Your Pardon, Dr. Swift

Small men are livid, we are!
                             we are!
No Lilliput
is left, just

Looming things, large issues,
frightening in their
gruesome height
and weight--away with them

Think minnow, not leviathan. Reduce!
Diminish! Wallow
in insignificance. Keep a sharp
tongue, but with
small insult only; a microscopic mockery.
And yes, small expectations, that too.
Ears and lies, both
small; a pinpoint proboscis; a voice
no larger than its whispering

But now, anomaly: any
name,
quivering three small letters, more or less,
is lame--for that's
when small becomes offensive

A name
should exhaust the alphabet,
should sprawl, be Brobdingnagian
in its scope--like the fury
in small men--keep that blaze
HUGE

But nothing else.
Let's say, as Tiny Tim, tra la
for trivial; for shreds and scraps;
for tidbits widely scattered;
and small and unassuming
kindliness,
and snuggled purring
kittens

For our laps

Email: J. Chollick

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