Sometime not too distant,
There will come a day
When you will return to
A frequent state of play.
When that day comes around,
You'll have lost all concern
For the adults' belief that
Frivolity must be spurned.
You'll take to tossing balls
And climbing up the walls,
Just like you used to do
When you were one or two --
Before that human zoo
Got its hooks in you.
Slowly, silently, the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
trailside chicory
waves on a windless day:
a long-gone cyclist?
fallen petals
swept by undulating waves
into a neat pile.
There once was a peevish standup comic.
Whose war on hecklers would quickly go atomic.
A heckler said, "You suck!"
So, he hit 'em with a truck.
A response neither timely nor economic.
The maples have grown old;
Orchards have begun to wither.
The reds and greens have faded.
Climbing the heights, I
Feel the chill of late Autumn.
A ceaseless pounding sound
Drowns out the setting sun.
Remembered sorrows flock
To mind, making new sorrows.
We are separated
By a thousand miles;
From our two distant places
We can't even meet in dreams.
The rain stops, and the sky clears;
One can see the twelve green peaks.
Speechless, who could understand
My angst, as I stand cliffside.
I can write of my grief, but
Will the clouds bring a reply?
There once was a team of architects
Who double and triple checked the specs.
But they faced a plight
'Cause left didn't check right --
So, the building's hunchback was hard to detect.
rain patters
onto the leaves overhead:
spring rain is here!
At noisy readings an angry old poet
Would pick up one of his books and bestow it.
When they would snicker
He'd wish his book thicker,
For it would flutter in air when he'd throw it.
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like a snail
Unwilling to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side.
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
NOTE: Sometimes called the “Seven Ages of Man,” this soliloquy is spoken by Jacques in Act II: Sc. 7 of As You Like It.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 