Eulogy, First Draft
He never killed a man.
I think he paid his taxes.
He didn’t join the Klan
And rarely sent junk faxes.
I once heard him say please,
Perhaps a muffled thanks.
On drunken weekend sprees
He shot off only blanks.
On principle, I guess,
I’m sorry that he’s dead,
As most here would profess.
I’ll quit while we’re ahead.
Moving Day, Abridged
We schlepped
Till we wept.
J.D. Smith‘s latest poetry collection, The Killing Tree, which includes poems first published in Light, is new from Finishing Line Press. His other books include the poetry collections Labor Day at Venice Beach (2012) and Settling for Beauty (2005), the humor collection Notes of a Tourist on Planet Earth (2013), the essay collection Dowsing and Science (2011), and the children’s picture book The Best Mariachi in the World. He was awarded a Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2007. In addition to Light, his individual poems have appeared in The Able Muse, The Bark, The Formalist, and Measure.