A new year yawns; faux fashions discommode us.
We fuel, feed and fear new holocaust.
We buy indulgence from winds that erode us,
and turn our backs on those who would accost
our careless souls — the same as decades rode us,
roughshod across emotion’s permafrost —
with truth and gentle kindness. I suppose
you’ll visit me this month; ask I write prose.

You are consistent, probably embarrassed.
A father in asylum’s bad enough,
and worse is one (well, me) whose rhymes come harass
productive people. Lines that shred like snuff,
provoking sneezes. Wish me then nonparous.
Wish away the smooth then, with the rough.
Blood children, way! Way, verse! — like last year’s clothes.
Perhaps they’ll let me out if I write prose.

Removing all the line breaks should be easy.
Discarding end-rhyme, or making it so slant
it glides down like fried okra, nice and greasy.
You’re looking at me oddly. Think I can’t?
Speak like your mothers, zeds ironed flat and sleazy,
and note how I have slanted out the taint
of poetry. Perhaps this year’ll disclose
how I’ll earn fortunes writing, now it’s prose.