More Quatrains

Via Negativa
Think of a ladder.
Think of a net.
Mostly nothing,
But something yet.


The Young Bad Poet Just Misses
He sincerely fakes within his poems
Simulated grief and joy,
Successfully writing a sort of
Artificial Real McCoy.


You, Surgeon General
Cigarettes are truly hazardous to one's health.
There's no denying they have a lethal power:
Have you ever tried to retrieve a lit one
From your lap at sixty miles per hour?


Declension
Life goes down from good to worse
Year after passing year:
At birth, a rich and silken purse,
At death, a plain sow's ear.


The Day Before Payday
In my wallet's
Thin partitions
Too few pictured
Politicians.


Xanthippic
Those who, like Socrates,
Have virago wives,
Are wise--like him--to lead
Philosophic lives.


Gettysburg
Glory is selective.
It lands on few.
To the left of Pickett
Marched Pettigrew.


Quest
When I was young I went in search
Of the holiest Holy Grail.
Now I'd be happy just to find
Fewer bills among my mail.


At Sea
Young, you think life is a cruise,
One pleasant vacation trip.
Old, you learn it's a long hard voyage
On a Herman Melville ship.


Yes, Prufrock
I, too, have heard the mermaids singing
Out beyond the tidal line,
But the song I heard them singing was
"My Darling Clementine."