Subject To Change

A reflection on my students

They are so beautiful, and so very young
they seem almost to glitter with perfection,
these creatures that I briefly move among.

I never get to stay with them for long,
but even so, I view them with affection:
they are so beautiful, and so very young.

Poised or clumsy, placid or high-strung,
they're expert in the art of introspection,
these creatures that I briefly move among—

And if their words don't quite trip off the tongue
consistently, with just the right inflection,
they remain beautiful. And very young.

Still, I have to tell myself it's wrong
to think of them as anything but fiction,
these creatures that I briefly move among—

Because, like me, they're traveling headlong
in that familiar, vertical direction
that coarsens beautiful, blackmails young—
the two delusions we all move among.

(C)2002, Marilyn Taylor

Gulf War Villanelle

Written in 1991, appearing in a now radically defunct periodical,
is this poem now dated, irrelevant? I wish . . . .


Mr. Bush must speak our truth.
We take his word (into our mouth)
But is our mood old doom of youth?

Camouflage is not uncouth:
Earthy colors fit for death.
I dare them all to speak the truth:

Fragile flesh beneath the cloth
Trembles like a flame-caught moth.
Our mood is old doom of youth.

Patriots fly up from the south
Blocking scuds from raining death.
We let our missiles speak our truth.

Today our masks are not of cloth.
But faces, alien, save our breath
From gas, our blood from froth.

The Gulf is black, as are sky & earth
and flesh in trashbags, not in cloth.
A moral war! is that our truth?
Or is it just old doom of youth?


Copyright © 2002 by Joseph D. Andriano

Trying To Get The Story Straight

We come along and tell them what to do
and pay their workers in a different way,
but who knows what is right for them or true?

Demands made on the rich are rare and few,
but the poor have little choice in what we say
when we come along and tell them what to do

about living their own lives, but tell me. Who
can speak for another or even know how to pray
for what’s best for them – or right or true?

With food scarce, black market prices are too
high for anyone but the very wealthy to pay
unless we come along and tell them what to do

with their own money, capping costs, so you
and I can afford things too, if we have our say,
but who knows what is right for them or true?

Workmen stand around like there’s nothing to do!
And standing in rubble, they laze the day away
until we come along and tell them what to do,
but who knows what is right for us – or true?

(C)2002, Mary Harwell Sayler