Ever since second grade
an ever stronger prescription
for nearsightedness donned my countenance,
cuz myopia (inherited courtesy
both parents) rendered me 'As Blind as a Bat' .

For some reason,
I wanted side arms
that wrapped behind the ears,
also known as cable temples
like those worn by Mark Smith.
a classmate of mine
where I got me some learnin'
at (Henry Kline) Boyer Elementary School,
where yours truly attended third to sixth grade
in the little hamlet that time forgot
and the years could not improve
of Evansburg, Pennsylvania.

Self consciousness found me
surreptitiously slipping the glasses
on and off my button nose,
when the need arose to read
what the teacher
(at Eagleville Elementary,
which school attended
the second half of the school year 1968,
cuz my parents moved
from Lantern Lane
in Audubon, Pennsylvania
to Level Road
in Arcola/Collegeville, Pennsylvania),
addressed as Missus Rittenhouse -
who interestingly enough
sported a body as big as a little house)
wrote on the blackboard.

Lack of writing down helpful readable notes
linkedin with sloppy penmanship
(on par with chicken scratch -
cluck...cluck...cluck...)
found me drawing blanks,
when quizzes or tests got administered.

Mein kampf hummed tunefully
or analogous to a ship of state
nonchalantly bobbing along
like a little buoy on calm waters
drifting totally tubular
within the meandering time stream of life
mostly receiving clean bill of health,
whereby I experienced
only the usual childhood illnesses
such as chicken pox,
measles, and mumps
additionally I exhibited
hypochondriacal tendencies

(after exiting childhood's end)
of course worse case scenarios imagined
worrying myself 'blue in the face'
regarding yours truly

(me) NOT experiencing
any major life and death

crisis of body electric,
but mental health brush with death
(a horse of a different color)
whinnied and nayed as anorexia nervosa
compromising, jeopardizing, and wreaking havoc
nothing short of renting asunder
body, mind, or spirit triage.

I vividly recollect
during school lunch yours truly
never ate anything
and at least one inquisitive student
asked and peppered me if my abstinence
NOT eating linkedin to religious reasons.

I could hardly escape some critique
of my person outside the cafeteria,
particularly when riding the school bus,
cuz Alan J. Herr and his ilk

relentlessly teased me

calling out when I boarded the bus
"four eyes" and "professor"

but once mature cataracts removed,
(courtesy opthamologists
at Kremer Eye Center - King of Prussia)
I can go back to the future
and cast laser beam light sabers
visualize a stun gun
emanating out these ocular orbs
and cast piercing rays
upon the head of those pesky perps.