Lonely bird, for whom do you wait?
Time has passed and still you sit:
Birdie, have you suffered as late?
You stand alone without a twitch:

The rain still cries this afternoon
Yet still you wet your feet on grass,
Thunderclouds yell at you too
But still you seem so botherless:

All alone by your lonesome self
Without a flock of birds or geese:
Funny duck, awkward bird
I wonder why you sit this eve.

(Scene: A funeral service, at the graveside. Two mourners talking to one another)

Duncan died then, so he finally gave up his goose.

< (disapprovingly) Gave up his ghost not his goose! >

Tis sad, very sad.

< Aye, maybe twas for the best, I heard he'd been sufferin'... He's gone to a better land now. >

(Looking at him amazed, having not heard properly) He what ! He's gone where!! He's gone to the Netherlands!!!

< He's gone to a better land!  a better land!! A better place!!! For fecks sake! >

(A lone Piper starts to play a lament by the graveside)

(after a few moments listening) I love the sound of the poops. A lone **** in the wind....He's a fine wee pooper that lad.

< He's a Piper not a Pooper!
(under his breath) Only Pooper around here is you. (smiles to himself thinking) A Super Pooper. (smiles even more) A Super Duper Pooper. >

Y'know he was quite a pooper himself in his day, was Duncan. I can still remember his pooping well. A Prize Pooper was Duncan, his pooping was often the talk of the town.

< (sadly & dreamily) Well, no more will his...his poops be heard around the Glens. Only silence now and the wind....o'er the heather, the fields and the crags. >

I'm not a bad pooper myself y'know.

< (smiles)  I bet ye are. >

< (thinks to himself) But the heather will bloom again, and the children, they'll play in the meadows.>

The Board
by Michael R. Burch

Accessible rhyme is never good.
The penalty is understood:
soft titters from dark board rooms where
the businessmen paste on their hair
and, Colonel Klinks, defend the Muse
with reprimands of Dr. Seuss.

The best book of the age sold two,
or three, or four (but not to you),
strange copies of the ones before,
misreadings that delight the board.
They sit and clap; their revenues
fall trillions short of Mother Goose.

Keywords/Tags: poetry, accessible, rhyme, traditional, muse, Seuss, Mother Goose, misreadings, discrimination, prejudice, revenues, sales, copies

Would you be the Lard then,
The Lard o' these lands ?

<The Lard !!!
I ain't the Lard of anything!
I'm the Laird of these lands, yes!
If that's what you mean.>

The Laird, eh!
So there's no Duck or Duchess over
    them then.

<Duck! You mean Duke, no Duke or
    Duchess !!!
Ain't no Dooks or Dutchesses around
   here Mon! >

Then what about the Goose,
The Goose of Gainly Hall.

<The Goose!!! What Goose ?
It's a ghost not a goose,
The Ghost of Gainly Hall !
Only goose I can see around here is
    you
Begone you unruly Mon, Begone!>

Unruly Mon is it ! Unruly Mon !!!
   (squaring up to the Laird)
...Heh! I'll nay fight ye, yer not worth it
The Big Lairdy Mon
I'll go off and alight some place else
Just like the Goose, the Goose of Gainly
    Hall !!!
............Hey Big Mon!!! The Goose! He's
    loose!! He's gone!!!

geese                                                                soar
    as if                                                        they
         have                                          nothing
              to wor                       ry  about
                      they                  just
                          fly              in
                            the     shape
                                of  a
                                  V

All those games of Duck Duck Goose
I'm the one you never choose
The geese before me couldn't catch you
You're scared to choose me because of what I'll do
I will run faster than ever
Just to be with you "forever"
Please choose me, give me a chance
Just let me hold your hand