The Rules Are Cut and Dried
--To Arden

These are the rules:
A found penny is lucky heads up.
Two found pennies together doesn't matter.

Any nickel or dime or better
doesn't matter.
The rules are cut and dried.

But I conceive a primitive
experiment in power: For instance
if I turn a tails penny over to heads

for someone else to find
that makes now
heads in charge.

And so my hypothesis
being that one has the power
to create luck for someone else.

You may say, "But you
will never know the result,
and so it's a worthless experiment."

To which my reply:
au contraire mon frere
(establishing a tone of camaraderie)

I already know:
The rules are cut and dried:
Happiness is the given.

You work backwards from there.

Children Have the Right Emphatic

Children have the right
emphatic
big talking emphasis:

Their entire speech
is their new and artistic

poetry:
They re all mused
and fused-enthused

to discover words
change things.

Eric Halliwell has spent many years in California making a living (mostly as a carpenter, then later, a first grade teacher) while only dabbling in poetry. Within five years of returning to school for a teaching credential, he moved to Guatemala, which he believes is the only beautiful place in the world where he can both communicate and also afford to live the life of a full time (mostly metaphysical) poet.

Email: Eric Halliwell

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