Reading Rilke's Sonnets to Children

Published in Superstition Review

Seemed like a first-rate strategy, Your Honor,
A way for me to gift verse to the wee set
Or, if you like, a mode to re-modal raw
Minds. And who better than Crazy Legs Rilke?
I mean, have you Read Rainer Maria's verk?
No? Is this water free? Anywho, his poems
Are jam-packed with dragons and unicorns
And a dogged bruin named René Karl
Who has this 24-7 hankering for beer
Which he calls Übersteigung! And yes
Yes, now I see how a hard drinking cub
On a waverless quest to kill the snake
That bit Eurydice's sweet ass—sorry, dear
Derriere? —beloved buttocks? — could strike
Some parents and or guardians as inapt
Or iniquitous for the playground scene, like
That plumping dad-type who screamed: Keep
Your High German away from our jungle
Gym! I think your Honorette will agree
That he saw my laudable endeavors
In a predetermined dark light. I declared
This in my report to your constables.
I declared that that man was prejudiced.
He threw Yodels at my head. Yodels?
Your Honoress, in all honesty, can you
Seriously mull the opinions
Of a man who won't even crack the piggy
For a six-pack of Ho-Hos? Is it just ich?
Is it just moi or is it clear as day
That those narrow-minded über-bullies
Simply transposed their self-hate into hate
For modern poetry? It's Freud 101.
Thanks be to the good men and women
Of law enforcement who arrived just in time
To arrest me slash save my beloved buttocks.
But if I may engage my retrorockets:
Doesn't René Karl's attitude offer
A teaching opportunity? A spot where
Child and blood relation can reach some
Accord on revenge, hibernation sex
And handguns? I mean, René Karl just wants
To return to those simple-hearted times
When Rainer and Orpheus would roll
A number, take a tug from my wineskin,
Pull out their pan-flutes and play for all
The shepardfolk and woodland critters.
Your Honoris, don't we all yearn for a clean
Sandbox and a draft of Übersteigung?"