LITTLE WILLIES

I

                           Little Willie played with spiders
                           Gluing them to paper gliders
                          Then threw them toward the crackling fire,
                          A game of which he’d never tire.

II

                                   Little Willie thought it fine
                                   To filch a glass of Poppa’s wine,
                                   But when he got a little drunk,
                                   He fell into the pool and sunk.

   

III

                              Little Willie, out of spite,
                              Pulled his sister’s pigtails tight,
                              But she, like him, as full of trouble,
                              Then tossed him on a pile of rubble.

*

SHERLOCK
ON MASTERPIECE THEATER

                  There’s no out-smarting brilliant Sherlock Holmes.
                  Not even evil Moriarty
                  A tenant in the devil’s catacombs,
                  And subtle master of conspiracy
                  Can possibly defeat Holmes’ prescient
                  Alertness to the faintest lingering clue
                  And keen awareness of his foe’s intent,
                  Revealing the true culprit to pursue.
                  However, this last episode has shown
                  The suicides of these two adversaries
                   In pools of blood and dead as any stone
                   And even Holmes’ tombstone by which John tarries;
                        But then a preview shows Holmes in the game
                        Again—a stunt to magnify his fame.

*

LAKESIDE GEOMETRIES

THE NEWSHOUR

                    What started out with Rob and Jim in charge
                    Has Gwen and Judy now tending the helm,
                    As PBS is working to enlarge
                    The state of women in its lofty realm.

                    There’s Margaret, too, who has a roaming gig,
                    Which leaves Jeff Brown the foremost male mainstay
                    To seek out stories interesting and big
                    Off in the wilderness and far away.

                    Whom else would we expect to pioneer
                    And raise the bar in this news industry
                    Than PBS, leave others at the rear,
                    Always hallmarked for creativity?

                        The Public can be proud of its own station,
                        So skilled at setting standards for the nation.

(Oops—apologies to Hari)

*

TOWARD ACCORD

                    We are a work in progress, human beings,
                    With our contentious, dangerous disagreeings,
                    And we’ve the power to end the whole shebang
                    Unlike our kin with only tooth and fang.

                    How much abuse can this poor world endure
                    Until our wretched race may find a cure
                    For our most manifest insanity,
                    The rotten core of our humanity?

                    Can we evolve into a super race
                    Distinguished for our amity and grace
                    As saints and sages have exhorted us,
                    Or must our future be more ominous?

                        There is no way to live well by the sword;
                        It’s only peace and love that bring accord.

*

THE WIFE OF BATH

                    Two houndes were accompanying the Wif
                    Who fed them kindly wastelbred and beef
                    And loved them above the many men
                    Who’d been her troubled husbands up till then,
                    For though her appetite for men was keen,
                    Her dogges she treated sweet, her husbands mean.

                    All five of them before long passed away
                    Depleted by the harshness of her sway,
                    And yet her little flock of dogs increased
                    Each time one of those harried men deceased.

                   A harridan she was indeed. Although at first
                   She could be charming, though once wed, the worst
                   Emerged, and her cursed husbands felt her wrath—
                   Such was the temper of this wife of Bath.

*

THE POD

                    The humpbacked whales, patrolling as a pod,
                     Were feasting eagerly on a school of scrod
                    That they’d corralled by acting as a squad—
                     Each one, you’d think, a massive demigod.

*