For Every...

For every cup, a saucer;
For every hat, a head.
For everyone who’s tired,
Both a pillow and a bed.

For every book, a reader;
For every foot, a shoe.
For everyone who’s sad,
A chance to freshen and renew.

For every song, a singer;
For every play, a stage.
For everyone who’s trapped,
A key to open up the cage.

For every cut, a Band-Aid;
For every tear, a kiss.
For everyone who’s stressed,
A month when nothing is amiss.

For every bee, a flower;
For every breeze, a kite.
For everyone with things to say,
A chance to sit and write.

Critiques

When offering advice, it’s best,
So you won’t be forsaken,
To ponder just exactly how
Your guidance might be taken.

For uninvited judgment,
Even said with good intent,
Might be something the recipient
Could very well resent.

Critiques, although constructive,
Often stick in someone’s craw;
Not everyone appreciates
The spotlight on a flaw.

So I’d tread very lightly,
My objections kept inside,
‘Cause a wound to someone’s ego
Might be all that I’d provide.

"The Best Laid Plans"

Perfect plans just don’t exist
No matter how you try.
It’s possible to nail the gist
But other parts won’t fly.

For circumstances do contrive
To ruin the precision
With which you kept your hopes alive
The way you did envision.

“The best laid plans of mice and men”
Is such a brilliant quote;
When Robert Burns put down his pen,
He knew a gem he wrote.

Such simple words and so succinct,
They perfectly suffice
To mark their message, long-time inked,
For us and also mice.

A Luxury

Today was ninety-eight degrees;
At least that’s how it felt.
I’m shocked that I am still intact;
I thought that I would melt.

But I would take this kind of heat
For months, all in a row,
Instead of what was perfect weather
Twelve short years ago.

For from those bright blue skies above
The world came crashing down,
Releasing so much sorrow
In its tears we all could drown.

Complaining is a luxury
When there’s no glaring threat
And I feel fortunate to whine
About a little sweat.

Skeeved Out

I squeezed into a subway seat
So I was wedged between
A backpack someone wouldn’t move
And someone not too clean.

I tuned them out, began to read
But barely had the chance
When scruffy guy got going
With his hand inside his pants.

He wasn’t very subtle,
His intentions very clear
And no one in the subway
Had the guts to interfere.

So I got up and moved away
Before he could conclude,
But such a sleazy spectacle
Still left me quite unglued.

We put up with a lot on trains,
But all of us should scoff
At behavior meant for privacy –
And throw the jerk right off! 

Holeyness

No one really looks askance
When someone’s wearing holey pants
And rips may vary by degrees,
Especially around the knees.

There was a time if clothes were torn,
They ceased to be the ones you’d worn,
For clothing, ripped, made one look poor,
Without the cash to hit the store.

Then hippie days upset that rule
And worn-out ragged jeans looked cool.
We rarely changed our dungarees
And earned those windows for our knees.

But now some jeans come well-equipped
With shredded sections, neatly ripped;
Yet such a shortcut seems so strange,
A backwards step to signal change.

Preconceived Notions

I sometimes wonder if a monk
Succumbs and sinks into a funk;
Since he is lacking normal spunk,
Well, how is one to know?

The same for gurus – though they’re wise
When seen in solemn guru guise,
Perhaps they’d take us by surprise
Beneath the mistletoe.

And rocket scientists, so smart,
With so much knowledge to impart,
Quite possibly might fall apart
When playing tic-tac-toe.

For notions that are preconceived,
Despite what we have all believed,
Should from our psyches be retrieved
And given the heave-ho.