Sworn Testimony of the Accused Onion Bagel

I cannot tell a lie

I have no alibi

For the night the murder took place

And although it seems damning

I have been seen slamming

Beer bottles in the deceased's face

You see, when I'm drinking

I sometimes stop thinking

That vice I do surely possess

But as for this crime

You're wasting your time

If you think that this bagel will confess

Instead my suggestion

Is for you to question

What made your detectives so sloppy

It takes not a sleuth

To uncover the truth

Since your crime scene is plastered with poppy

Haiku #2

onion shavings fall

smooth golden surface revealed

manscaping bagel

I'll Try a Box of the Onion Ones

Krispy Kreme

sells

Doughnut Holes

Are you

listening,

Einstein Bros.?

Sonnet I

I stood one winter by the river's bank,

And gazed across at the thickening ice.

I had my Lord and my baker to thank,

For my meal was warm, so toasty and nice.

It smelled of onions, life's richest bouquet,

Its skin shimmered brown beneath the sun's glow.

Though heav'nly bodies I dare not betray,

I swear I beheld it melting the snow!

The blanket of white was thinned to a sheet,

And life anew arose hysterical,

Up sprouted shrubbery, grasses and wheat:

Eden reborn, a wond'rous miracle!

Soon that frozen river babbled once more,

And I swam safely to the other shore.

Limerick #2

There once was an onion topped bagel

Whose hole was too small to finagle

At first I said "Doh! Pwhaaa?!?"

But then I watched Oprah

And learned it was flexing its Kegel

Don't tell him I said this

Between you and me,

there's this guy

on the docks

who works eighteen hour shifts

He opens

beer bottles

just with his teeth

and catches black marlin barehanded

He benches

three eighty

runs marathons each week

and memorized Pi to ninety digits

He tries law

in Jersey

and wins every case

and always finds contact lenses when you drop them

He tutors

celebrities' kids

in ceramics

and decorates condos on the weekends

He's a universal donor

a volunteer firefighter

a Big Brother, a junior senator and a physician

He can solve

all your problems

and answer your prayers —

but not until he gets his morning onion bagel in him,

because before that he's just a big old worthless sleepy crabby crankypants

dawn

they say the fishermen

always see it first

they certainly did this year

through the morning mist

how it shivers and smacks!

a warmness

   hairs arising

a brightness

   eyelids squinting

unkempt nails lose grip of coarse nets

gnarled toothpicks fall fast from slack lips

a vision

what a vision!

soaring up above the sea

now cresting

ascending

now filling the sky

the onion bagel sun fills the men with wonder

fills their nets with game

and fills the world with an unrelenting hope

that last year

never knew