(To Sarah Bernhardt)

How vain and dull this common world must seem
To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked
At Florence with Mirandola, or walked
Through the cool olives of the Academe:
Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream
For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played
With the white girls in that Phaeacian glade
Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.

Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay
Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again
Back to this common world so dull and vain,
For thou wert weary of the sunless day,
The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,
The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.

Punk steam

If you see me on the steps,
of the tattered old church,
perhaps I have made a little progress.
Dunwich is a tough place to live,
but the folklore is rich.
In fact, if indeed I am sitting along the steps,
I would be right near a witch and a vampire,
a few ghosts,
and a revival of my spirit.

See 100 people class-shopping
In a round-robin cafeteria of
Color-coded day-of-the-week
Selection of 21st-century choices.

Watch and listen as they stock
Up on a one-of-a-kind plan to
Take up hour-after-hour of
A busy, too crowded week.

“Can’t take any orange classes
‘cuz I work on Thursdays,”
“What time do the green courses
Meet?”  “Homework?”

The pink class on catharsis and
Empathy is filled so there goes
The pseudo-psychological vein
To fill up a well-rounded agenda.

Classes are filled-to-the-brim as
The shoppers round the last
Curve to check out Friday’s blue-
Plate, end-of-the-week fare.

The crowd thins as the few
Remaining cookies on the
Refreshment tables are snapped
Up greedily.

It’s a good thing there are few
Requirements except lazy-boy
Memories of forgotten high
School dreams.

© Lewis Bosworth, 2-2017