Month: March 2012

How I Got Hooked

Thirty years ago, one night spent
Huddled with a hushed TV
To soak up contraband excitement
Hooked me: Georgetown-UNC

As underclassmen, Mids were not
Allowed TVs in Bancroft Hall
So if the six of us got caught
It meant demerits for us all

Gastonia native Chris, a grad
Of Jordan’s rival high school back
In Carolina, said he had
To watch; we gathered on his rack

Eight points after zero hoops
On Ewing’s fourth straight goaltend call…
It still came down to Fred Brown’s oops
For Jordan, Worthy, Smith, et al.

Next year’s Wolfpack-Houston upset,
Georgetown’s win in ’84,
The ‘Nova game (not over that yet)…
Man, I love the Final Four!

Hunger Games

She rests on my chest when I wake in the gloom.
She’s there by the stair when I exit my room.
I grope for the light in the bathroom– Hello!
Could you hop off the pot, please? It’s my turn to go.
I brush, she’s behind me; I floss, I can hear her.
I close the pill cabinet, she’s there in the mirror.
Runs into my shins while descending in darkness
To greet the sleep puppy: Good morning, Your Barkness!
She’s on the remote when I switch on the weather.
I reach for the beans and we grind them together.
All right, here’s your breakfast! Now, bon appetit!
I blink, her bowl’s empty. That kitty can eat!

F.Y.F.T.

Bicentennial Year! We wore red, white and blue
And the Statue of Liberty discoed! (Not true.)
Somehow 76, ever since, in my mind
Means 200 years old, which today I just find
Disconcerting: My father turned 40 that year
And his own “bicentennial birthday” is here
Now, on March 27, Two-Zero-One-Two.
I think he looks great for 200, don’t you?

Why-ku

How come every time
I think, “I’ll stay in tonight,”
I’ve run out of food?

Laundry day again!
I washed seven pairs of socks,
Got back five point five.

96 percent?
Watched recorded shows all night…
Now it’s 98.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5
1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1
5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Okay, that’s enough.
I could go all night, but, hey,
Nobody wants that.

Train Your Quacking Goat

The farmer’s neighbor’s pretty quacking ticked:
“Your quacking goat chewed up my quacking lawn!
Now every quacking shrub’s been quacking licked
And quack knows when that smell’ll be quacking gone!”
The farmer strokes his goat with farmer’s hands
(Perhaps his own; there’s no sure way to tell)
And drawls, “Don’t guess this critter understands
How much some fellers hate that drooly smell.”
The farmer’s neighbor shakes his fist and roars,
His fingers in an awkward demi-clench,
“That’s not my quacking fist! It’s quacking yours!”
Discarded gloves bedeck his picnic bench.
The farmer wipes his moustache on his coat.
His neighbor mimes, “Just train your quacking goat!”