"LA is Al backwards," he said with a smile.
(Well trimmed and cunning, he was known to beguile.)
"Al is a nickname, named after the poet.
Though to look at me now, no one would know it.
My mother read Tennyson like it was her air.
She inhaled all his words as deep as she dared,
So of course the biggest one would end up on me!
(Including my brothers of course we make three.)
They are not poets with names borne of prose,
wordsmithing their way to rhymes we all know.
The youngest is Roy and the other one Ray
their lives have gone a somewhat different way:
Tiny confusions seem to eat them alive,
the same old fuel smells in the brush fire.
Hours in courtrooms in hateful dispute,
losing or winning in spite of refute.
It's hazy and glassy to be full of fame
But no one ever forgets my name.
