“Wherever I lay my hat”, he said
Inferring home was there.
A state of belonging bound in felt
Anchored in darkest millinery.
He had his hat; his hat was home.
The putrid hostel beds and often doorways
Always home to him,
Never mind the ice-cold fingers,
Ripping at his worn sleeping bag
Storm after storm assaulted the city.
He was warm within himself.
He had his hat; his hat was home.
A security blanket, nursing his psyche
Hiding him away from the hideous reality
Where the discarded homeless was a norm.
Society, uncaring, dismissed him with a glance,
Pouring hateful derision his way
He had his hat; his only home.
We are killing at a distance now.
It is a most clean and efficient form of homicide.
The Decider decides,
not the guy in the drone control,
not the millinery brass - no,
every hand is washed,
all the way up the up-chain
and that chain leads not to any person,
for the Decider is hidden.
Death is sent with surgical precision.
Missile to target, mission after mission.
Death now resides
in a small remote computer,
that hums away happily night and day.
It never stops deciding,
controlling who lives or dies.
It has a program, one it programmed for itself.
It has an endless list, and everyone is on it.
It decides who needs death now
or later. Where to diagnostically strike,
where to smartly eliminate
without the messy, close-up hate.
The busy desk-top automata
drones on and on,
and the death-count ticks on and on.
The good and the bad are named
and only after the murder
are they blamed.
It is a pin-point killer, it is tidy
for every hand is clean,
while any hint of distant blood
is aseptically, and most compassionately
washed away
She is wearing this magical hat
I wondered about it
This was a science fair, not a millinery exhibit
Then I saw it.
There were rays coming from it
They formed into prisms on the floor
The smaller children were super excited
It was the only thing about the fair they liked
It was an amazing gift for them
So we awarded her third prize
for ingenuity and generating enthusiasm
and thinking outside this universe
When did hats stop being suave,
When did they lose all their style,
When did they quit enhancing your suit,
Your eyes, your face, and your smile,
To becoming a cap advertising soft drinks,
A cap that is worn wrong way ‘round,
When did it become a logoed Billboard,
Warn by most of the crowd,
I wish we had hats saying “I’ve got a flair”,
I wish our hat choice had more taste,
I wish, so much, that the hats that we wear,
I wish they all had more grace,
I guess there’s one way the hat makes a stand,
And that’s with her detective costume,
When she puts on her hard police woman’s hat,
In the privacy of our bedroom.
Hats are such a marvel,
when the weather is so garbled,
A multitude of quick coverlets to warm the brain
protect the head from snow, wind and rain.
A dapper, flamboyant chapeau
to quickly dawn where ever you might go,
A fedora brandished by some handsome man
that would display his appealing stand.
A stetson for the guy from Texas
who stands tall before the rest of us.
A tam, a topper
a Panama show stopper.
Some pretty little girl in a bonnet
that inspires a Shakespearean sonnet.
Better yet, a woman's choice of millinery
to walk a fashion show off fritillary.
To church or same gandiose Easter parade
that gleams and stands above the seasonal charade.
Hats are such a blessing
when the cold requires warm protective dressing.
The prediction is for gusty winds and cold,
hats need only be warm not necessarily bold.
Take your pick
but make it quick
your nose, your face, your head
need covering, that goes unsaid.
as temperatures drop
Louise Gratton always wore a hat on,
Even on her bicycle when she sat on,
They were various colours and design,
Her millinery skills always fine,
Now she's making one to put her cat on.
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