes, you will receive a glorious sonnet extolling the virtues of your one true love, full of subtle metaphors and exquisite imagery, guaranteed to melt the coldest heart.

For a quarter, you may have your choice of a complex but mediocre sestina, or a simple yet pleasing villanelle, on a subject selected at random.

For a dime, a tragic ballad in which the family member of your choosing is lost at sea.

A nickel will get you a limerick, dirty or not, as you please.

Today, all I have are pennies.