Next time, I'll be an actor

When I come back, I want to be
An actor, rich, and fancy-free.
Successful actors, with great skills
Make millions, and can pay their bills.

I'll be among the "One Percent";
I'll buy my home, I'll never rent,
And when I get a fancy car,
I'll pay cash, when I'm a star.

An actor's good at "make-believe,"
He gets big bucks, just to deceive;
Each part he plays, however plain,
Had best seem real, and entertain.

Unlike the common "CEO,"
An actor works hard for his dough;
Next time, that's what I'll choose to be;
It sounds like lots of fun to me.

On how you speak

No other person talks like you
In Washington, or Timbuktu.
That's because your idiolect,
The words and accent you select,
Provide a very special tweak
Every single time you speak.

Gypsies

I often drove by gypsy caravans in France,
Encamped at the forest's edge outside a city,
Saw tethered horses, heads held low in grazing stance,
Small children's laughing eyes, mothers, dark and pretty.

On the sonnet

I'll sing in praise of sonnets, and the way
They pay allegiance to a set of rules,
Old rules free-versing poets won't obey,
As if poetic standards were for fools.
Rules scarcely matter; with a dearth of form,
Nothing gets in the way of their designs,
No well-known frame dare represent a norm,
To give a pleasant rhythm to their lines.
Adherence to a tried poetic style,
Is dull for poets lost in the embrace
Of novelty, and strict rules' denial;
To me, their best endeavors just lack grace.
If free verse slakes your thirst, please, don't refuse it;
The sonnet works for me, that's why I choose it.

White-gloved words

The professor smiles, greets the class;
He checks his watch, then sips a glass
Of water, and begins to speak,
His diction silvery, and sleek.

"Aristotle, in Poetics,
His great treatise on aesthetics,
Claims vanity will always cause
The doom of men with tragic flaws."

He pauses, then outlines the hell
Due men whose fortunes soared, then fell,
Poor dupes of pride's effrontery,
Who meet their ends in tragedy.

He glances round the silent room,
And tells of unforgiving doom;
His white-gloved words ring on, to scan
How time, and fate, make sport of man.

Intent, we drink in every word,
To understand the truths we've heard.
He stops, and leaves the lecture hall,
So long ago, as I recall.

Mementoque temporis memoriam

Reincarnation

We, all of us, return, and dress another way,
A different simulacrum of reality;
The energy we call the soul assumes new form
Within a multi-verse of change and random choice.
Next time, you might come back a brilliant butterfly,
Bright wings a-flutter, flying off to find a mate,
Still missing, caterpillar-like, your warm cocoon;
A young amoeba, almost ready to divide,
Multiplying in a single drop of water,
And unimpressed by nearby parameciums;
A single sunbeam, shining on a chilly day,
Homesick for the fiery star that cast you off;
Or, a forlorn grain of sand, on a wintry beach,
Wistfully recalling you used to be a rock.

Ain't misbehavin'

Some people think that words like "ain't"
Are tantamount to moral taint.
I use my "ain't's" to stress a point,
When something may be out of joint,
Then code-shift back to I "am not,"
If I don't need my "ain't's" a lot.