Life Lessons from Aunt Ingeborg
—inspired by anecdotes related by Joseph Salemi
Mein kleiner nephew, sit. No, I insist!
You love me, Ja? Then why bring me such shame?
Your sloppy face! Your girls of ill-repute!
It’s time we talk. In fact, I’ve made a list—
The rules of life! Some lessons which should tame
A ne’er do well like you. So follow suit!
Don’t be upset! Why should you clench your fist
At little observations I proclaim?
The truth, mein Liebling, you must not refute!
Stop slouching! Wash your shirt. Cover that cyst!
You look uncouth. Such posture—you’re not lame!
So stand up straight. And shave. You’re too hirsute!
And women! How I cringe! Each shameless tryst
With some unworthy floozy with no name.
Your latest—ach!—as if a prostitute!
Don’t let such sinful fantasies persist
When real adults have goals to which they aim!
Your thinking should be moral and astute.
Do you think you can be a hedonist
While I am here?! Your life is not a game!
You do not get to march to your own flute!
Nor do you need some rich psychiatrist
Who’ll say you have harsh relatives to blame!
The problem’s you—of that there’s no dispute.
All life is penance! Sift chaff from the grist
Or you might find yourself consigned to flame—
A spineless soul, adrift and destitute!
The Devil’s always there to poke and twist
To make you his! Ja, always it’s the same.
You must show strength—there is no substitute!
Mein Liebchen, these are small slaps on the wrist.
Your doting aunt would never bruise or maim.
I’m not a witch! I don’t cook eye of newt!
The fact is I’m a loving altruist
Who’d never nit-pick, bully, or defame!
My former friends are wrong to call me “brute.”
Ja: yes
Mein kleiner: my little
mein Liebling: my darling
Mein Liebchen: my sweet
Sister Act
She walks in beauty… well, that’s what she thinks.
But when you take a closer look you grasp
That the perfume she favors rather stinks
And that she has the conscience of an asp.
She fancies that her heart is soooo unique—
That she’s as kindly as a nun or nurse.
But this proves phony once you hear her speak
And grasp her favored transport is a hearse.
Of course this isn’t something she’d confess—
That all her high ideals promote despair:
The criminals she harbors; urban mess;
Assisted suicide; transgender flair.
She’s big on Nature. Well, we all love trees.
But she wants Earth relieved of all its people.
She lived for Covid; frets about the bees,
And wants all churches stripped down to the steeple.
How strange this woman worries that her daughter
Might face red tape when going to abort
Her grandbabies. Or that she lauds the slaughter
Of those with goals which don’t earn her support.
She thinks herself a sister to Mankind
(Excepting all the enemies she hates.)
She thinks that all who challenge her are blind;
She crows as if she’s one of the Three Fates.
But she’s cut from a darker cloth, that’s clear.
And though she hopes her wicked words will blister,
A Twister comes. Despite her cackling sneer,
A falling house will crush her—like her sister.
Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals. He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel Bleeding Stone. He lives in Bradenton, Florida.
