Soliloquy from Smith in Accounting

"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil." Socrates

SLOW

CHILDREN
AHEAD

To make the girls on the school bus giggle,
And when I was high schooled, still looking
For signs, this time any that came from them,
I told the guys Marie likes French and Kim
Would Greek if only she'd let me teach her.

I tempered my tongue in Southeast Asia
After a night with Ha.nh Phu'c in Saigon
When I praised Jesus, my Lord and Savior,
Who showed me the way with penicillin,
And though I know it's an old soldier's tale,
Just to be sure I asked for saltpeter.

After the Army, thanks to Harry,
My next door neighbor and friendly banker
I redid my kitchen while he did my wife,
The subject of which was unknown to me
But everyone knew down at the diner
As black as can be, no cream, no sugar.

Later I relished the thought of sweet lips
Like Keats once did who made moan his faerie,
But with dames whose grot was the city,
Provided all the chinks in my armor
Didn't obscure the cleft in my chin.

My numbers were shared mostly by white men
Behind tall buildings in lower Manhattan
Who thought they thought outside of the box
And though the truth would rattle the boss
I soon discovered under the covers,
Calling in sick, a whole new paradigm,
But, damn, he didn't laugh at the punch line.

Now that I exit the stage in my play
Slow Death on the Train from Connecticut
I suddenly hear a new voice with rhyme,
In spite of all the downtown traffic,
In silence with its own special rhythm
And time that ticks no hour or minute.