In the modern coffee houses
Once the employees hit 30
Their wristband goes from green to red
And they’re (metaphorically) dead
Off to some older hipster hangout
To sell cereal bars and sweetened milk
Under the watchful gaze
Of Charlton Heston in his final 7Os
Hip cool movie
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Youth sits hiding at
the back of the room
while the lesson is going on,
festering in complacency
a fly buzzes listlessly while
two girls write an erotic
reinterpretation of the scene,
batting an absence of lashes
at each other, faces curled in smiles
sneaking in a baseball,
the youth sits, meticulously
unstitching it, half-listening to
discussion about passive, then
active voice.
More at https://dehartreadingandlitresources.blogspot.com.
Eleven is the age to be a boy!
Sledding a saucer slipping
spinning dipping in ruddy glee
the first snowfall of 2018
Still the adventurer I love
not yet a teen only better
than the sledder of early days
When your stubborn-headed “No”
preserved a purposeful purity
(now “ok Dad” as maturity grows)
Ignoring puberty’s desire today
to poke that hormonal fire
ashes of boyhood fading fast
And eat the fruit of Eden’s tree
the bitter taste of iniquity thirsting
for your sheltered past –
But now that’s off a mile or so
your audacious smile splashing
snowflakes of greedy joy.
Eleven is the age to be a boy!
Tin rattle sounds
roll down the sidewalk
into the grass
Pinning down images
of our youth
on Sunday afternoons.