Mchenry poems on Hello Poetry

Ainsley Oct 2015

Deathbed Confession

“In 1971 a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked
a plane from Portland to Seattle, demanded parachutes
and $200,000 in cash, then jumped into the night with
the money, never to be seen again.” — fbi.gov

So little seemed to be at stake.
The bomb was real; the threat was fake.
Neither was difficult to make.

And I was in my element,
or almost there. Yes, the descent
was cold, but warmer as I went,

and yes it was coal black and raining,
but I had uppers and my training.
I’ve spent my whole life not complaining.

When I could see the woods I wandered
out with the twenties, which I laundered,
safety-deposited, and squandered,

and with the oddest thing — a name
I’d paid for but could never claim,
a private riddle, private fame.

That’s been the hardest part: denial —
remaining of no interest while
the Bureau opened up a file

on every former paratrooper
who in his final morphine stupor
discovered he was D.B. Cooper.

I’m D.B. Cooper. There, I said it.
It’s decent work if you can get it,
but it pays cash. There is no credit,

or blame, or pity in thin air,
and I’ve spent forty winters there.
I’ll take whatever you can spare,

although I don’t suppose the guy
whose last confession is a lie
deserves it any less than I.

*This piece is written by Kansas Poet Laureate Henry McHenry. The rights to the poem are completely his.

Ainsley Jan 2016

Misreading Pennsylvania - Eric McHenry

When the seventh salvo of silver flashes
cued the blue floaters for the seventh time,
blotting the smaller letters from their sashes,
I mispronounced “Miss Reading”—made it rhyme

with “misleading.” ******* her press agent,
Miss Information, who steamed out to smoke.
But the style writers covering the pageant
called it an unconscious masterstroke.

So I became the Master of Near Misses.
The work kept coming. “You must be Miss Taken,”
I transproposed to the Pork Products Princess
panel, and you should have seen Miss Bacon.

They at it up, though. It was liberating.
Within a month I didn’t even need
my malaprompter. Cheating was creating.
Believing anything I couldn’t read

I crushed my quadrifocals. People shed
their crosshairs and acquired a layer of fuzz.
Consequence came uncoupled. What I said
I saw, and what I saw was what I was.

*just a cute, funny little poem

Eric McHenry is the Kansas Poet Laureate. I attended one of his readings, and he is so spirited and lovely to hear.

John F McCullagh Mar 2013

At Twilight's Last Gleaming

The Seamstresses of Baltimore
had done their Country proud.
Their Flag, upon a staff of wood,
Defied The British rounds.
Fort McHenry and her men
alone stood in the way
of a squadron of the British fleet
in good King George's pay.
All through the warm September night
We saw red rockets glare.
And when the morning sun arose
our banner was still there.
The tale might have been different
One of death, despair and blood-
One shell had hit the magazine
but it proved to be a dud.

A lawyer and a poet
on a truce ship in the Bay
gave voice to the emotions
that filled his heart that day.
So when you stand and doff your cap
and sing his song I say,
let history become memory
in a simple, subtle way.

A September night in Baltimore in 1814

matthew scott harris Aug 2018

Dialect Tickle Matt Arial Hiz im

Courtesy of Marx (albeit Zeppo,
Harpo, Groucho, and Chico), whose
acts (along Seuss iz Zacks Fifth
Avenue) brought generations of
laughter to Vaudeville, and then
the Silver Screen adlibbed, linkedin,
and ransacked skits zoid material
Bing very loosely based on his best
known writings (Oh *** Yet Of The

Masses) by Karl Marx (no relation
to Bros Grin), and Friedrich Engels
whar they **** instrumental qua
Cingular Capitalone political philosophy
paradigm as spit, and (shoe) shining,
seducing, and salivating players trans

formed Msn Netzero Linkedin Petsmart
Aleck outlook and pinterest, when their
collective insight did cents how masses
(i.e. bourgeois) took a rakish (otherwise)
up standing Norwegian bachelor farmer
for comic relief to break monotony of
agrarian obligations, and serve up one

heaping healthy portion per production,
sans whatever whims would crop
up by infusing thespian showdown
incorporating commune nic cache shun
(disproportionate) app peals studded terrain
with locked havens avast re shtetl ment.

Hoi Polloi re: common folk in sore need
of distraction and belief in a brighter side
of life, than saliva dehydrating brute nose
to the grindstone pathetic existence, yoked
as oxen to plows, where plodding tattered

shod feet scraped a pencil thin line, whence,
seeds sprinkled into futile ruts forecast angry
birds to shutterfly, twittering like bada$$
beastie boys Dharma bumming while On
The Tyellow Brick Road.

Inn ascent bystanders avian avatars initially
supposedly sprung from ergot, mushroom
and/or **** spores, whereas the myth of
one mortal idol (Matthew Scott Harris) did
rival Vladimir Ilich (frequently corrupted into

I gotta n itch) Lenin, where alien archeologists
from outer limits of the twilight zone unearthed
(com) bust stubble rubble yes likeness of Guy
Richie Rich Noir, whose couture, the best skid
row wardrobe.

He sported longish wavy (fluffy when washed
once every fort McHenry night), which character
wrist ticks evoked Chaplinesque down on his
luck Dickensian doddering dude, who cast an

immediate vagabond er dishabille, he happened
to be plenti none the poorer and ranked near
top Facebook listing of Forbes Plenty Of Fish
list, and whose trivial pursuit with flickr ring
idea to GoLong.

As a poet by fashioning his adversity into discord
ant clumps of clichés, facsimiles, idiomatic limply
mixed metaphors in a per verse manner reflecting a
discombobulated egghead delivered an ova night
fashionable fame, though syrup prize zing lee met
with profound success, and bore fruit of the loom

(one of his countless “FAKE” offspring’s begotten
unbeknownst to him iz this schlepper) constitutes
this blimey dorky and fluky guy, whose weakness
when communicating about extemporaneously usually
leaves the reader like totally tubularly confused like
ha cool and totally tubularly groovy man.

— The End —