For Peers in Arrears and Time Served is Best

By Frank De Canio

For Peers in Arrears

I only hope they entertain 
as many scofflaws who’ll enjoy
the breakage of the water main
bequeathed them while in their employ.
For it bestowed them means to cook,
to clean, and make their garden grow.
It helped snuff fires with the hook
and ladder. What dark stains they’d show.  
But it all came out in the wash, 
while they laughed at my decade’s drought. 
Good plumbing’s like a mackintosh,
protecting us from falling out 
of favor when the downpour comes,
or otherwise when stuck in mud.
That treacherous entrapment sums 
up costs of abrogating flood 
insurance that their party signed
for, while defrauding those they bind. 

Time Served is Best

The past’s as close to Heaven as we’ll get. 
Its future is already in the bag,
although the present then had hit a snag. 
And notwithstanding there we might have sweat, 
we know now that today’s a safer bet
than next week is, although it starts to lag. 
But yesterday, although it was a drag,
has sowed the seeds for enterprises yet 
on the horizon. They may not bear fruit,
considering the pain that I endure 
in what may be my funerary suit.
But even hospitals then, boast allure 
at present, gone from this irresolute 
position where, though cured, there’s nothing sure.  

Born & bred in New Jersey, Frank De Canio works in New York. He loves music from Bach to Amy Winehouse, World Music, Latin, and Opera. Shakespeare is his consolation, writing his hobby. He likes Dylan Thomas, Keats, Wallace Stevens, Frost , Ginsberg, and Sylvia Plath as poets.