​Button, Button
                            When one subtracts from life infancy
                            (which is vegetation),—sleep, eating, and swilling—buttoning and unbuttoning--
                            how much remains of downright existence?
                                                                               The Summer of a Dormouse.—from Byron’s Journals
Just ask the poet, life’s a dumb thing.
Button, button, eating, swilling.
Life isn’t much but, still, it’s something.

Existence is a rule-of-thumb thing.
Buying now with later billing.
Just ask the poet, life’s a dumb thing.

To dream, to sleep, a ho-and-hum thing.
Boring, boring, mulling, milling.
Life isn’t much but, still, it’s something.

Mum’s the word, the word’s a mum thing.
Button lips and no bean spilling.
Just ask the poet, life’s a dumb thing.

Life, of course—the known-outcome thing.
Death and taxes.  God is willing.
Life isn’t much but, still, it’s something.

Life is short, a bit-of-crumb thing.
Dormouse summer, daddies grilling.
Just ask the poet, life’s a dumb thing.
Life isn’t much but, still, it’s something.





Clothes, but no Cigar


Great title, you say, but
will your poem hold it up?
Have you earned the right
to that title? Or, you ask,
will you be left with ashes
and rags? Listen, Reader,
look. Where do you think
that title would be without
this poem holding it up?
You’re damned right!

Down here.