‘Goose Sense’ and Other Poetry by Thomas Schmidt

Goose Sense

A burden and a bore I must have been;
As handy as another leg, I’d slouch
The farm in borrowed overalls, and when
My chores were done I’d nap on grandpa’s couch.
I thought of books and girls and being cool,
Of anything but crops and barns and sheds
Or this old man pointing some garden tool
Up at a flock of geese over our heads.
“How come, you reckon, one side of that V
Is just a little longer than the other?”
He paused just long enough for wiz kid me
To think up some smart theory or another;
___“Give up?” he asked.  “I guess so,” I replied.
___He winked and said, “There’s more geese on that side.”

A Limerick

Three statisticians from Clyde
To the hunt their sound methods applied:
One shot three feet high,
One shot three feet shy,
“We got him!” the third fellow cried.

Ozymandias for Windows

after “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I got an email from somebody’s friend
Which said: Please forward this to one and all;
I picked an address group and then hit Send.
It was an image, jpeg, I recall,
That trembled, beckoned me to comprehend
For fractions of a second as I gazed;
But having little time for what things mean,
I clicked it into cyberspace unfazed.
Let others heed its import if they may:
“My name is Bill, I’ve conquered all I’ve seen:
Look on my Works, and do not count the cost!”
And that was all. I went on with my day
___Of multi-tasking with the faceless lost
___Who send me messages from far away.

Email from the Dungeon Beneath the Ivory Tower

Its me. I would of come to class to-day
But both my kids are still to sick and there
Dad works, plus grammer (husbands mom) wont stay
More then two hours, which I dont think is fair,
Shes in our single wide out back so why
She cant help me some more I just dont get,
Ok, your probly thinking tmi  🙂
My questions on the homework, I forget
On Tuseday did you say we could or not
Use I on essays?  I wrote all I can,
A half a page but that’s asfars I got,
And do you grade on writing?  Yours, Sue Ann
___P.S. If I missed anything today
___Just send it in an email back ok?

Tom Schmidt retired to rural Vermont following a teaching career in literature and theology that began with a PhD from Cambridge University and ended when his last employer, Burlington College, went belly up–which was not his fault. In addition to many academic books and articles, he has written two novels, In Poor Taste and What Would Gilligan Do? His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including War, Literature, & the Arts, Rolling Coulter, Blue Collar Review, The Lyric, and Poets & War.