Gunga Homework

The kids squawk about grade five
Homework “eating them alive”
All the parents go mad just trying to keep it straight.
“Did you do your math today?
Smirks are giving you away!”
A pencil sitting on your desk while time gets late.
As the evening sun goes down.
Hear complaints, many a frown
Three boys find excuses both physical and mental
“My folder’s far away from here.
Stupid instructions are not clear!”
They do not understand to sit is elemental.
It is “write, write, write”
You have pencils, brains and paper so please write!
While the math is fresh in mind
The erasers you can find
Put pencil down to paper and just write!!

Even in the grade of one
When kids learn while having fun
My twins learn how to complain with older sibling.
Counting pennies, nickels, dimes.
Reading small books with small rhymes.
Seems to generate big moans and serious quibbling.
Both rewards and punishment tendered.
Has no effect, decision rendered.
Homework is not an easy sale by any means
Parents therefore show a smile
Hoping, dreaming all the while
That a tutor solves the problem before they’re teens.
It is “write, write, write”.
You have workbooks, brains and fingers so please write.
When young, just form the habit.
Opportunity is here, so grab it.
Stop driving parents crazy, please sit in the chair and write!

Saturday Soccer Coach

Four kids per side, colors are bright
Crimson on the left, Yelllow Lightening on the right.
In the middle with stop watch going “tick”
Is referee Dad calling offsides and goal kick.
With parents watching him doing his schtick.

Up goes small hand, smacking the ball
The referee ponders, “sould I make the call?”
Don’t stop the game, “ball still in play!!”
He decides and then he jumps out of the way.
The ball zooms into goal on this hot sunny day.

After four quarters, with kicks quite deft
The 6 year old boys have no energy left.
Forty minutes of running, now end of the game
With snacks galore, the boys become tame.
Eating, not soccer, is their clame to fame.

Old Man and the Lake

Yesterday, a friend and I spent the morning on Shoreline Lake in Mountain View, California learning how to windsurf. Dave and I enjoyed three water-soaked hours of instruction while our 10 year old boys literally did circles around us. Yes, their words were ones of encouragement, but the boys were dry and the dads were wet.

Dave and I are now “certified” to rent equipment and windsurf with our sons. It will be a long time, if ever, for the Dads to be as accomplished as the sons when we are holding a sail out on that lake.


Old Man and the Lake

Last summer at the age of nine
Our big son found talent galore
Catching the wind on board
Then surfing from shore to shore

“Join me on the lake”
He said to his creaky-kneed Dad
“We’ll race the morning away
I promise you’ll be glad.”

He made it look so easy
And he was just a kid.
My confidence abounded
I could do it like HE did.

With life vest and a swagger
Private lesson on the beach
I crawled onto the board and stood
For the uphaul line I did reach.

The sail was supposed to rise straight up
From salt water to strong hand
I proved a “Santiago” to this Marlin
Muscles struggling just to stand

Old Man on the Lake was I
Fighting wind and natures best
After falling over a dozen times
In water I did rest.

The ten year old circled expertly
“C’mon Dad, I know you can!!”
He screamed with strong encouragement
Gliding gracefully far from land.

The joyous moment then did arrive
As I stood and raised the sail
Being “one with wind” and bending knees
I captured a mighty gale.

The wind did push, and puff and blow
The boom and mast did shake
The board moved forward with steady speed
And kicked up a tiny wake.

Cheers erupted (OK, not really)
But without warning the wind just stalled
Losing balance, the smiling old man windsurfer
Took a mighty but happy fall.

Liberation Day

School starts tomorrow
Parents (including the two in my house) will rejoice
In sounds echoing but reversing the day of birth
When parents say, to the newborn, "welcome, welcome"
And now parents say, to the school child, "go, go, go, go"
Together.

Take your backpack
Filled with protractors and glue sticks,
Pencil boxes and erasers,
Packed with delicacies of bologna and apples
(and Cheetos and Corn Nuts while your parents were not looking).
Take these and all other tools of learning,
and burdened by this pack on your back depart the Egypt of your parents' homes.
A childhood Exodus to the promised land.
En masse.

From morning to mid-afternoon
Mothers and fathers now praise the teacher and the school.
"Watch over my child," they ask.
"For their daytime is yours, and not mine, for 9 months"
No sibling squabbles or summer camps,
For the Autumnal Equinox is almost upon us (Sept 22).
And parents will celebrate the new day's quiet with wine and song.
Working.
Alone.

