Two Poems By David Blumenfeld

            I’d Love to Write a Prose Poem

I’d love to write a prose poem.
I’ve certainly got the time,
but I can’t produce a single line
that doesn’t end in rhyme.

I’d love to write a prose poem,
a quatrain in blank verse,
but I can only write in rhyme.
I must be under a curse!

I’m unable to write in blank verse.
I absolutely can’t.
Even when I really try,
the rhyme just comes out slant.

I can’t believe this problem
truly is insoluble ---
at least not for a poet
who’s garrulous and voluble.

But wait: I think there is a way,
a suitable locution
that yields exactly what I need ---
Dilemma resolution!

Is there a term that doesn’t rhyme
with any other word?
If so, I’ll end my poem with it,
no matter how absurd.

(Now will someone just give me that damn word?)

             Touché, Cliché

“At the end of the day.”
What a cliché!
Isn’t there anything
Else you can say?
“At the end of the day”
What do you mean anyway?
If I hear it again, I don’t know what I will say
To make that locution go far, far away.

“An abundance of caution.”
That’s a phrase we all are awash in.
If you really were cautious
You wouldn’t make me so nauseous
By saying “An abundance of caution.”
If your intellect hasn’t dimmed,
You’ll get that expression trimmed,
And save me from being unhinged.

“Every tool in my toolbox.”
I hate the sound worse than a boombox.
When you bring out that toolkit
You’re using a fool’s kit
By mouthing, “Every tool in my toolbox.”
I hear it twelve times a day
And if I had my way
I’d keep it forever at bay.

“With that said.”
Please put me to bed
‘Cause I’m getting aphasia
and a case of clichésia
from hearing “With that said.”
Give your listeners some credit
For knowing you’ve said it.
Forever and permanently shed it.

There are so many trite phrases
And tired clichézes.
It befuddles, astounds, and amazes.
It would take wisdom and wile	
To purge our cliché pile
And soon we’d find new ones in style.
So, the ultimate solution
To our semantic pollution
--- that is, if you’re not into drugs ---
May just be a good set of EARPLUGS!

David Blumenfeld (aka Dean Flowerfield) is a former philosophy professor and associate dean who in retirement returned to writing stories, poetry, and children’s literature, which he abandoned in his thirties to devote full-time to philosophy. His stories and poems appear in a wide variety of journals. Davidcblumenfeld.com