Herbert Nehrlich Poems

I laughed at you.
You both were in pyjamas,
striped like a prison suit
and baggy at the top.
...

A fitful sleep of nightmares and mean gremlins
came to an end at dawn's uncertain light.
The sheets were tangled, soaked and thus quite simply useless
and, half-asleep, I knew this morning might
...

It is a bit like having foster parents,
you think they give a damn, because they really care.
Then comes the crunch, you look up from your pillow
and find they're busy with some other pressing matters.
...

My Aunt Hulda, God did bless her soul
in more ways than one, even before her passing,
was fond of saying 'Boy, you must be visible',
I, the boy, deemed to be smart, though grave doubts within me,
...

She left because it was
the thing to do, she said.
We were so many years behind.
To make her own mistakes
...

Let's break out the Heineken Beer,
my Hemi V-8 is now here.
After one longish fight
things turned out quite alright
...

And the moon hesitated,
on the way home, at shift's end,
to look at heavy clouds of desert dust
which seemed to travel at
...

Wolstencroft they called the guard,
big he was, a tub of lard.
Stood before the Pearly Gate
guarding heavenly estate.
...

Come again, my pretty Blackbird,
you sang to me on Sunday afternoon,
so many years ago, here in my garden.
...

He sat, the window was wide open
in front of the piano he despised,
condemned to practice ten defiant fingers
by parents, old and cruel and estranged.
...