720 and 724
These foul, condemning, festering harpoons
that dig into my neck, just as Paul’s thorn,
that any day’s bliss balefully maroons
on an island of tumbleweeds ‘til morn.
What happens over night I cannot tell,
but time dissolves, not when I’m live, but dead,
the needle sticker itches that make hell
the life I live until I wake from bed.
And how they hellward haul me! How they make
not only pleasure, but pain, all the worse!
How can such small pins hold my skin at stake?
With what cruel cutlass do they cast their curse?
But morn comes, and their tyranny is shut:
the little hairs that irk from a haircut.
~~~
A child yearned to give his sister toys,
and treats, and tender hugs, and treasures, all.
Believe it, all you scoffing girls and boys,
It’s true in you, too, even if it’s small.
That child yearned so much that, finally,
done waiting, he gave every gift he could.
However he could give it sensibly,
he gave it earlier than wise kids should.
And though his sister was not there to take
the gifts he gave, he gave them. Don’t you laugh:
some loved ones are nearby, and still forsake
the easy things this boy’s gifts dwarfed in half.
The heart that yearns for good, and cannot wait,
God looks on lovingly, and not with hate.