Poems by Michael Stewart

Elemeno

The way you used to stand among your peers,
Tetrasyllabic, vaguely Arabic, not Greek,
No commonplace like i, j, k would do
But only elemeno, sonorant, significant.

Of what, of course I never knew
I thought you were involved (still do)
With pimento, an exotic fruit
Suitable for stuffing olives with.
Hence olive oil and fig trees,
Date palms, caravans,
Silken tents upon immeasurable sands.

School has eliminated you, but not your spell,
And well they might say, hell, ‘em ain’t no olives.
Still, I hold, no elemenory education
Is complete without you.

— P —

I too once snickered at the impropriety of P,
Standing, as it then appeared to do,
In the middle of the solemn alphabet, pants down,
Micturating on the hapless letter Q.

Such childish punning taught us, though, priorities.
Who could forget how Freddy Johnson, bolting for the door,
Primer in one hand, penis in the other,
Spelled out piddle in the middle of our first grade floor?

Teacher, for all that you have me be
A disembodied mind, I have some humbler needs;
A man must learn to crawl before he flies,
A child must learn to piss before he reads.