Sixteen candles, and what do you get?
A man, I say, and a good one yet.
Humor and trust, ‘magination and joy,
Honesty, playfulness, ambition and, boy,
Invention and wonder, forgiveness and caring,
Spontaneity, patience, focus, and sharing.
↑ A virtue list I wrote years ago.
And all of them, Son, you continue to show!
Permit me to add to it just a few more
That you seem to have added to your inner core:
Ability, sympathy, detachment, loyalty,
In my view, Oake, you’re better than royalty.
the third of three poems submitted to the bad poetry competition in celebration of Matthew’s 42nd birthday:
After a party one weekend in Wheaton
(optionally sung to the tune of “My Favorite Things”)
Come help me clean up the saag and the red dal
Green bits of mucus and loogies in highballs
Moist wet congealments of fatbergs and thongs
Bet it’ll take you forever with tongs!
When the turd falls
When the pus dries
Need a napkin bad
I simply wrap towelettes around all the mess
And then I have made a fad!
Round ground pork meatballs
And six chocolate hair wads
Leftover skin tags from yours and my dadbods
Brown chunks of something I don’t recognize
Rub it all out with the sweat of my thighs!
When the squits land
When the bowels void
Too much egg yolk through
I simply wipe hankies with ointment galore
And try not slip on poo!
But if we get soiled and covered in feces
Looking like accidents involving Reese’s
Something you pull from a festering clog
We can still use it as stuff for our vlog
When the Musk calls
And POTUS bawls
Upon seeing that
We’ll engorge our profits on all of the press
And buy ourselves tubs of fat
the second of three poems submitted to the bad poetry competition in celebration of Matthew’s 42nd birthday:
Thoughts on Toejam
Pustule grease between my toes
Oh-so-moist, and in it goes
Sucked down my gullet, slurp yum-yum-yum
How it’ll smell when it wants out my bum!
Will I need tongs or strong vacuum birth?
How to squeeze out such congealy girth?
Will it right squish? Will it ka-slop?
Or will it be hard like the stuff in wood shop?
the first of three poems submitted to the bad poetry competition in celebration of Matthew’s 42nd birthday:
Shet
I’d yet get debt to bet that
if you let sweat wet your tête at
Brett’s jet set vet fête,
I fret they’ll never let you and your pet back into the Met.
That’s a threat.
Sullivan, you are a treasure chest.
We’ve known that since the day we were blessed
By your arrival eight years ago.
But I’ll tell you what we didn’t know:
We didn’t know just how rich we’d become,
The manifold wealth of our newly born sum.
Our 20-inch trunk is now fifty-three tall
So say the strokes on our pencil-marked wall.
But ‘tisn’t the size of the box gives a rush,
‘Tis the contents therein that make our hearts flush:
Humor and trust, ‘magination and joy,
Honesty, playfulness, ambition and, boy,
Invention and wonder, forgiveness and caring,
Spontaneity, patience, focus, and sharing.
To know you is to open a lid and behold
A beaming assortment of silver and gold—
(Or palladium, perhaps, since I know that you’re able
To prize all the elements on the whole table).
Anyway, there’s so much in our oaken case,
That I want to sing all over the place:
“Hallelujah, we’re rich! Let’s shower in flowers!
For Sullivan Oake Stilson is happily ours!”
After an evening at Happy Valley Brewing with Ethan & Jason, I sent them this:
I couldn’t try
to measure the pleasure
of spending my leisure
with you, whom I treasure.
—
And in case you feel like this brushes too closely to our discussion of the homosexuality, please see the photos of platonic male affection included in the article entitled “Bosom Buddies: A Photo History of Male Affection” on The Art of Manliness.
An unfinished verse about the problem of divine hiddenness
O, invisible God, whom I cannot see,
Please, please reveal Yourself to me.
I don’t understand what you gain by hiding,
Blah-biddy blah, biddy-blah biddy fighting.
But I know You are love, if you are anything all,
Blah-biddy blah, biddy-blah biddy fall. ✏️ 🎤 🎵
He’s Indonesian, Japanese, American, now Dutch.
Jimmy Hutasoit, we will miss you very much.
May you find a church with other folks who really really care.
Above it all, we pray, may you find Jesus Christ o’er there.
My son, youre five,
And I’m so glad youre alive.
It’s worth a lot of mirth,
The day you came to Earth.
So Mom baked a shark-tastic cake
And planned a party for your sake
With piñata, food and skating today
and friends who gather round to say:
We love you very much, my boy.
MAY ALL YOUR DAYS BE FULL OF JOY!