Career

Someone told me learn to code,
And so I travelled down that road.
Code is not the road for all.
Many stumble, many fall,
And many find it boring as hell.
I understand. I wish you well.

Transatlantic

They held beliefs
Most thought unreasonable.
Defying the law,
In ways some thought treasonable.
They hopped on a boat
To escape legal limits,
And somehow made land -
So they occupied Plymouth.

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone

In the bogs of Massachusetts, 

The wild cranberries grow. 

How they end up as cylindrical sauce - 

I simply do not know!

How It Starts

Not always, but often, this is how it starts.

There comes a nagging feeling at my heart,

Knocking recurringly, and in its hand 

A scrap of paper holding just once sentence, 

Whispered into my ear as a command: 

Complete this phrase, perform it as a penance 

For all your vagueness, work it out in words, 

A web of sound that somehow carries meaning, 

Not perfectly clear, perhaps, but at least leaning 

Toward clarity. And I, as by now you've inferred, 

Take up the challenge and struggle to append 

Thoughts that will bring the starting thought to an end.

Apostrophe S

Most English nouns possess

Other nouns with apostrophe S,

And when we make a contraction

With IS… we use the same action,

And say: “The dog’s collar’s wet.”

How confusing can you get?

House

 My father owned the house for fifty years,

And all those fifty years I had a key. 

New people live there now, and it appears 

They love the place. That’s gratifying to me. 

But still at times I feel the house is mine. 

The empty garbage bins - I want to haul

Them up the drive. I leave them there. It’s fine.

The chores belong to them. Not mine at all. 

Most days I walk by twice, it’s on the way

To where I catch the train. I feel its presence 

More than I see it, as my memories play

On automatic - mostly rather pleasant. 

I have an edifice complex. That’s a pun.

I carry it with me, as a dutiful son.

Politicized Biology

Biology has been complicated needlessly,

Reportedly through evolution. 

The Soviets simplified it heedlessly 

After their revolution. 

Lysenko had theories of botany

He said would grow more food.

Results? He hadn’t got any. 

The masses were thoroughly screwed.

New Rumor

As a news-addicted boomer, 

I'd like to start a new rumor, 

Something fairly frightening, 

To strike the heart like lightning, 

Along with a quicky quacky 

Cure that itself is wacky: 

I hear there's an alien plan 

To lizardize every man, 

So consume lots of catnip daily 

Or your skin will turn green and scaly!

Buggy

The silkworm and the honeybee

Make useful products for you and me. 

Not sure what the other bugs are for,

Can’t find their products at the store. 

And as for mosquitoes, well I declare,

I’d like to blast them from the air!

Plan

I have a plan to procrastinate. 

Not just yet. I’m going to wait.

Half Awake

Alarm went off, but Marsha did not stir. 

Quietly I arose and hit the button, 

And carefully I climbed back into bed. 

She must be tired - no motion or sound from her. 

Glanced at my phone for news, but I found nothing, 

At least nothing big, so I got up instead, 

And flipped the light. A mystery cleared without warning. 

Marsha is still in California this morning.

Living in the Future

The first one, Sputnik, went up when I was five, 

But now they swarm in flocks far overhead 

A vast array, a net around the earth. 

And here I am, observing, still alive, 

Arrived into a future not imagined - 

No flying cars, but cell phones that are worth 

More than the sums that used to ransom kings. 

This is a time of strange and beautiful things.