A SONNET
FORBIDDING MOURNING

     I could not eat a kangaroo
          - Ogden Nash

Another Hutu disembowelled; the small
hole of a bullet through the baby’s chest;
the beggar’s desperate prayer for us all;
the Serb hag-eyed with nightmares and no rest;

thank goodness it’s all over there - it’s wog
eat wog if you get far enough from home.
Give me my tele, take-away and grog
and I’ll be glad my road won’t lead to Rome;

but if not body, wits will I send forth
to jog and train for poetry contests
and cull the laurel till it gets too dark;

above the stench of famine south and north
one question burns like DDT on pests -
when we get to Parnassus, can we park?

     1997
 

That one's been in the drawer all this time.

The next one was in Pffa's Scansion Mansion in the thread Scansion Mansion exciting new formal challenge! New! Exciting!

CIVIL

Our civil rights are fragile flowers
only fools entrust to Fate.
They stand exposed to Terror’s powers -
Quick! Assign them to the State!

     2005
 

This appeared in Pffa in NaPo 06, Day 27 -

FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

     Iraq 2006

Something about
wise and just, about

climbing the
righteous hill, but

there
seeing only

the dust
blowing on

a red child
scything

or something like that;

something like that, but

down now
blinking and

shrunk
beyond recall

and this word salaam,
what could it mean?

     2006
 

The last one appeared in Pffa in Challenges in the thread 2006 Pffa Competition thread - Sevenlings and was my entry for the final of that comp (where it got the bronze).

SEVENLING

Call it the Boundless Larder,
the Banquet Six Centuries Long;
the Ocean’s Golden Goose.

Call us Wit’s Kitchen - science to burn,
Wealth’s Belly - gold in huge folds;
the Fartless Ones - no guts at all.

Say if you miss the Grand Banks cod.

     2006