A Little ******* a Wagon Seat

Of her deep thriftiness, Grandmama Hall
Saved every button that passed through her hands
And banked them in a large glass jar from which
She could withdraw an investment in clothing:

New dresses cut and sewn from bolts of cloth
(The styles from 1900 served just fine)
From Mixson’s Store in town, and buttons for all
From her accumulated waste-not, want-not

Wisdom and skill, and girlhood memories
Of when she came to Texas in a covered wagon

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

We are scattered, like the Tribes of Israel
Sown not in rejection but as word and work
Planted everywhere, and commanded to grow
In the rich earth of divine Creation

There is no veto in birds, rocks, or thorns
Let them instead serve in their own poor ways
As dutiful as humans, maybe more so
Unfallen either as seed or as beings

To tend and guard the ancient unities
That grow forever in Jerusalem

A Carpenter’s Hammer

A craftsman does not hammer with a hammer -
He wields it with surprising subtlety
As delicately as a scalpel poised
Or as an artist’s most elegant brush

A hammer is balanced to mind and hand
Its journey planned and scheduled with great care
To bring about something that was not before:
Through muscle and thought it falls, it dives, it drives

And when the hammer strikes the waiting nail
It sings to Creation a workman's hymn

The Happy Little Guillotine

Oh, happy guillotine, who blesses us
With your great gift of freedom, so that we
Will never again suffer the cruel torments
Of faith and friendship, air, love, light, and breath

Oh, do lop off our heads, and make us free
To gurgle hymns to The Revolution
By our hundreds free, nay, our thousands free,
To rot in the streets, gloriously free

Oh, holy guillotine, come to our aid
And make us one beneath your healing blade!

The Evolution of Sophomores

Poor sophomores like polliwogs within
Their small Samsaric Sea do swim about
And seemingly without purpose or point
Startled by shifting shadows or loud noises

But polliwogs in time absorb their tails
Then grow their legs, and hop ashore to eat
Mosquitoes, moths, and flies and dragonflies;
Sophomores acquire their driving licenses

And seemingly without purpose or point
Do drive about their small Samsaric Sea

After Their Divorce

In his garage he takes a break, and sits
Among all the mechanical debris
Of an inventor born a century late:
Unsorted hopes, tools, dreams, and engine parts

The project car that he and his son will never
Rebuild together on Sunday afternoons
An old guitar, an ashtray full of ends
A midden of beer cans crushed in memories

He should be loading his truck and trailer, but
In his garage, in bitterness, he waits

Sixth Mass Extinction

Earth's sixth mass extinction event under way, scientists warn

-The Guardian

The headmaster has shaved his head egg-smooth
Shifted his hair to the point of his chin
And his sunshades to the top of his scalp
His petrol-station SAS sunshades

He often boasts he doesn’t even own a tie
And hasn’t read a book since Upper-Sixth
Something transgender post-colonial
About Guevara (who is on his tee)

Not a form master, but a master of forms
A way-cool disciple of Ofsted norms


Variant for the American Market

Sixth Mass Extinction

Earth's sixth mass extinction event under way, scientists warn

-The Guardian


Like, you know, the principal shaves his head

Like, absolutely, ***

Got him a goatee, like, actually

Cheap gas-station Official USA Navy Seals™® shades, mannnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Not cool, ***, actually

I had to help him with the big words in Goodnight, Moon

Absolutely, like

Yosemite Sam™® on his faunky ol’ tee

His office has, like, stuffed fish and, like, football pictures, like, and his Dallas Cowboys™® baseball cap, like, actually