Watch the author!

Robin S has cast the gauntlet, and I'd be fool indeed not to rise to her challenge, as others have done. I chose to read some of my own work, a poem called "be it resolved" about Laura Tiffany Tate McSmother, which I wrote earlier this year. The grainy, dark video is crappy at best, and the sound sucks, but at least I look like a bum. (For those of you who are endlessly interested in my hat, you will see that it is on backwards. I did this to allow the light onto my face, but it turns out I probably should have kept it on straight. And also worn a paper bag. But that might have killed the sound altogether. Which, come to think of it, would have been a double bonus.)



be it resolved
Laura Tiffany Tate McSmother
had it in for her little brother.
She'd punch one arm and then the other
and run away when he'd tell mother.

Oh, She was cruel and she was sly.
She'd pull his hair and make him cry,
then pour Tabasco in his eye,
and whisper "Joey, Mamma hopes you die."

When Christmas time approached this year,
and Santa asked if she'd been dear,
she said, "You bet your big, fat rear,"
and grinned all toothy, ear to ear.

But Santa must have seen her soul
cuz in her stocking he left coal.
She wept into her breakfast bowl
and vowed herself a New Year's Goal.

"I won't set Joey's hair afire
or call my little brother 'liar'
or wrap him up in fishing wire
or tie him to the pickup's tire.

I won't paint his favorite teddy green
or switch his juice for gasoline
or force him to eat lima beans...
I will no longer act so mean!

I will be kind, I will be sweet!
I'll say hello to those I meet.
And I won't stomp on Joey's feet.
My resolution is complete."

On New Years Day she tried, she did.
She really, really, really, really,
really, really, really did.
It helped a lot that Joey hid.

By nine a.m. she'd tried to smother
her incessantly annoying brother,
and lied about it to her mother.
Poor Laura Tiffany Tate McSmother.