Two Nonsense Poems

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One Last Score


It will be an inside job

From the unmarked van.

We'll synchronize watches 

and our fast-talking ex-con

wearing a stolen waiter’s uniform,

will slip past the guard

distracted by the spilled coffee

while the trained monkey

steals the keys.

The loot is sure to be ours.


No loose-cannon cop

with a chip on his shoulder,

or his desk-pounding police chief

three days from retirement

will have a last-minute revelation,

to connect the dots

from the hidden clue in plain sight.


But I swear,

if I go down,

I’m taking you with me.

 

O, an Ocean of Nonsense


Say it ain’t so, Geronimo—
you don’t need to swap a feather
from your weather-worn, war bonnet

just to know what Columbus didn’t know.
You never had to sail the ocean blue
when oceans sailed others to you.

Say it ain’t so, O-hi-o.

Here you are 

round on the edges, high in the middle 

In your heart is Columbus

without an ocean blue

anywhere near you. 

Say it ain’t so, old Pla-to—
you stacked your questions row by row,
but they never did sail the ocean blue
and never did find a continent All those questions above and below time to let the whole thing go. 

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