Four Nights Five Days

Blog
Wife blogs
Women blog together
BlogHer conference in Chicago
Creates Blog widowers
Watching kids
Alone

Four
Four nights
And Five days
Alone for four nights
With three boys
Two cars
House

Food
Nine meals
Cereal, eggs, toast
pasta, chicken, mac, cheese
Camp serves lunch three days
Dad cooks, but cleans?
Big bicycle ride
Water balloons
Wet

Fun
Boy fun
Watching action movies
Male bonding without Mom
Building “junkyard wars” in driveway
Wearing underwear as hats
Drinking non-organic milk
Eating nachos
Messy

a week at end

This poem is in the uncapitalized style of E. E. Cummings. It's Friday. The kids have been in camp all week and my wife has been a social media maniac from sunrise to sunset. The weekend is welcome.


a friday so nice
to end the week
chicken and rice
the calm we seek
arrives today
and grows grows

a camp of tech
the older of boys
he made a wreck
geek games and toys
adventures on screen
he knows, knows

to run and play
two younger of boys
in sports all day
made lots of noise
big water balloons
use hose, hose

the beautiful wife
so busy so sweet
tells story of life
with blog and tweet
her smile so bright
It glows, glows

Jobberwocky Babysitter

In summer with silver DSi
From babysitter strength of teen.
Their smiles go ‘round from ear from eye
With YouTube rumbling Queen.

“Jump over Babysit, my sons!”
The basketball kicks, the Giant’s hat.
Clear college path to fireman runs
Over our welcome mat.

Small youth of boys denies their brain
The sense to shun the Babysit.
Running round to flank like train
Attack with ocram fit.

A water pistol murks the day
With gurgle balls and starmples stream.
To strike the mystery “hooray!!”
Some babysit the scream.

Arise the monster they create
In running, jumping, freeze.
He bids the harple boys, “It’s late”
Into the car he flees.

Robert Frost Chicken Nuggets

This poem, a comment on tonight's dinner adventure (competition???), is in the same rhyme and rythm as "The Road Not Taken". To make the pattern clear, I've separated the 20 lines into 4 stanzas of 5 lines each.

Two chicken nuggets lay on plate
And I wished kids would finish both.
But “clean plate club” is not their trait
Diverting from their solemn fate
Create concern, cease Dad’s hair growth.

One nugget could fuel World War 3.
Its salty crust and tender meat
Spurs youth to heights of junk food glee
Consuming massive calories
With fingers fast and not too neat.

Should I tamp down the brewing feud?
That surely will erupt with force
Between the kids, poison the mood.
By speaking young boy words so rude
And insults said with no remorse?

At dinner’s end the plate lay bare
Two chicken nuggets had be eaten
Kids stomachs full, no food to share.
In the conflict no children there
By hungry siblings had been beaten.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Sleepover (Sonnet 43??)

Kids stay up all night? Parents wake in daze.
I ask the pre-teens to turn off the light
That floods the hallway with its rays so bright
Nintendo DS gaming fights doeth rage
Presenting kids bedroom as play and stage.
Each boy performs to audience of one
They stay up quietly watching YouTube fun
Boys stay up loudly joking with the moon
Boys stay up striving to make noise ‘till late.
Reading Simpsons and Batman cartoons
Boys stay up in their MTV-like state.
“Please go to sleep,” but boys stay up and soon
Parents do bribe with midnight snack on plate.
But they stay up more listening to iTunes.

Battle Hymn of the Neighborhood Carnival

Over the weekend, my 10 year old and I went to the used bookstore in search of new Hardy Boys books. While he paged through The Masked Monkey, I browsed the poetry section for blogging inspiration and stumbled across a collection of poetry from the civil war.

One book passionately described Civil War poetry as “filled with moral fervor” over slavery and preserving the union. Heavy stuff, and fascinating to Mad Dad Poet, the engineer with limited schooling in writing and literature.

After looking at books in the morning, we took kids and friends to the local traveling carnival in the afternoon. It’s the standard school parking lot carnival with 10 rides, lots of carnival games and really disgusting carnival food. One of the other Dads described his first churro as a “sugar-coated, grease-filled donut death stick”. All the kids enthusiastically ate one..... AFTER going on the rides.

