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The Gospel of Wives

Wives everywhere possess the firm belief
Of all their many roles, the one that’s chief
Is sparing husbands from the sheer mayhem
That would befall their lives, if not for them.

.

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Beneath the Bad Manners

Her brother, on belief that she is loaded,
Shows no desire to pay for anything,
And notwithstanding how much she has doted
Upon him not one “thank you” can he bring.

His disregard of basic etiquette,
Will understandably invite disdain,
But more grief’s in the likely predicate—
That he bears omnipresent mental pain.

.

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The Change That’s Needed Most for Education

I met a K through 12 administrator,
Her viewpoints were, of course, unknown to me.
I asked if she could change one thing for children,
What would her foremost alteration be?

I hoped she’d rail on politics or unions—
Some controversy worthy of a poem,
But schools were not where she fixed her attention,
For kids’ horrendous problems start at home.

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Russel Winick recently started writing poetry after ending a long legal career. He resides in Naperville, Illinois.

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12 Responses

  1. Rob Fried

    Nice poem, Russel. I remember a wise veteran guidance counselor, Mary Montel Bacon, who worked in urban schools, telling a group of principals and administrators, “You got what you got! The parents ain’t keeping the good ones at home and sending the riff-raff to your school. They’re sending you the best they have. Now, deal with it!”

    Reply
  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    I think we should name your concise poems full of wisdom, “Winickisms.” They are humorous yet filled with serious intentions.

    Reply
  3. Russel Winick

    And your always-kind comments are “Royalties.” Thank you Sir.

    Reply
  4. Joseph S. Salemi

    These three pieces are a kind of trilogy of complaint. The first suggests that men are naturally trouble-prone, and need their womenfolk to keep them from catastrophe. I’m reminded of the line from Romeo and Juliet, when Capulet’s wife says to her ready-to-fight husband: “Thou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe!”

    The second is on a mulishly ungrateful and impolite sibling, and the shrewd judgment that the cause of it all is some kind of psychic trauma. That is often the case.

    The third touches on a perennial pedagogical problem: the fact that some students are already rendered virtually unteachable by their home life and their environmental experiences. A brutal father, a neglectful mother, violent streets, and constant crime don’t prepare one to sit quietly at a desk and learn the alphabet and multiplication tables.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Thank you Joseph, for these observations. As to the third poem, yours is exactly the point that I understood the administrator to be making.

      Reply
  5. Cynthia L Erlandson

    There’s a lot of wisdom here, Russel, as always with your poems. The one about wives made me laugh out loud! But not because it isn’t true; my husband tells me that it is.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Cynthia – The wives poem came from a comment by a wife, which was promptly agreed to by two other wives. And it’s true in my house as well, with lots of reality behind it. Thanks as always for your kind words.

      Reply
  6. Gigi Ryan

    Dear Russel,
    The third poem hit my heart. I taught in a Baltimore suburb public school in the 90’s. I quickly discovered that many children in my first grade classroom had significant needs that needed attention before education in the three R’s could reasonably begin.
    Gigi

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Tragic but true Gigi. Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

      Reply
  7. Mia

    It is amazing how wives take the credit for things going well but as soon as they don’t it is always his fault! Which is also true of schools. If a pupil does well then it is due to amazing teaching but if they don’t do so well , then it is down to many reasons.
    And of individuals , there are so many reasons why they cannot do what they should or do what they should not.
    Of course outcomes in life are multi-factorial but some accountability is also good.
    Thank you for these very thought provoking poems.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Thank you Mia, for your intriguing perspectives. I’m glad that you enjoyed the poems.

      Reply

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