YouLoveMe

Posner, from Poznan, is just a person, Richard, from the West Side, is a rich rad, I'm abstract and particular, verse 'n     prose, happy, angry, and calm, but not sad. Rich rad person applies to Blanche and Max, My high chair was a liberal limousine, They fed me with great books instead of snacks, Henry James was inside my soup tureen. Shuffled up, my childhood could have been dire, Chelmno was near the city of my name, My mother led me to the sacred fire, To Homer, away from her old home's shame. Thanks to them both, I've had a lucky life, Playing with words, wielding Occam's sharp knife.

The one son who appears the same as me       has a very different disposition, The son whose seed blew far from the tree      has his father's taste for cool sedition. They have formed me as much as I've formed them, My wife formed us all, made us into men      who can parse a line but not sew a hem, Our now reforms and is formed by our then. With neither have I ever raised my voice.  With my wife--well, that's a diff'rent story, I told them both that anger is a choice, That cars pose risks commonplace and gory. They lived in the unheavenly city, They made it marginally more pretty.

I was relieved that she'd finally gone quiet,  That she didn't have political views, That she didn't worry about my diet, That she didn't rage at the morning news. Tough-minded hard-hearted Max became frail, He doted on Blanche, stroked her like a cat, He asked me once, should they put me in jail      for my loans?   Outside, he put on a hat. Why shouldn't I put them both in a zoo       and charge people a dollar to see 'em? I won't, I'm ruled by convention, it's true, They are monkeys now, I'll one day be 'em. Should I get a case of elder abuse, I will have a bent to find an excuse.   

Poems 1-4 My Early Years Economic Analysis of Law ( A ntitrust) Mr. Brooks ( A sylum) Nietzsche ( B ite-Mark Evidence)  Anagrams ( C atastrophic Risk) Poems 5-8 My Middle Years Sticks and Stones ( M icroscopic Hair Evidence) My Parents ( N euroscience) Sex ( O bsession with Citation Form) My Sons ( P sychology) Poems 9-12 My Later Years Changes ( T heories of Constitutional and Statutory Interpretation) The Young Unitarian-Universalist's Sermon ( U mpireal (versus Managerial) Conceptions of Judging) Peacefully I Resolve to End My Days ( V erbose, Overly Complex, Vague, Poorly Written Judicial Opinions) Ball's Bluff ( Z oning)

With aging has come disinhibition, Suffering fools gladly is not easy, That was never my nat'ral condition, It's harder to be relaxed and breezy. Some other changes in me are odder, I'm thawing, ice is turning to water, Meter and scansion are my fodder, I dream about my never-born daughter. Under my ubermensch horny skin       is an oozy soft mass of compassion, I can feel each indigent's woe within, To each one I must give reason's ration. Am I Nietzsche now, embracing the horse? You think me mad.  I disagree, of course.

I walk through the woods to the library, In a glade a short boy holds a small frog, I'll squeeze him til he bursts like a berry, No, his tall friend says, put him on the log. The frog skips off, I am caught in a bind, I'm not the tall boy, I'm not a leader, I command empires that are in my mind, I am not a doer, I'm a reader. In blond wood stacks I am curled up in peace, I will check out Beyond Good and Evil, In thought there is mast'ry without surcease, No matter if I'm warrior or weevil. Nietzsche I think was a boy much like me, A bottom and a top, a worm, a tree.