Pursued by a Duck

Edge of the edge, the ducks explore

Duckitude.  They don’t know it, though.

They nibble at the sludgy shore

While we call names and say we grow

L’homme qui criat canard.  That sedge

Is served them there so we can chime,

We should admit that.  If they cadge

A breadcrumb, panic.  A loup in time,

The ground subsides, the ducks retreat

Like Muscovy.  Here, let us count.

One duck, two ducks: this life is sweet,

When wild in just the right amount.

The Maltese Sonnet

    This appeared in Lyric.


Having the frail, the dingus, and the gat,
My standfast scruples and a flask of rye,
I set her up, then I sat down and grat
Like any bairn. I spit in my partner's eye
And took a beating for him. I could draw
Honor from any gunsel gave the lie
Direct. A fat man and a slippery dame
Are markers on the pawnshop of the law.
A man should be remembered for his name;
And yet I drank to think of her forbye.

A character I am. I take no fall.
In black and white down these green streets I pass,
Errant and nicely suited. If you call,
Angel, I'll say you made a bonnie lass.

Orpheus Condescending

Obstacles notwithstanding, I

Have brought back home Eurydice.
She sleeps too much and likes to wear
Aloe vera in her hair,
Cartoon t-shirts, flip-flops. Dis
Does not prepare dead hearts for this
Welter of chores. Feel here. Touch that.
Phantasmagoria’s where she’s at,
A little vague, a little faint.
Death sneezed and then returned a saint.
Restored to life, she feels the lack,
And hides her hands behind her back.

How Many Going to St Ives?

I left my Muse behind, by accident,

In Fountain, where the air smelled like a sheep
Had sold his birthright for a mess of wool.
Retraced my steps, I did, but someone else
Had knocked her off her pins, her legs a sore
Temptation to a certain sort of man,
And she went with, the trollop, keen to be
A siren singing and a whistle blown.
I am reduced. My songs sound like the sea
Might sound in Fountain, where the land denies
There is a sea, where shepherds say that guy
Lashed to the mast heard what there never was,
A song in silence, hoping he would win
Her heart, who never had a head for love.