have we strayed far from art?
Oh, Marvell?
Oh, Donne?
Oh, Jonson? And
sometime Wyatt?

forgive these modern
fornicating gluttonous
whirl of words.

pastoral shepherds are dead,
old friends

sultry sweet snatches
to sing of and dampen your quill,
mossy memories

those pining poets deflowering tulips
with their multi-lingual similes,
have been shot for their vague
caresses

mowers now grip their
flaccid scythes,
loitering near the iron
gates of life

forgotten and rotten are
their hot July desires

no.

no need to complain in
metered rhyme, just
give it to me straight
and hard

i'll take it all the same