Where were you when televisions
Multiplied in American homes
And pastel-colored cars had fins
On which at least once a boy
Chasing a ball stabbed himself
And the fins, like kings, died out?
I lived when Eisenhower’s golfing
And mumbled press conferences
Affronted the intelligentsia whose
Worship of Stevenson blossomed
Into the miracle of Jack Kennedy’s
Televised White House cello recitals.
In the doghouse was an expression
Extremely common in those days.
You might hear a man who forgot
The anniversary of his marriage
Forty years ago refer to himself
As in the doghouse, for example.
People said, On the warpath.
They said, You’re cooking with gas.
They said, Fish out of water —
Jump on the bandwagon – A fly in
The ointment – The jury is still out —
He’s always blowing his own horn —
Or how about this? Eke lullaby,
My loving boy, thy lusts relent —
Four hundred and fifty years ago
A man wrote that poem to his penis.
Can you imagine it happening today?
I can. I’m a board certified urologist.
— from the archive; first posted September 2014