Cranky Poems for a Late Spring

Song for Municipal Workers
There are potholes aplenty just outside my house,
Some big as a manhole, some small as a mouse,
One shaped like the head of my dear cousin Klaus.
They came by to patch them last week.

By “them” I mean every third hole, it would seem,
For many weren’t patched by the hole-patching team,
Perhaps due to some diabolical scheme
To make my car’s shocks bang and creak.

Were they called away super-quick, called away fast
To patch up a leak in some iron pipe (cast),
Some logical reason this job was half-assed?
Lord, give me the answers I seek.

Why is one half-filled, the other half not?
Is shortage in asphalt some evil world plot?
Should they not have been filling at all but got caught?
Perhaps they had patched past their peak.

There are potholes aplenty still there on my street,
All pockmarked and crumbled, not looking so neat.
Perhaps they’ll return and this process repeat;
If they don’t fill them all, I will freak.

 

Haiku #1
Smiles at winter’s end
Quickly fade at awful site:
Oil truck in driveway

 

Upon Hearing a Four-Wheeler While Walking
I see thee not defiling these woods,
Yet hear thee o’er the lilting breeze,
The squelching o’ my dusky boots,
And in the branch of wakening trees
Out-voicing chortling birdsongs lush.
And to mine ears, thou soundeth thus:

“MMRRRRRRRRRRR—
GRRRWWWWWWW—
NUNGH! NUNGH! NUUUNGH!
MMMRRRRRRRRRRAGGGGHH!!!”

Whilst burbling melt-fed creeks revive,
And merry sun sloughs winter’s wear,
I know thou shalt on my path swerve,
My walking blessed through bylaw’s care;
You, not so much.

And when your passing comes to pass,
With mauling wheels and stenching gas,
Whilst scaring man and beast alike
And ringlet girl upon her trike,
When we two meet, shall I avail
To block thy path upon this trail?
Shall I curtail what ruins thus
This perfect spring day’s gloried hush?
Will I not say, ignoble fiend:

“I’M CALLING THE COPS,
YOU NOISE-POLLUTING,
GAS-WASTING,
NO-GOOD
JERK!”

Probably not.

But I shall glare, O unkind sir!
Oho, believe me, I shall glare!

 

Haiku #2
Glimpse of melting snow
Sunlit pile in the back yard
Oh look: a dog turd

 

Spring Colours
Everything is brown
Everything is brown
Everything is brown
Everything is brown
Everything is brown
But sometimes grey

Ode to April
I’m hot I’m cold I’m cold I’m hot
It’s sometime sneakers, sometimes not
Forget my scarf and curse my luck
Then lose a sandal in the muck

It’s snow for breakfast, sleet for lunch
And then it rains and rains a bunch
The sun bursts forth at four o’clock
In bed I need an extra sock

I’m blinded by the blowing dust
I cannot seem to quite adjust
To April’s schizophrenic ways
Thank God that May is days away