Waltz for Washboard and Dinner Bell
 

With the solemnity of crickets chirping
          The Lord’s Prayer,
With the arrogance of roosters defecating
          The Pledge of Allegiance,
With the chloride dyspepsia of politicians
          smothered in onions,
With cadaver-thin street urchins
          mooning the bull,
With the fat of the land slinging
          mud in my eye,
With the bullet-train rushing toward
          the Nuclear choo-choo,
A one-legged man, whistling in the dark,
Releases a clutch of balloons — each
          one containing a seedling
Of the poem
          he never remembered to write.

 
  
© 2005 Robert Rosenberg