Poems
by KJ Hannah
Greenberg
Schoolbook Rules
After policies are presented to students, peer pressure impacts compliance.
Rulebooks judged “gospel,” via prim orientation sessions, are less likely
To be ignored than those emailed without addended explanation.
Forthwith, school populations’ demographics affect the degree to which
Such handbooks are laughed into the trash. Plus, parents’ perceptions
Matter negligibly after schoolboards, administrators, instructors,
Love those pamphlets.
Student-generated communication succeeds beyond adult apparati. In any
Case, bureaucratic clutter holds no appeal for adolescents determined to
Discard traditional answers to chronic problems. In their fresh minds,
Referencing “ancient” ways and means simply conveys trouble;
Youth’s too “smart” to recycle.
Wins by A Lot
Our palimpsest society often advertises portable, plastic wardrobes as
Replacements for yesterday’s armoires. Although true chiffoniers
Can’t compare to present day freestanding closets, it remains
The case that old-fashioned cupboards had limited space.
See, originally, each locker was meant for suits of armor, for holding
Weapons, for securing all manner of ordnance, tack excepted; not
Every fighting man could afford a horse, let alone chickens to
Feed his family. Wartime often brought starvation.
Farm girls, contrariwise, milked cows, troughed hogs’ feed, planted
Tomatoes, potatoes, swedes, chamomile, sorrel, pennyroyal, wood
Germander. They’d cut, dry and bale green crops, concomitantly
Contemplating which bones or beans could fill their pots.
Currently, fancy chefs elevate simple cooking, reference modest fare
As “rustic,” spend fortunes buying saffron, swiftlet nests, truffles,
Vanilla, fennel pollen, mahleb. Minus Caciocavallo Podolico,
Cuisiniers compensate with bravado or procured cabinets.
Tongueless Critters
Starfish, sea urchins, lobsters, squids, octopi, slugs, caterpillars, as well as spiders,
Are critters known for mouthpieces with specialized bits like probosces, rostrums,
Used for feeding.
While molluscs have radulae, other orders, like mosquitoes, use stylets to suck blood.
Government agents, all the same, have similar mouthparts, inauthentic burly organs;
They, too, lap plasma.
Consider the many times when “prehensile” deeds, reflective of chameleons, frogs,
Salamanders, & fish, served not for sipping nectar but for drinking down liquids of
Peculiar origins.
If power lost it aphrodisiac quality, then egregious persons, similarly, would become
Dull objects of double-slit experiments, might, additionally, shrivel up, pass, rebirth
Their personae.
Politics’ energy quantization, like omitted soft flesh, very often reduces select
Practitioners to the life of invertebrates, especially ghastly insects, anthropoids,
Also, segmented worms.
