Untitled 3

 Poetry 2

[2017]

The burgeoning burroughs berate the bourgeoisie 

As the nosey neighbors narc on the new nematodes

The roads, the roads! they exclaim

The rain rinsing them down the drain

They transform into puddles and stains

muddled with the thoughts of their forefathers

who can't be bothered to change a diaper

Someone call the candy striper

Snakes and strippers anger Jack the Ripper

Every time he flips on a dime

Trips on a line or two

Watches Who Are You, Polly Magoo?

A rhetorical question during an intensive session of introspection

I can't help confessing or lessening the lesson

I guess I'm just a reductionist

with a list of the top ten holiday hits

That fits the bill

William swirls his swill

Content that Jack fell down the hill

and Jill came tumbling after

The 10 o'clock news proclaimed it a disaster for the pastor

His past lives catching up with him, spilling out the cup

That holy grail gripped in hands and nails

Crossing Ts faster than seas

That makes sense

The maid made it past tense

when she edited the prose

of the three-eyed crow and called him Odin

How foreboding was her shadow at high noon

underneath the gallows

Sharks glide through the shallows searching for chum

Fish are friends, the fiends preached

But their reach exceeded their grasp

and the clasp broke