Two Poems
Steven Kent
Lost
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It’s fine to have friends and a honey
Provided you’re hip to the cost,
Though son, if you run out of money
All is lost.
A girl can sport cute little freckles
And curves to make cold hearts defrost,
But boy, if she spends up your shekels
All is lost.
She’ll wiggle and set your heart whirling
Till every good judgment you’ve tossed.
Alas, when you’re short of the sterling,
All is lost.
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Good chums avert many disasters
(As long as your signals aren’t crossed).
Still, after you’re out of piasters
All is lost.
You may be a gay caballero,
The life of the party when sauced,
Yet once you’ve run dry on dinero
All is lost.
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So take my advice if you’re willing:
Your treasury, never exhaust!
The moment you haven’t a shilling
All is lost.
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All Greek to Me
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I loved a Grecian girl whose name was Monica
As well as one I only knew as Dora;
The first I met in port outside Salonica,
The second in the hills of Meteora.
But romance brought me nothing more than static, a
Heart soon badly broken by their cheatin’
(Both Monica and Dora quitted Attica
To sail away with Constantine, that Cretan).
It’s clear that I might be the biggest dope, ol’ me;
I fall for every lady’s “Love me, Stavros!”
No way I’ll waste the winter at Ermoupoli—
It’s time to try my luck in Epidavros.
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Steven’s notes: “‘All Greek to Me’ presented a challenge once I settled on the double-unstressed endings in every other line, with Ermoupoli being the hardest word to rhyme. The opening of ‘Lost’ popped into my head one day, and we were off to the races. (I lost a lot of money on those races, but that’s another story.) Both poems are part of my 2025 collection, Home at Last.“​
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Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside (www.kentburnside.com). His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books.
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