Still They Care Enough
For the most mute of Americans
Summon up a sort of pity
Who have to have their words of love
Pre-written in Kansas City.

 On the Seventh of December
I drive my '95 Nissan up a ramp
And enter Interstate-285's lanes.
Traffic weaves around me in a swirl.
Gleaming Hondas and Toyotas hurtle past,
And I wonder how many other drivers
Recall, as I, the Harbor known as Pearl.

Perdurance
Be of that breed of dog
Whose virtue is "Hold on."
You'll be here when other dogs
Are all barked out and gone.

Orthography
When Auden's first poem was published
How thrilled he must have felt--
Until he noticed that his last name
Was incorrectly spelt.

Meditation on a Word
The other day I ran into the word pratfall
(In a book, where else?) and paused
For a change to take myself a dictionary look
And thought, "Well, kiss my prat."

I remembered the T-shirted guy in the bar
Who threatened to whip my prat,
Whose girl stayed his biceptual arm
And said, "Oh, Ernie, don't be a prat."

And all my testosteronic teenaged friends
Whose conversation was filled all day,
Hanging out on a drugastore corner,
With talk of getting a "piece of prat."

And of each politician, from the President
On down the ticket, office by office,
Who, instead of steering the ship of state,
Does nothing but cover his prat.

I will think about this word now
On many a morning as I unwind
Some paper, not for the writing of poems,
But rather for the wiping of my prat.

But some Sundays, of course, I'll recall
That scene (in the Capital B Book, where else?)
In which Jesus went riding into Jerusalem
Amid waving palms on (what else?) a prat.