Billie's Songette

My dad stopped over last night on his way

uptown to hear Billie Holiday sing:

“Lester Young, Duke, they'll show, I know she'll bring

a crowd―let's be early to hear them play.

We can pick up some girls at the bar, pay

upfront for the discount―that's a good thing

for us to do! We'll have a great time, sling

the bull, wow the babes, we'll be makin' hay!”

“Saddle up!” he said, “We'll go in your car.”

So out we went, picked up girls, had some drinks.

All that time, our past―wasted―in a bar:

poured him in the backseat, hammered, that stinks.

In the mirror, he's sitting upright―far

from live, I think, until he smiles―and winks.

Self-made Sonnet

I came too late to this noble calling:

too many distractions, I was careless,

unfocused. Excommunicated, no less,

from my purpose by papal parenting;

guidance-counseling-denigrated thinking.

Was my self-made opportunity worth less

when accomplished within that loveless

embryonic envelope of aging?

Time rules, deadlines come and go, but the gall!

I empathize as I pass seventy,

but I cannot resist turning the screw:

thinking of forms and structure, I recall

Bukowski's lament that God made plenty

of poets but little poetry. Who knew?