[David Rosenthal]

AN APOLOGY

I'm sorry that I let you think
that I could ever give a wink
who won the Oscar, or the game,
or any war fought in my name,
as if your petty contests and
achievements ever match the grand
accomplishments of butterflies,
as if what you could raze or rise
would interest me, save what you've done
to others, whether one by one,
or two by two, or herd by herd --
I'm sorry that I let the word
"dominion" ever come to be
applied to anyone but me.


David R.

[Roger Slater]

The Apology

I'm sorry that
I wrote that dumb
poem about
the breakfast plum

my wife was hoping
she would eat,
the one that was so
cold and sweet

[Gail White]

I'm sorry that my dog destroyed your parka
When you innocently laid it on the bed.
He just can't get enough
Of the flying down and fluff.
He looks just like a snowman that can shed.

I'm sorry that my dog destroyed your parka.
I've told him that he ought to feel ashamed.
Still, it WAS a lot of fun --
Just a parka hit-and-run -
And it's hard to make him think he should be blamed.

I'm sorry that my dog destroyed your parka.
I've spoken to him sternly of my views.
He was guilty, and as such
He regrets it very much,
And feels awful about peeing on your shoes.

[Douglas G. Brown]

Rather than perform surgery on Father Arnold, I'll try an apology by the infamous Lizzie Borden

(Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.

- Schoolyard rhyme popularized during the double murder trial of Lizzie Andrew Borden, of Fall River Massachusetts, in 1893.) ...

An Apology

Miss Lizzie Borden, on the stand
Declared “I took an axe in hand,
To chop up both my Ma and Paw;
Since that’s what they’d been asking for.

“I hate this Massachusetts town.
Despite my murderous renown,
I’ll make a good Manhattan-ite,
Where I can party through the night.

“I’ll be the idol of the day,
The empress of the Great White Way …
Where Stanford White and Diamond Jim
Will grovel to my slightest whim.

“I trust a jury of my peers,
(You gents well past your middle years),
Will not allow a sweet young thing
Like me, from hangman’s rope, to swing.”

(In reality, Miss Borden was acquited, so legally was not a murderer. She was ostracized from local society, and quietly lived to old age in a new house, in a better part of Fall River.)