Category: Short Pieces

Eulogies

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Eulogies

        1.
At sorrowed times like this, I’ve heard it said
That mem’ry is the living of the dead –
So when I find I dwell too long a-while,
I force myself to call to mind your smile.

        2.
Not the chance unmet,
Not the promise broken…
This alone do I regret –
Words left unspoken.

        3.
I never thought this day would call
When I stand here and you lie there –
Of course, our time comes to us all,
It’s entropy, and only fair.
I knew it too, down deep below,
By grace of fate and rule of thumb –
I knew some day you’d have to go,
Yet never thought that day would come.

Ancient & Modern

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papyrus

Ancient & Modern

To tell the future we were here,
To tell our names and what we think,
What gods we praise and tribes we fear,
What bread we bake and wine we drink –
That we do more than just hunt deer
And gather fruits for year on year,
But proudly harvest grain for beer !-
Then build in stone, and write in ink.

Too many cultures vanish, gone,
Because they left nothing behind –
They were forever moving on
And left no footprints in the mind
But others carved and others built,
And others wrote in soot and gilt,
So we might know who worked the silt –
Because their names were proudly signed.

Twenty Seconds

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washing hands

Twenty Seconds

        1.
Eeny meeny, counted Queenie,
Fingers one two three and four –
A fish alive and thumb makes five,
And on the other hand there’s more.
So rub-a-dub and squeeze and scrub,
And this little piggie wee wee wee
Index middle ring and little,
Pinkie perky owe-you-tee.

        2.
Queenie went to market
To buy a bar of soap
She went to Deal and Margate,
And Cape Town on the Hope,
But a laundry-maid from Washington
Had bought up ev’ry crate,
So Queenie had to wash with none
But ashes from the grate.

        3.
Queenie on her lone and only,
All her friends are all indoors –
They’re down with spots and chicken pox,
And tummy-aches and sores.
Queenie finds the streets are empty,
Like the swings and slides and stores –
They cannot come and play today,
They’ve all been through the wars.

The Land of Nod

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sleepy
The Sleepy Congregation by William Hogarth

The Land of Nod

Faith is like sleeping.
What dreams we conceive there
We always believe there,
Where no doubt may creep in.

But be not mistaken
By heavenly seemings
And wishful sweet-dreamings;
It’s time to awaken.

As Genesis 4:16 informs us, Nod is located on the East of Eden.

Immortal Remains

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brain in jar

Immortal Remains

My mind I leave to science, to probe and to dissect,
To extract and to magnify each secret and regret.
To show up my ideas that I never got to note,
Or poems I was writing but I somehow never wrote,
Or stories for the telling that I never passed along,
Or maybe sweetest music for my never sung-out song.
Work swift with my ditherings, these children may yet make
An epitaph of dreams to be awoken at my wake.

Mongeese

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africa animal british close up
Photo by Mike on Pexels.com

Mongeese

I’m far too much busy just watching these wonderful creatures
To care for your grammar.
They’re so like the ferrets and martens in habit and features –
They drown out your clamour.
They aren’t, though, that closely related (they’re closer to panthers),
They just look the same –
For evolution converges on similar answers,
And so does their name.

Ode to Laze

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alone bed bedroom blur
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Ode to Laze

Lazy, far too lazy, far too idle,
Don’t ask me.
Far too needful of relaxing,
Far too dodgeful of all taxing
Action that disrupts my lethargy.
I don’t run when I can sidle,
I make sloths look suicidal,
Vegetate with pride –
So don’t ask me.