Per-verse Poetry

The pencil and the sharpener
Were writing down a line,
They cried like crocodiles to find
Three syllables not rhyme,
“If we could only change the verse,”
They said, “we would be fine.”

Whose words these are I do not know,
They run from us as rivers flow
The two of us can only stare
To see how fast our mouths can go.

Waiter! Waiter! walking past
Bring me pastries thick and fast.
What exotic cheese or wine
Could match one humble madeleine?

Good hats, bad hats, sane hats, mad hats,
Thin hats, fat hats, dog hats, cat hats.
There are hats of every kind,
If you seek you’ll always find
Three hats that fit your state of mind.

‘Twas within an ancient quarry, as I wandered, sad and sorry,
Spying many an old and rusted fragment of discarded ore,
As I trampled brambles brickle, suddenly I saw some nickel,
Curved as were a farmer’s sickle, sickle from a bygone yore,
By the quarry-shafts this fragment, nickel from a bygone yore.
Only this (plus seven more).

Wish all the children welcome on their way,
Young things must sing their song at the first light,
Peace, peace unto the newborn of the day.

We fools of one age, our song sung, now may
Endow the world to those of clearer sight.
Wish all the children welcome on their way.

Thy heart reminds me of a winter’s night,
But is yet darker and more withering.
While moon beams sow the sparkling snow with light,
Thy icy soul hath not one gleam of spring.

At Christmastime, my Uncle Jim
A five-course dinner made himself.
Where streams of steaming gravy ran
And pot-roasts overflowed the pan
Down to the kitchen shelf.

Man is the thing with foibles,
That seven sins can sin,
And makes the chains without the key,
And fastens the heart in.