(a Senryu string poem)
High school girls are just
thoughtless and vague - too damn
dumb to be afraid.
Trusting too quickly
- believing things that are said
- unaware of risk.
Small and powerless,
chickens cooped from feral foxes
- peaches for picking.
So accompany
me on walks, to the store and
guard me like a penny.
Look - we're women
- junior grade - and conscious
of dark potential.
Breasted Americans
face a dark rainbow of threats
- we are mortal.
But ANY of us can
encounter unscheduled evil
like nightmares from hell.
Yes, that means you rough
tough males who glide through life as
if untouchable.
MUM EXPLAINS GRASSHOPPER FOREBEARS
Your daddy? Well, he had no money ,
Was skinny and boney, but just gorgeous, Honey,
A real grasshopper’s grasshopper.
Spent his days, unafraid to come a cropper,
Hiding on a cornstalk in a field (you probably heard)
Listening out for combines or a hungry bird.
Your papa learned to hop...junior grade..right and proper
Then was quickly promoted to senior hopper,
But oh dear he went on vacation in Mexico
One of those impulse things, you know :
Free ride in a truck, camping under tarpaulin,
But ended up as a chapuline*
His brother Joe was another hunk -
Defied the catcher nets – he had *****.
Fancied him myself (before your dad),
But he was too wild, adventurous, real bad.
Most famous member of our family was Uncle Joe -
(Now under glass in the botanical museum, Ohio.)
.........................................................................
Note
Chapuline is a delicacy of grasshoppers - eaten in Mexico
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