Because even a long summer day
Isn’t long enough to harvest hay.
We modern folk must lose
A lovely hour to snooze
Or botch our Sunday reveillé.

When things go wrong I like to whine.  
Complaining’s free and feels so fine.  
So when I do find fault,
It’s moaning I exalt.  
Sip vinegar instead of wine.

All gargoyles scowl. What is the matter?
These faces will not make things better.  
But gargoyles always scowl
Because their haunches howl,
And slipping off their ledge will shatter.

While perusing pictures at the Louvre
A dragon felt dismayed and moved
At how often they portrayed
When Saint George cruelly slayed.  
If claws could clutch brushes they’d reprove.

Too nimble for sluggards to swat
Flies will gambol when it gets hot.  
Don’t bother to flap.  
You’re too slow to slap
That buzzing, tormenting argonaut.

The summer brings on buzzing flies.  
Those whirrings around ears and eyes
Strum lullabies that make
A sleeper **** awake
And aggravate miserable Julies.

All phrases that are pleonastic
And too redundant are bombastic.  
Verbose prolixity
Makes plodding poetry,
A sluggish, limping limerick.

In anti-intruder apprenticeships
The tiniest tiny canines yips
At any passing tread
Because it’s def con red.  
A zombie will flee from shih tzu nips.

Since a bitter beverage goes best
With sweeter courses, adding zest,
So many breakfast dishes
Considered most delicious
Are sugary bases syrup dressed.

Though thimbles are rigid and heavy and tight
Getting gouged by pins is no delight.  
A finger jabbed enough
Gets calloused, horned, and tough,
But why suffer needless pain from spite?

Though shaving with soap is very cheap
The cuts can also run quite deep.  
Be careful round the lips.  
Or gout in scarlet drips.  
Perhaps gel’s price isn’t so steep.

A toggle is so fun to twist
While buttons pivot like a wrist.  
Rotating through a slit
Gives a much snugger fit.  
Toggles swaddle a contortionist.

Because zippers cruelly pinch the skin
I use velcro for my fastening.  
Those hooks are much too small
To puncture me at all,
Twisting barbs into crooks blunts pins.

Would pumpkins smile so very wide
If they knew on a porch outside
An exposed gourd soon rots
Or splatters parking spots?  
Their grins come from some defiant pride.

I always wanted to procrastinate,
But put if off and now it’s too late.
So if you want to laze
Don’t put up with delays.  
Today’s the day to vegetate.

Two neighbors from Naseby compete
Whenever they pour some wet concrete
Whose sidewalk will dry
First, or is it a tie?  
Luxuriant lawns are also a feat.

When the nimble aphids are leaping
And squat caterpillars are creeping
They’re fleeing on before
The mower’s starting roar,
Like field-mice at the autumn reaping.

The afternoon’s drippy and muddy,
And kids are kept out of Dad’s study.  
There’s nothing to do
But mope the day through
Or living-room rugby with Buddy.

An ant will sit on a committee
That studies where in all the city
The children are most prone
To drop an ice cream cone.  
At tiny scales they’re not that gritty.

The squishiest mattress is a cloud,
So soft it shouldn’t be allowed.  
To stiffen the vapor
They take our their scraper
To shave off of sleet’s brittle shroud.

In Scotland painters favor plaid
Though tartans are likely just a fad.  
When dabbing on the wall
The hand can’t slant at all.  
Glaswegians think diagonals bad.

Postmodernists like Rohrschach blots
But painters prefer polka dots,  
But shaking paint just right
So dots stay round and tight
Is like tying needles in knots.

A widow from Wimberly whistles
And fills all her pillows with thistles.  
So nice on the cheek,
You’ll sleep for a week.  
When dozing on brambles and bristles.

Perhaps it’s to exercise jaws
But a naughty porcupine gnaws
On handles of wood,
So salty and good,  
But they’d prefer popcorn to saws.

A farmer from Farmington sowed
His hectares with freckle of toad.  
When asked what would sprout
He hadn’t a doubt
Of harvesting doughnuts à la mode.

A spinster from Flint once opined
In her day the suitors were kind.  
Though sister was gone,
They didn’t stay long.  
An overfull parlor can grind.

A vegetable sufficiently boiled
And buttered and salted and oiled
Can taste just like meat
Off a parakeet
Or platypus flambéed then broiled.

A huckster from Huxby displayed
His circus of fleas to any who paid.
A bug on a trapeze
Can soar with such ease
And for wages takes marmalade.

Though cue-***** are glossy and smooth
The felt has been rough since my youth.
Some dimples assist
When fairways resist
But putting on tables is uncouth.

