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Best Poems From
LAURENCE OVERMIRE
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193.
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Educably Retarded
I think back on what I learned in school and most of it was a waste of time.
Twelve years of public education and I’ve forgotten 99% of it.
Why didn’t they teach us something useful?
Like auto mechanics.
We all drive cars, but most of us haven’t got a clue what those guys are talking about when they rip us off for repairs.
Or credit cards. Shouldn’t we have been trained how NOT to use a credit card so we wouldn’t go broke?
I mean, geez, I wasted a whole year on trigonometry. I never use trigonometry. Or chemistry! Or biology! Not once have I had to dissect a frog in my adult life.
They could have spent that time teaching us something worthwhile like
“How to ask a girl out for a date.”
Or “What to say to her when you get one.”
And there could have been a more advanced course for seniors called
“How to put on a condom without looking like a complete idiot.”
See, this is good, practical information people need.
Or how about spending a few semesters on how to be a good parent.
After all, that’s the most important job most people ever have
And hardly anyone has the faintest idea how to do it.
And people wonder why the world is so messed up.
(Previously published in The Inditer, March 2000)
Laurence Overmire
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194.
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Eliot Nest
He was a banker
With money on his mind
Devious twists of turning profits
Numbers clicking through his brain
The world a formality pleated
Through the nape of his shining shoe
Conformed to a hierarchy
He couldn’t escape, except
In poetry, a poetry unbounded by
An infinite reason, still
In every phrase there lurked
The stunning insurmountable clutch of
Miserly calculation.
(Previously published in CER*BER*US,2003)
Laurence Overmire
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195.
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Elusive
For every *drop* of truth
there is a bucketful of fiction.
(Previously published in Spilled Ink, July 2000.)
Laurence Overmire
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196.
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Elvis
The King died
Some many years ago today
I didn’t know him very well
But a lot of people did
You can hear them now
Crying in the chapel
They’re all shook up
Loving you
And that old Kentucky rain
Falls silently now
In the Ghetto.
No
Don’t think I mock
His music and our very lives
Are
Intertwined
Sometimes indistinguishable one from the other
A tribute, rather,
I give this vagabond Prince
Who touched a generation
And left them weeping.
And singing.
(Previously published in Lynx Eye, Spring '99, Vol. VI, No.2)
Laurence Overmire
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