Short Hat In Hand Poems

With hat in hand the truth arrives
Too tired for much ado

They tell us now that grandpa Joe
Had something worse than flu...

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Merry Christmas to you, Uncle Sam

Leaving the jobless with hat in hand

   Congress on a Yuletide roll

   Brought an end to public dole --

They’re cooking their goose, not Christmas ham




*Written in 2010 after Congress made cutbacks in social service programs...

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Ivy-covered sheepskin, firmly in hand
    the confident graduate, square-jawed and tan

  Pulled offers from prestigious start-ups all over the land
    a year later he played lead guitar, hat in hand

  He, ever-grateful to his folks for those music lessons
    They, bleary-eyed from all the therapy sessions

  Yet Patience will out, and Time always tells
    Perhaps by thirty-five he'll own an oil well...

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The inevitable envy we feel
When we see our neighbour’s wealth
The eternal Ferris wheel
Up now, then down
The wheel turns
To be up
And to be down

Yet the greatest of us
Rise to the challenge
Of when being up
And seeing far
Not to look down
On those below

Not to spit
And not to drop
Popcorn snow
On those below

For who knows when
A turn – and then
Those above
Will fall from love
And become in a cycle
The bottom few
On the poor man’s pew
Hat in hand
To beggarly stand...

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