THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

                          We’ll see tomorrow if New York’s tycoon
                          Is a contender or a big buffoon,
                          And if on that same platform Hillary
                          Will topple Trump or find a pillory.

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INDUSTRIOUS

                 The sound of distant hammering reminds
                 Me, though it’s Saturday and barely eight,
                 There’re people up and following designs
                 Because there’re always projects to create,
                 Which now inspires me to put my hand
                 To work, albeit in a gentler kind of way,
                 Nor following a blueprint duly planned,
                 But finding as I write what I’ve to say.
                 But now I’ll turn from what’s still incomplete,
                 Because our dogs have grown imperative
                And want their walks, but first something to eat,
                And what they ask for, that I’ll always give.
                     But, hark, the hammering’s paused: he’s on a break
                     And so I’ll follow suit—my leave I’ll take.

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INVOKE AND PRAY

                         I don’t believe there’s aught I ought to say,
                         Not something new, arriving just today;
                         In which case, I’d be better off to stay
                         Silent—merely invoke the Muse, and pray.

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GOODNESS

   
                           Goodness is not an object but a way,
                           A practice that you follow every day,
                           Nor is it something you just merely say,
                           But deeds that harm and suffering allay.

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WALKABOUT

                    Soon, off we’ll go to take our walkabout, 
                    Gyp, Tig and I, but not until this verse
                    Has ambled through the wilderness I scout
                    In seeking what I have to say as I rehearse
                    The possibilities that rhymes present
                    And tread the narrow path I slowly find
                    On which I’ll seem inevitably bent
                    Arriving where originally inclined.
                    The truth, however, is quite otherwise:
                    I’ve little notion when I start my poem
                    Where I am headed for as I devise
                    The clearest passageway to take me home.
                         This done, the dogs and I may now proceed
                          Out on our walk, on which I’ll let them lead.

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BY THE DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT

                 It’s shortly after dawn, and as I sit,
                 The early planes above make their descent,
                  So now my game’s to shape lines meet and fit,
                  A feat on which my mind is wholly bent.

                 The dogs have had their outing to the yard
                 While Kimmie’s still upstairs asleep in bed
                 Dreaming of scenes in which our dogs have starred:
                 It’s they, not sugarplums, that fill her head.

                 And now it’s they who’ll ride this sonnet out,
                 A presence in our lives to celebrate,
                 But if I am too long at this, they’ll shout:
                 “It’s walkie time for us!  Your poem can wait!”

                      Let’s see if I can wrap this up right off
                      Before they come to me to plead and scoff

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IMAGINATION

                          In my imagination I can see
                          Prospects that may or may not come to be;
                          It is an alternate reality,
                          A place of fiction or of prophecy.

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EYE TO EYE

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GUY NOIR, PRIVATE EYE

                    On some dark night, don’t be surprised to find
                    A private eye named Noir out and about,
                    Aiming to detect some deviant inclined
                   To be felonious, some lawless lout—
                   Or otherwise a damsel in distress
                   In need of rescue or protection from
                   A recreant wretch who holds her in duress
                   And boff the lights out of that lousy bum.
                   Each Saturday, on Prairie Home, we hear
                   The latest episode and escapade
                   That Garrison narrates for fun, not fear
                   In his send-up of gumshoes like Sam Spade.
                        When Keillor leaves his weekly show this year,
                        Lights out for Noir­—that guy will disappear.

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CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

                    A Witness of Jehovah cuts my hair
                    Someone you might see going door to door
                    With pamphlets and a message she would share,
                    A visitor most householders deplore.

                   Now you would think a captive audience
                   Like me would get an earful of her spiel,
                   Against which I would have no good defense
                   Though finding in its doctrine no appeal.

                   Not so, however—she is  too polite
                   To take advantage of a customer;
                   Instead we chat of only that which might
                   Amuse or bring insight as we confer.

                        A lesson, nonetheless, I’ve learned from this
                        Is how a stereotype can be amiss.

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THE HUMAN FRONTIER

                    What frontier’s next for us, the human race,
                    Who have been questing since our first disgrace
                    To rectify that sin and prove our worth
                    To justify our being on this Earth?
                    Though we now have superb technology,
                    It isn’t what we make, but how we’ll be:
                    It’s our comportment and our attitudes,
                    Our cultivation of congenial moods
                   That will at last show we have risen above
                    Wayward behaviors and live wise in love.

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ALICE’S POND

                    It’s Saturday, and soon we’ll drive to Mead,
                    The garden park where on our weekly stroll
                    The dogs and I will traipse dirt trails that lead
                    To a pond that’s named for “Alice”—their watering hole.
                    Then from our perch upon a picnic table,
                    We’ll watch for squirrels or turtles ambling there
                    As if this were that Paradise of fable
                    In a serenity we happily share.
                    Often we’re joined by friends, Jim Piercey and
                    Duncan, his black dog, who live nearby
                    And share an equal fondness for this land
                    But make their ventures daily, not as I
                         And Gyp and Tig, who make our weekly jaunt
                         To this serene and green and blissful haunt.

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