The State of the Onion

First off, it stinks.
And there are so many layers,
no wonder nothing gets done.
Or undone.

Christopher T. George



I am featured poet this week in Allen Itz's zine Here and Now, "Winter on the South Frontier," Friday, January 22, 2010. Get to it through the link in the title. Enjoy, my friends!



My Belated Confession

I admit it -- I cheated: I took steroids
-- they helped me to win all those awards,
the Pushcart, the Pulitzer, and the Nobel
-- even if it's ignoble of me to admit it.

Although I claimed that I took no stimulants
(here, I dab my eye) I've let down my family,
all my fans and all aspiring poets who believe
they can reach the pinnacle without a fix.

I confess, I doped myself up real fine. . .
I deserve to be stripped of everything.
For my success, anonymity I would trade.

My megalomaniac malice was incontestible,
my artful duplicity all too contemptible:
I fully deserve the world's tirade.

Christopher T. George




















Yoria Painting Within the Lines
To my mom, Yoria C. George

Tacked on the institutional varnished door
in your simple nursing home room, a flower
so garishly pink; did you choose the color?

You are proud to tell me you were the sole
patient to stay within the lines; I wonder
if you drew the flower too -- I fail to see

if the plant is printed. You are proud
at your age of eighty-nine, as I am, to recognize
this chink of light in your humdrum existence.



Blessed Are The Lawnmakers
(Dedicated to Senator Grassley of Iowa)

Every politician on the stump
(tree stump, that is) promises
much. They speak of high ideals,
gaze toward the purple horizon
and survey the lordly forest.

When they reach the Capitol
in Washington, they mutate
into Lawnmakers: bugs lost
among the blades of grass
unable to see the trees.

Christopher T. George