Not easy to earn and learn name and game
Technical thieves are well known to the fame
Artificial ignorance
Or dwarfish intelligence
Winner all over the world becomes lame
Categories:
dwarfish, allegory, language, technology,
Form: Limerick
Gentlemen, I’m fifty-three!
“Now, can I still climb a tree?
Atop tree raise hands with glee
Repeating “Atop thee, Gee!”?
An Apt Gift for this Birthday!
Yet, for biggest cash I pray:
A bad left ear should not stay;
Heard sounds with the left just stray…
Perhaps, I’ll try dwarfish tree
For ascent with bones not free:
Taut muscles that don’t agree
About adjustable knee…
I’ve kept ageing: it’s no fun:
Popular big dream a son,
Who won’t crave a smart shot gun
Honest labor in the sun…
Fifty three is thirty-five
If turned the other way round
But thirty-five more alive:
A far cry from underground…
A celebrant’s choice is joy!
Who might be on Birthday coy?
If one should be coy, mere ploy:
Stage Acting tried to employ…
Quite long I ceased being a boy:
Like one I can’t myself buoy;
Now a fact I’m Fifty-Three
Almighty God, I thank thee…
All the drama with Evil,
Romances with the Devil:
To my critics not civil
For costlier rice, no weevil…
Farewell to Fifty Two years.
Adieu to Fifty Two’s fears!
Categories:
dwarfish, age, allusion, celebration, humanity,
Form: Rhyme
Has anyone seen the fourth graders lately?
They arrive in public built in full grown men and women foundations
wearing adult shoes in sizes eight, nine and ten.
They make me feel dwarfish,
not petite, since I weigh more now than
I did when I delivered children, but I weigh more than most of them.
I know three who are outstandingly large - could be
sumo wrestlers if they take women, as they are all females.
Has anyone seen the fourth graders lately?
Be prepared to feel small and dwarfish.
Categories:
dwarfish, 4th grade, 5th grade,
Form: Free verse
The five-year-old with his little dwarfish face refused to talk for a full eight minutes.
Until the speech teacher who wanted to hear him speak left, then he began to jabber.
I like to make real real cookies.
I smiled. What are they?
They are hot. I make them with grandma.
How do you make them?
I don’t know.
Do you use a bowl?
Sometimes.
What do you put in there?
He is playing with a bunch of plastic animals, ignoring me.
For about two minutes.
Butter, chocolate and other stuff, he says, finally. He looks up and smiles.
A co-conspirator in this conversation.
I smile.
And my cat helps, he says.
What is your cat’s name?
Rebel.
What kind of cat?
One with eyes.
Okay.
Big?
No. Giggle. Not a monster cat! Laugh.
We grin at each other.
It is always fun to start the day with an engaging five-year-old.
I shall never retire.
Categories:
dwarfish, humorous,
Form: Light Verse
when staring at e. e. cummings’ little ‘i’
—not reading,
it reminds me of st. francis’ sublime yet humble lowly jesus:
“he hides himself under the little form of bread”
if cummings’ little ‘i’ meant
the ‘i’ overpowered by something like gigantic rock,
overwhelmed by this evil prevailing world,
or intimidated by the malicious neighbors,
the ‘i’ hidden under a piece of bread is the lord
coming as an ‘i’ that is even smaller than the cummings’,
though he is the possessor of the power
and more than able to punish the world,
to save those worthless ‘i’s
for st. francis’ reverence on the consecrated piece of bread is
not of the dwarfish ‘i’ but of a pious one,
let my ‘i’ be not of the blasphemous one’s
but of the pious one’s as well,
the ‘i’ gazing at the forsaken lord
who died on the cross as a lonely ‘i’
Categories:
dwarfish, imagery, jesus, metaphor,
Form: Free verse
I tread a boundless earth
The vines rush to adore my feet
Mistress of the rare I am
Up above canopies cover my stead
I tempt the winds, the tide
Even the sun knows not to tame me
Endless is my spirit wild
All around,
My minions look at me with awe
Oh how great they say I could be
Radiant and free
Yet my heart stops - leaps - throbs
Of something now I cannot be
Of something still I must then be
A fire unfelt, a well unfilled
How may then? How will then?
I know not still.
But this I feel
I look at the stars tonight and see
Gleaming diamonds of dwarfish light
Away and unsure but yet
I envy them.
Up there they are nothing compared to me.
They are hundreds while I
In solitude tonight am here
To cry - far away from sight
Beneath the darkness, beneath the bright
Categories:
dwarfish, introspection,
Form: Free verse