My new crown of Covid-19 sonnets, A Crown Most Unroyal, is today’s poetry feature at Vox Populi. I’m deeply grateful to Editor Michael Simms for his enthusiasm, support, and vision in brilliantly pairing my poems with Thom Hartmann’s essay on the “GOP death cult” and enhancing the “legitimacy” of our contributions to the “political discourse.”
I wish you all safety, sanity, and every possibility for joy as we continue to plod through…
Today I used a piece of toilet paper
(ingenious how the squares are perforated)
as a bookmark,
to mark the beginning
of a story in a journal
I pretended to mean to read soon.
My own pretensions in the bathroom, I’d guess,
are no more elaborate than those of any other,
but we prefer not to confess them,
which is why confessionals nowadays tend to be
outfitted with porcelain & brass conveniences, & vanities
of granite stacked with prayers, or leastways
paperbacks (suggestive of prayerful reflection,
a well-regarded, liturgical means of bargaining one’s way out
of bondage to repugnant functions),
all to function as a colossal ruse—for truly,
we know no sleight-of-hand swipe performed (however
adroitly the unrolled squares are wadded
or folded), nor our most adroit illusions of luxury
contrived of bodacious poses over prodigal devices,
can justify such unnatural exertions.
Nature’s call is much like that of the cleric’s behind
his proverbial curtain—indeed, a loaded business
we can’t but answer.
Who, me? Employ a fallacy of equivocation? NE-VER!
They creep along the crease where plaster’s link
with geometric terra cotta inlays
slips beyond the statutory pane’s oblique
illumination Squalor’s dreg-lined byways
evince these shadows’ huddled histories
of furtive ventures through the crevices
where nights yield to darkening that sullies
the dark & dank spore-stippled surfaces
despair the light of noon to bare their scourge
No teakwood bed nor wicker chair will mask
depravity as Geishas deftly forge
refinements to obscure the blights of dusk
What’s bent by vice yet breaks for dearth of rest
& makes its bed with vermin as needs must
Just in time for the Holidays… Hot off the presses — whoops, my bad — I mean, let go by a press that’s gone under (Booo!), but now available FREE for your consumption, er, enjoyment!
Google Images
While wrapped up tightly to our necks in wool,
Sequestered in our homes in winter’s chill,
Whene’er we yearn to get our insides full,
A cardboard box in car delivers thrill…
Swelling with exhilarating spices,
Its savory scent comes wafting through the door––
Pepperoni, amongst other vices:
Meatballs and cheese and fat and carbs galore!
We sluggish’ eat while satisfaction grows––
All down the hatch, slice after slice, it goes––
Until its warmth has reached our very toes,
And caused onset of shameful gastric woes!
Oh, pizza, how you vanquish dark, cold days
In deviously insulating ways!
SLHARPERPOETRY 