John Manesis

Consider, if You Will: Poems by John Manesis

John Manesis, a retired physician, has reexamined a collection of nursery rhymes, children's poems and classic myths, casting them in different lights and alternate points of view. This collection of sonnets, sure to entertain, will make readers pause and reconsider a host of characters like Simple Simon, Bluebeard, Little Bear, Icarus, and Sisyphus, as in the following poem: The Quiet Ones Yes, there was a flock of us, it's true, squished together in that smelly shoe. The old woman always ate the bread, while we, her children, got the broth instead, and even though we never said a peep, she caned us all before we went to sleep. Now that we are grown and she has passed, we tell ourselves those days are in the past. We meet just once a year, at the cemetery, up on the hill outside of Canterbury. Sitting far apart, we picnic there, enjoy the view, inhale the open air, and just for fun, throw rocks at her headstone. Then, in single file, we start for home.