Shock and offend* ...

Crickets , sweet crickets
They ne'er skip a beat
O' Crickets , melodious crickets
Sing a whippersnapper to sleep

Chewing a blade of grass ,
walking the wood fence line
Jumping a bird or two with -
nothing to do
Venus could be my grandmother
Shining her love , vigilantly watching over ,
laying out my trail through fields of clover
Mom is the 'Farmer's Moon' , maybe a dogwood in bloom ,
Spinning threads of love with a golden loom
Searching the young night for angels in -
the sky , whistling a familiar tune with nothing
to do* ...

Home of afternoon coppered timberland
Dancing wire grass and shimmering tin
Egrets in the house of deep blue sunsets
Dove songs riding winter winds* ...

Will the 'Ghost of Melancholia' continue to ploy
and annoy , will my dossier lie unopened like
a windless sail upon a lifeless ocean* ..

I'm making faces at my own reflection
Eating toll house cookies , acting
like a monster on brittle knees ,
watching Nickelodeon for the first time
in years , turning sugar cookies into
Christmas trees ..
Watching every leaf spiral , then slowly
light upon the ground , taking in the
outside world with the eyes and ears of a child* ..

When a poet or poetess loses his or her sentimentality -
they are finished* ...