The Norman Inquest

     This appeared in Plainsong.

King Harold had an arrow in his eye,

Which made his princeps difficult and gauche.

It bumped the mirror when he tried to shave

And hung up on his undershirt. His thralls

And churls inclined to sniggers as he passed—

Those bobbing feathers. Polity declined.

He bore sharp pain, like megrims, and he'd miss

The stirrups, if they'd been invented yet

(1066--he couldn't quite recall

If Saddler had made stirrups, though Clyde's Dale

Was large as life), and distance was too hard

To calibrate--he fell into a well

And had to be winched back up like a bucket,

A frog stuck in his jerkin. And the rot,

Decomposition in his nether parts:

How difficult to saunter like a king.

Then language withered like a hag-hexed crop.

Most third-declension verbs were hard to follow,

All Norman now, as if the iron head

Had tweaked all 3 bones in his inner ear

And no more freemen could decline a king

And field was just as hard as fealty.

  

But no tote bags

I am considering a pledge drive for RHEpoems.blogspot.com. The goal would be to raise readers, not money.  Perhaps I could raise some minor Cavalier poets, although they're probably afflicted with I'll Read One of Yours, If You'll Read One of Mine Syndrome, and theirs are all about ale and girdles.

Ideal for Ferns

Last time I went out on the town they didn’t

Just rent my room or box my books downstairs,
Pamper a pauper’s feet with my worn socks,
Or give my parka to a banker’s brat.
They sold my dog. They shot my desk. They dialed
My radio to Sister Carmen Todd,
The Bride of Pop. My mom declared me dead.
“He’s dead,” she said. “I do declare.” They made
My car a planter: somehow, they observed,
A hatchback is ideal for ferns. They mist
The ferns. They painted my pine bedstead white
And hung some Jesus where I used to sleep.
His eyes will track you if you try to rest
There now, but no one will. They mist their ferns.
The air must turn the color of balloons.