Here's a funny story
What a five year old knows,
A lot more than just
Fingers and toes,
She can't read very well
But she knows about Love,
And when you read through this story
You'll say, "Good heavens above!:"

She visited today and
We went to the playground,
Red Magnolia flowers
Were just lying around,
They were so pretty
She brought a few to the car,
To give some to her Grandma
Now, that's raising the bar.

A couple hours later
She was talking about a date,
Flower petals on the stairway
Leading up to bedroom eight,
And I began to get suspicious
Wondering, what is she talking about?
Her home does not have a stairway
And her parents are more roundabout.

Google-search is my friend
“Rose petals on stairway leading to bedroom”,
Instantly 25 photos of Valentine ideas
Adult themes pushing bing-badda-boom,
From a five year old child
Where do these images arise?
YouTube, Roblox and you name it
They consume this stuff all day; no surprise!

A first generation immigrant family
There is hardly a reading book found in the house,
Brother and sister age five and seven
**** on their iPads like a scurrying mouse,
No limits are set, no blocking of content
The parents are clueless while the kids are engaged,
With TikTok videos of gyrating and gesturing
A five year old groomed to be teenaged.

The end of the story: this is how it went
Grandma and Grandpa were guided up the stairs,
To stand at the edge of the bed
She told us to kiss while she hid behind the chairs,
I made a loud lip noise but she wasn’t fooled
She shouted, “No, you really have to kiss”,
Remember what I said at the start of this poem?
Good Heavens above, what her parents do miss!

She’s got a leash on her boy
And she’s carrying her dog,
She has her face in her phone
And her brain is in a fog.

That’s what we call consciousness
In the world today,
Social media drives everything
Around work and play,
Well, my standard statement is
I just can't figure out this phone,
It’s so much smarter than me
I’d rather leave it alone.

Don’t hand me any device
With a name that begins with an I,
For twenty years now
I’ve given them a try,
But none of those i-devices
Make any sense to me,
I have an Android brain
That’s how it was meant to be.

Sure, money is a factor
I don’t like to spend it very much,
But I’m instantly frustrated
With any iPhone or iTouch,
Even if I win the lottery
I won’t be buying Apple devices,
Heck, I’m a millionaire now
And I still fixate on prices.

I only use about five applications
And I rarely take pictures,
All those pixels and adjustments
Just give me strictures,
I don’t use Facebook
Twitter, Instagram or TikTok,
I bought a smartphone
To process credit cards
Down on the auction block.

Her boy is off the leash now
And he’s chasing a ball,
While Momma and her Pomeranian
Are on a Whatsapp conference call.

People read my poetry
But I rarely see a 'Like",
Would it be better
If I had a Harley Davison bike?
If I talked the language
Of "Born To Be Wild",
And I wrote some poems
About a love child.

Well honestly
My life was a little bit like that,
One marriage after
I hooked up with
An overseas bobcat,
Younger by ten years
She looked like she was eighteen,
My oh my, she was cute
Better than anything I had ever seen.

We met and talked
Three days later we were married,
It grooved with my profile
Crazy desires partially buried,
I didn’t know her
She didn’t know me,
Heck, we didn’t speak the same language
But it was fine with what I did see.

Fast-forward
Now it’s twenty-three years later,
You might ask if I had been twenty-eight
Would I have considered a date with her?
Oh my god, she was just as cute
Back when she was a teenager,
But I couldn’t know her then
Nor was it time to make a wager.

Flavors and odors of themselves
Can prompt a recall of events long passed,
I'm tasting a Port wine tonight
And a memory of you came up fast,
Was it the excitement of the moment
Or the smooth taste of the wine?
Or was it the memory of much more
Sending tingles down my spine.

A little bit of both working together
A technicolor recollection, I can say,
The combination of good times
Were enough to cause the memory to stay,
Lodged in my brain fibers
Inspired by a simple twist of the cap,
Remembrance of the sweet kiss of Port
And you were sitting on my lap.

Yes, memories can tell stories
That might never have been,
In the hands of a writer of fiction
At the behest of my imaginary twin.

You try it sometime
Cream Sherry or sweet Port,
A best friend at your side
Keep your secrets and never report,
What transpired that day
Those few months in that year,
And when you're three decades older
You will hold those memories dear.

I wonder sometimes
What stories I'll tell,
On my way to Heaven
Not heading for Hell,
Some might think I'm crazy
The things that I'm saying,
But if you are religious
I know that you're praying.

At work the other night
I performed some good feat,
The nurse that I helped said
God bless you, Pete,
And it caused me to wonder
If she somehow had the power,
Bestowed on her by God
To bless me that hour.

I didn't notice any difference
That a blessing could have made,
Perhaps the blessing is in storage
To be sometime later played,
To my better advantage
In a time of greater need,
Like when I stick myself with a needle
Causing me to bleed.

What makes people think
They can randomly send a blessing,
As personal agents of God
It's almost depressing,
Because that's what the whackos say
Before they poison their flock,
It fills me with trepidation
As I prepare for the blessing shock.

Who knows what it means
When you're blessed for a sneeze,
Though I've always preferred
"Gesundheit", if you please,
That kind German wish
To offer me good health,
But I'd really prefer ten dollars
And wish me good wealth.

Most people declare
Some New Year's resolution,
But after just about five weeks
They experience New Year's dissolution,
Their resolve fizzles out
Their intentions migrate to another nation,
Let's rewind the narrative
I propose a New Year's recommendation.

Taking into account
The party excitement of January one,
You will promise yourself almost anything
To have a couple more hours of fun,
But with the hangover that comes next day
You may feel a sense of degradation,
So far your resolutions are in the trash can
What you need is a New Year's recommendation.

Recommendations allow for some wiggle room
Instead of being ****** for what you do or what you don't,
When choosing the lesser of two evils
You can opt for the lesser instead of the one that you won't,
In the world of N-Y resolutions
You may feel cursed when you blow it the first time,
Whereas with New Year's recommendations
You realize you haven't committed a crime,

I hope to start a new trend
Where we stop beating ourselves up,
When we make a couple of egregious mistakes
But that is just the half-filled cup,
Leaving room for the better intentions
That are bound to return sometime next week,
When your New Year’s Recommendations
Are discovered at that hot new boutique.

What is the thing
What bothers me the most?
Relentless streams of visitors
Or the ever-present ghost,
He rattles in the closet
And hides behind the curtain,
At times, I prefer the ghost
Over visitors, that's for certain.

I can talk to the ghost
He doesn't talk back,
He tries to throw ectoplasm
But his aim is out of whack,
Although he manages to frighten
The ones who see him not,
I guess I'm some kind of emissary
The only friend he's got.

Everywhere I've worked
There has always been a ghost,
I think he's a greeter for death
Like your friendly Walmart host,
Essentially, non-threatening
Offering his invisible, twisted smile,
A member of the welcome wagon
With his own peculiar style.

There have been she-ghosts
But they bear a different role,
As experts of duplicity
They come to recognize the soul,
Do an assessment of lifetime value
The good and bad and the duration,
Flip a coin and do the numbers
For the ultimate destination.

All in all, I count my blessings
For the role I chose to play,
There are wonderful people I work with
Each and every day,
And when unending streams of visitors
Fray my nerves like overcooked toast,
I can stick my head in the housekeeping closet
And talk to my friend the ghost.