THE COLD WAR

Editor's note: "Some animals act like people, and some people act like animals," Dad wrote in the introduction to this poem. "When you put them together, they sometimes imitate each other." It seemed to me an appropriate poem as election time -- with all those annoying, mud-slinging TV commercials -- is upon us.

Politics in Washington,
And world affairs as well,
In situations here at home,
All have a parallel.

Our neighbor's dog is just a cur,
And he's nothing much to see;
I've got no use for him at all,
And he hates the sight of me.

He barks whenever I come out
To get the morning mail;
It's pretty certain I'm a guy
That he would love to nail!

But I don't aim, if I can help,
To give that mutt a chance
To chew a swatch of denim
Out of Mister Acres' pants!

He snarls at me, I snarl at him,
We go on day by day;
But never have got closer yet
Than a dozen feet away.

If we don't hold the status quo,
And worse does come to worst,
I think he'll turn his tail and run,
If I can bite him first!

--The Buckeye Poet (1991)

ENDANGERED SPECIES

Editor's note: "Down through the ages, species have lingered awhile, then disappeared -- often being victims of their own folly," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem.My hope is that someday soon we learn the error of our ways!

A hundred million years ago,
Give or take a week or so,
Lived the Brontosaurus;
It isn't logical to think
Man caused him to be extinct,
For he was long before us!

We are told the larger ones
Weighed as much as thirty tons,
A mass of bone and muscle;
He was such an awesome beast,
Adequate, to say the least,
To give any foe a tussle.

Being such a massive thing,
It surely took a lot to bring
Him down, but then, I wonder
If perhaps it might have been
A little bug that did him in,
A germ that laid him under.

Maybe, if we knew the score,
We wouldn't wonder anymore,
On matters appertaining;
Those critters found, I wouldn't doubt,
A way to wipe each other out,
Till there were none remaining.

Our race may disappear, somehow,
And others, many years from now,
May guess what happened to it;
They may surmise we found the means
To blow ourselves to smithereens,
And were stupid enough to do it!

--The Buckeye Poet (1991)

SLOW WIT

Editor's note: "How many times have you said something stupid and a few minutes or a few hours later thought of a perfectly brilliant remark that you could have made? I envy those who always say the right thing at the right time," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem. I suspect most of us have been there, done that!

I can always come up
With a snappy reply
After it's too late to say it;
I'm really a witty
Sort of a guy,
But I'm just too slow to display it.

By the time I can think
Of a good repartee,
To enliven a dull conversation,
Everyone's gone
From the party but me,
And I talk to myself in frustration.

I'd like to be quick,
And master the trick
Of returning a salient word;
It's awful to be
A pokey like me,
And appear like Mortimer Snerd.

Some day I'll come back
With a timely wisecrack,
It's a dream I'll cherish forever;
But it may be as late
As Heaven's front gate,
That St. Peter will tell me, "How clever!"

--Autumn Acres (1982)

OVER THE HILL

Editor's note: This really was Dad's "take" on life -- and a bit of advice that makes sense to me as well!

I'll never lament,
As some people will,
Bemoaning the fact
That they're over the hill.
Though somewhat the worse
From the wear and the tear,
I'm not ready yet
For the old rocking chair!

I'm not looking backward
But looking instead
To the rest of my life
That lies up ahead.
I can think of a million
Things to be done,
And I know I'm still able
To have lots of fun;

There's no use to mope
And complain of our plight.
We can't change the past,
But the future, we might.
Though I couldn't run back
Up that hill if I tried,
I can live all the way
Down the opposite side!

--Autumn Acres (1982)