Combining the "moral fervor" of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” with the weekend carnival activities resulted in the poem below.



This was the magic weekend with the feared “Nativity Fair"
A yearly time that ev’ry father wishes was not there.
Consuming all spare dollars in the noisy summer air
With one short, simple rule.


(chorus)
Don’t eat corn dogs and a churro
Don’t eat corn dogs and a churro
Don’t eat corn dogs and a churro
If riding “Vomit-Tron”.


The boys insisted that we ride our bikes to Carnival.
A parking lot of steel and rust, a 5th grade Bacchanal.
With food court and the teenage kids it’s just like Stanford Mall.
And all kids win goldfish.

(chorus)


Our kids enjoyed the spaceship ride that spins with dropping floor.
They rode the up-down, tilting thing and asked for tickets more
The ’66 Ford Mustang was most surely not a bore.
But "Vomit-Tron" loomed high.

(chorus)

Of three friends only two would venture onto "Vomit-Tron".
The third’s head was still aching from adventures over yon’.
The youth survived the upside-down trip, skyward and beyond.
With paper bags in hand.

(final chorus)

Edger Allen Poe Raven Braces

This poem was a blast to write. The rhyming pattern and rhythm for The Raven is unique and distinctive. The last line of each stanza, ending with the words "never more", is a big fat pitch over home plate to discuss kid's braces.

Because I'm a Vincent Price fan, below the poem I have included a video of him reading The Raven.


Once when teeth were straight and baby, eating peas and carrots (maybe)
Cheese sticks were the rage as high chairs stood upon the kitchen floor.
Pacifier, pointer finger, oral habits sometimes linger
As kids grow from infant to a toddler, pantries they explore.
Touching food and toys quite dirty, with their mouths they do explore
Little mouth safe never more.

Now electric brushes moving on bicuspids small and grooving
Can they keep the teeth safe from junk purchased at the candy store?
Sugar, sweets are quite addicting, children’s action so conflicting
With their clear instructions Mom and Dad, “avoid sweets” they implore.
"Floss your teeth and hold off on the chocolate cupcakes" they implore
One dessert and nothing more.

Little children, growing older, eating patterns get much bolder
Birthday parties, Halloween and cub scout cookouts filled with smores.
Overwhelmed with strong temptation, juice and soda kids can't ration
Adult teeth at angles, child is patient dentist does adore.
“Cavities are fixed but braces needed, smile we will adore".
Chewing gum is never more.

Conversations very honest, Doctor "Ouch" the orthodontist
Told the parents skeptical to open up their wallet more.
Teeth came in at horizontal, in the back and in the frontal
With no treatment, smile will disappear replaced by fangs galore.
Orange braces, visits to the doctor costing funds galore
Bank account’s cash never more.

Iambic Pentameter Minivan

The dents and dings show travel history
across the space and time of young strong sons
It bares a witness to ten summer camps
and devastating school projects of science.
Granola bars crushed into oaty mist
to penetrate the cloth interior.
"Lozano's Brushless Wash" is mystified
and does not clean the van that needs "detox".

Removing scratches yet they all return
to form a map that links school, work and play.
Old moldy orange rots 'neith driver's seat
exuding fruity death perfume for all.
A sushi roll yearns for the sauce of soy
then finds the company of Lego men.
Oh vacuum cleaner, Armor All's big spray
Please find a home in my wife's mini van !!

Sleepover Limerick

One boy a sleepover had,
his two brothers were really quite glad.
They spread out 10 yards
of his Pokemon cards
which usually makes him quite mad.

Breakfast talk was questionably tasteful
With leftover Cheerios wasteful.
Six year olds speak
sometimes springing a leak
with orange juice by the faceful.

Joyce Kilmer Nerf Guns

I think that I shall never see
out of my left eye, leave me be.
Nerf gun bullets fly overhead
Tuesday morning in my bed.

Decending from the sky like rain
poking holes straight to my brain.
Toy guns cause Mom and Dad to curse
And not in pleasant poetry verse@!

These three boys must go outside
Baskets to shoot and bikes to ride.
But TV holds a great attraction
So maybe overnight camp for child subtraction?

3 Boy Airplane Haiku

Paper airplanes fly
Landing on me, paper cut
Spiderman bandaid