Cut Down To Size Poem by John Sensele

Don't settle for less
Unless you grow worthless
Turning your worth upside down
After extracting sleep from the eiderdown

Where you dreamed you were no longer the peacock
You dreamed you grew into until your boast run out of stock
Given the competition in the fishpond
Where mightier peacocks grew fond

Of chicks you couldn't bless
When bucks dwindled in the hopeless
Wallet in which dog eared pieces of paper
Narrated the story that cast down the cantakerous caper

You brandished in the heyday
When you shone everyday
Until fate took its toll
To make you two feet tall.