Some Newfangled Verses for Mid-March Madness

The Enigmatic Smile

That smile that’s so enigmatic, grin

that takes us in to ambiguous places, La

Gionconda, Lisa, you are mine,

and every statue we find in Greece fa-

ces with its mystery. Democrates,

the father of comedians, incline

to us with justice in jocundity,

so that we hold our clowns in jeopardy

until they laugh or grimace, like a flea

harnessed to a chariot. All the time

we have is yours to entertain, with quips

under Witzenschaft’s domain, the crime

of simulation met with  wistful whips,

and sweet enigmas where the sunset dips.

In a Circus of Continuities

In a circus of continuities noth –

ing  holds; there is no centre or periphery,

as in Timaeus’s time. The solemn oath

of solemnity collapses, like the apses

of sacred places, those of square or sphery

shape, and thus the unwanted growth

should be excised; so laugh or cry, like apes

or lemurs, hyenas or parrots, oh I am weary

of your jocularities and your wrath,

dear deity—all is grief and dreary!

Your wit is flat, your wisdom falters. The nose

of ribald Pinnochios extend themselves,

and Socratic irony is bent like a fakir’s toes

left dangling  from the invisible sky, or elves

and dwarves and civil warts sing old hi-hoes

in the heart of the deepest, darkest forest: crones

inside their gingerbread fortresses and wolves

salivating for the blood of children and the bones

of innocent ridinghoods. So sense dissolves

in puddles of northern witches, while Kansas

splatters on the inartistic canvases

so fatuous we wish we were formless stones.

Where Axmen Roam

Calliope in cellophane and Muses

Undertaking major mysteries,

Resulting in obscurity, such uses

Of deception can be such that bees

In search of nectar will need excuses

Not to be entrapped: a fall confuses

Us with needless guiltiness—and trees

With forests where axmen roam

Are rarer now than ever, so when the hatchet

Has grown silent and yet a mighty groan

Is heard, we know the riddle’s answer: it

Is that epic poems and spirits’s gloam-

ing are illusions for which we never cease to moan,

and gods are lies unworthy of a poet’s latchet.

Surviving the Plague

We sat around, and talked about the plague,

The coming doom’s day and apocalypse,

The chances of demise, and took two sips

Of cinnamon-scented tea, until the sky

Was deep in purple clouds. If I should die

 Before the darkness fell and your sweet lips

Parted with a final word, at least a sigh,

Then nevertheless we would hear the dry

Bones rattle, and the icy blood that drips

Into eternity would turn to silence the quips

We used to share—better we should league

Against the coronation enhanced virus,

As we did against Haman and his boss Cyrus,

then all who survive the battle will admire us.

But crushed garlic is no antidote to micro-

scopic enemies, nor turmeric to protect us

like shields with embossed insignia—we throw

our lancets at the sickening body. The others intrigue

in cabals whose intensity is secret, like aspersions

where the sparrowgrass grows wild, and vulture-like

generations vanish into exhausted suns.