I’d be a cat, born to a mother already a spoiled house cat.
I would also be the one orange one in the litter,
the one everyone falls in love with.
I’d be blessed with the largest head compared
to my brothers and sisters.
A quality cat people seem to admire.
I’d be the keeper of the litter, but.
With this life of Riley, three squares a day
a clean litter box comes a price one must pay.
That trip to the Vet to be neutered.
Though I must admit.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around this.
SAD is very, very sad
Consuming food-like items daily
Soon we're doing bad
Jiving around, living life vaguely
Clear vision is what's missing
Stumbling and falling day and night
Our beautiful health we're dismissing
And slowly but certainly we're losing our sight
Three squares a day, I heard them say
There must be breakfast, lunch, and dinner
Getting a few snacks too, the American way
But so many are losing, so who's the winner?
Excess sodium and added sugar
Covertly, life becomes more imbalanced
Anger increasing and love is meager
Over life becomes more calloused
High-fat dairy, red meat, and cancer-forming
We blindly play in debauchery
Living for opulence but we're harming
While this sordid path illuminates an ominous augury
SAD is so sad
Eating loads and loads of CRAP
FOOD is being ignored and the world is going mad
Being caught in a pen, a slothful trap
I don't want a Standard American Diet
I want to be a Healthy-American-Powerfully-Progressing-Yonder.
“Miss Josie”
Miracle Man
2/25/2022
Our neighbor Josie don’t like the snow,
she comes to visit and then won’t go.
Josie always eats three squares a day,
she seems to think that we’re her Cafe.
Sometimes she decides to stay at night,
bringing to my wife great delight.
Josie has become somewhat heavy with age,
so Ern always gives Miss Josie the stage.
In her younger days she was a real dish,
but to see less of her is my every day wish.
Josie had three children and wanted more,
but for health reasons that wasn’t in store.
Always well groomed, without shoes on her feet,
Josie is a cat that belongs up the street.
When first she came my wife was smitten,
a skinny little thing no more than a kitten.
There are in the world, at least two types of folks
there are some living comfy and those under the yokes.
If you’re of the former, eating three squares per day,
when you look at the latter, do you cast them away?
Do you feel in your heart, anything but repulsion?
From an ill-conceived fear do you cry their expulsion?
Ghostly wolves hide among them, so you turn a blind eye
and it makes you feel safer, letting innocents die.
You say you’re correct, and you say it is smart,
to ignore all the suffering and to harden the heart.
Truth is: you’re a coward hiding up in your loft
and when asked for compassion, you shrugged and you scoffed.
Then you offered yourself a nice pat on the back,
and despite all your riches -- of real substance: you lack.
8/21/16
For Contest: Couplet Time-
Hosted By: Rick Parise
Out in the country, far from the town,
a three legged hen was pecking the ground.
Cows in the pasture walked one by one
to see the strange thing that nature had done.
Surrounded by creatures large and small,
the beautiful hen looked at them all.
"See what I can do," cackled the fowl.
They all stood in silence, even the owl.
She scratched lines in the soft earth's dew,
Put a leg in a square, then one each in two.
All eyes were upon her as she jumped high
to land three legs in three squares, she did try.
Running was her sport she did insists,
to town and back before she was missed.
Kept one leg always in front to lead her on,
Two for gears and she was gone.
To somersault down a hill;
the three legs wouldn't stay still.
The crowd was amazed at all she could do.
They applauded and cheered, "We love you."
The three legged hen was the happiest one,
so special she felt when the day was done.
Cackling a tune as she danced to the pen.
She really loved to be a three legged hen.
July 14,2005
© Edith D. Eutsler
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.