Gator

by C.B. Anderson

A hissing cousin to the crocodile,
the alligator stands a monument
to everything American; and while
its bite may sometimes seem benevolent
compared to our Amendments Two and Nine,
its rugged constitution guarantees
tough times for those who wrestle one.  Malign
it if you must, though better just to please
it with a lavish gift of food -- alive
if possible -- and save the old judgmental
stereotypes for times when you survive
by means that don't depend upon your dental
superiority.  In a fair fight
the gator's still there by dawn's early light.

Hardscrabble

by C.B. Anderson
 
When all you've got is beer, wine seems like whiskey.

When all your fear's used up, the things you dare
to think about doing don't look as risky
as they might otherwise -- nothing can scare
a person who has peered into the eyeball
of his own death.  The now-abandoned dream
of a large life got stuck inside the pitfall
of dread.  It's time to hatch another scheme:

Throw caution away.  Learn a few choice Latin
phrases such as tempus fugit and carpe
diem.  If you are offered sheets of satin,
demand silk.  Don't let some movie star play
the roles which you would like to make your own.

The dog that growls the loudest gets the bone.

Duo Do-Over

by C.B. Anderson

If you should ask a mime
the time of day
or how it’s going, say,
then hands like semaphores
and moves sublime as Fred
Astaire’s will furnish clues
regarding words unsaid,
those orbs of yours
attuned to breaking news.

Detecting lies
in theater or dance
is chancy—no surprise;
to naked eyes that hear,
a fluid motion will
express no less
a cogent fiction than
does fluent diction to
a mesmerized tin ear.

Your thoughts can easily
deceive themselves,
their meager selvage hemmed
without a trace of will
to disbelieve.  The pace
of thimble-dodging needles
defeats your skill
to bind the nimble shins
of any Ginger Rogers.

Summary Justice

by C.B. Anderson

If all the men who’ve ever plagiarized
were held accountable, and all the women
ill-treated by recycled lies disguised
     as truth were issued robe and gavel,
nearly every man would stand, a criminal,
     before the Court of his unraveling.

To pilfer words another has composed
deserves contempt, but even more abhorrent,
Her Honor judges, is deceit—case closed.
     The sentence: nine-and-thirty lashes
rendered in the mother tongue, a torrent she’ll
     deliver swift and unabashedly.