Simple enough for you to say
he is only a legend
I was there and I know
for I have seen the windswept cape
and dashing deeds
of Captain Poetry ...
Who is he and where does he go?
No one seems to know for sure
but his superhuman exploits
are legendary
even among his peers.
A cat was stuck in a tree one day
by my house just down the street
An ordinary cat meowing away
at the inconvenient fate of his climb
'til Captain P arrived on my lawn
not so much flying as
swept along on the gossamer wings
of a benevolent breath of hope
(though it may have just seemed that way
at the time).
He surveyed the scene with steely eye
watched and paused
then heaved a whirling metaphor
with such great force, it struck, and
the branches were not branches,
but the wizened fingers of earth
sprinkling their seed-bourne children
to the waiting, welcoming soil ...
The cat freaked out
running along the fingers
to escape the catnip flashback
until a seed-bourne child
sprinkled onto his head
sending him to the welcoming soil,
feet first.
Then there was that fateful day,
the robbery down on 4th and Vine.
Three desperate desperadoes fled
the jewelry store with loot in tow.
Their escape seemed assured
as they bounded by,
knocking my ice cream cone to the ground
until Captain Poetry swooped from above
his arrival preceded by trumpeting sounds.
His poetic license made everyone rhyme
(whether it seemed convenient or not).
The crooks were befuddled a moment,
then shrugged.
They dropped the jewels,
drew out their pistols, and shot.
"Good one!" quipped the Captain, "but your meter sucks!"
He pulled out a pun in the nick of time,
and what do you know? The bullets were slugs
and ran down his chest in a trail of slime.
The robbers, always a cowardly lot,
ran away, screaming over their shoulder, "Fuck you!"
Captain Poetry said, "That's no way to behave!
I think what you need is a nice calm haiku ..."
"The wages of greed,"
he said, "are never enough
as the air we breathe."
"Wow," said crook number one,
no longer under the wicked spell of crime.
"That's beautiful, man," said another.
"Don't mention it," said the Captain.
His work done for the day,
Captain Poetry, hands on hips,
took a heady breath of the city air.
"Isn't it grand," he exclaimed,
"how guns, bombs, and hatred
are as feathers and pebbles
against the awesome power of words?"
I still remember him,
jaw raised up to the sky,
as he took to the winds
in a blast of irony.
