Roses are red, violets are blue
James Wright won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and his son Franz did, too
Now, many a poet has did what they done
But never before had a father and son!

As for their poems, though a proud English major
I admit that I'm not the most qualified gauger
On the other hand, if there's a question to answer
Regarding your chances of surviving cancer

Especially the kind that you get in your lung
Before you have even reached sixty years young
Then I am your guy, though somewhat prematurely
I put Franz on my list a full twelve months early

After all, he'd been ailing since twenty eleven
How long could he stay in the slow lane to heaven?
At times it must have appeared I was stalking
The author of that book of poems called Walking

To Martha's Vineyard, for which he commanded
The Pulitzer Prize, just like his old man did
Roses are red, but as happens too often
The only ones he's got are covering his coffin

I've never seen London, but I clearly saw Franz
And since no one else did, have a solo on my hands
It was way back in May that he ended his journey
Giving sixteen big points to our own Gerard Tierney

--Gerard Tierney