In welcome old Fido is barking
But cats are too haughty for marking
If tenants are home,
Or off on a roam.  
A shut-in gets cranky and carking.

It’s lovely to live on a boat
So mobile a dwelling and remote,
But beaching in sand
To dock on dry land,
Is nicer than bobbing afloat.

A matron of Memphis poured toffee
In water and orange juice and coffee.  
Her drinks were so sweet
She thought them a treat,
But a sleeve, if rested, ripped off me.

Impatient, a lion will roar
And kitty’s meowing at the door,
Because paws are fumbling;
At doorknobs it’s grumbling.
Once launching a robin can soar.

According to astrology,
The stars arrange themselves to bind
The destinies of humankind
Born under their hegemony.  
What malice made those twinkling lights
****** my children, and yet spare
A father to forever bear
Grief that embitters, and ignites
A hatred for my very birth,  
And the cursed womb that gave me life.  
****** in this vale of loss and strife,
Pushed through that vile and ****** firth,
I live and suffer till I die.
Are the stars locked in crystal spheres
To trace their paths throughout the years,
Quite powerless to nullify,  
The ruin and the doom they chart?  
Or do they skip across the void,
Giddy, and cruel, and overjoyed
To wither a poor father’s heart?  
If they’re condemned to blight
The fate of any mortal born
Under their aegis, they must mourn
The sentences their glint must write.  
If merciful, those stars must share
The misery their shining brings,
And their own brittle glimmerings
Must lance their conscience with despair.  
Extinguishing those stars that ****
Unwillingly is clemency.
Annihilation sets them free.  
But if they’re vicious, it will thrill
My aching spirit to ***** out
Ill-omened and malignant stars,
Child-murderers, and the bêtes noires
Of fathers, even if devout.  
Such wicked lights disgrace the night,
So, emptied, let that banner shut.  
An expanse cleansed of glittery ****
Contracts so closely and so tight
No spirit banished from its rest
Can enter through that dismal gate,
Once happy, now disconsolate,
Dropped in a world they will detest.  
Into that gap, the day before
And the day afterward will close.  
So that cursed hour cannot expose
A naked child to famine, war,
Plague, and the agonies this world.
Inflicts upon the bad and good.  
If in the womb, I’d understood
The pain awaiting, I’d have curled
Up tighter and would lock my knees.
Shutting the door, I would return
To a green glade and gurgling bourn,
A haven from atrocities.

He’s cruel and stupid, and ignores
His omened doom, pronounced, decreed,
And mine with his, no ranted screed.  
Though I must speak, I pray it bores.  
The direst warnings couldn’t save
My family, or those I loved.  
When prophecy failed, I should have shoved
Them from the palace to some cave.  
Now it’s too late to intervene,
And force can spare their murderer.  
I should prevent, but I’ll demur,
And perish too. I’m just sixteen.  
I’ve suffered, but don’t want to die,
Especially not matched with him.  
Even so, I’ll meet my downfall prim,
Trojan royalty too brave to cry.

King Agamemnon raised a wind
When the whole fleet had lain becalmed.  
He’d sacrificed, and hadn’t qualmed.  
From horror he could not rescind.  
His wife has taken the loss badly.  
Not even kings can lessen grief,
Or render the bereft relief.  
He’d give his life for hers, and gladly.  
And jealousy has made it worse.  
The girl is a much younger mate,
But looks and youth can’t replicate
A marriage sorrow can’t reverse.  
Any captive’s understandably
A little skittish at the first.  
They say she’s mad, that she’s been cursed
With visions of the things to be.  
Shamans love to peddle threats
And when the worst misfortune hits
They preen like fortune’s favorites.  
And they alone have no regrets.  
He had refused a wheedling fraud.  
And then a bunch of men got sick.  
Confronted by a lunatic,
He’d given in, resigned unawed.  
A warlord doesn’t quake from fear
Because a foreign princess whines.    
Him frightened by his concubines?
The girl’s annoying but sincere.

The ancients put tremendous matters
On oracles and auguries.  
When godhood speaks, the priest agrees.
Glib cunning fails when trouble batters.  
Calculations have a thousand ways
To err, while chance can cut the odds
To one in ten, or more if gods
Drop hints about our dossiers.  
Augurs read events to come
From entrails, bones, and scattered sticks.  
Their guesses are arithmetics
For problems reasoning can’t sum.

The scaup is searching for a shore
To build her nest, a lonely beach,
Or rocky cliff no fox can reach.  
Egg-gobblers and roosting mothers war.  
There is no land, just churn and spray,
The billows heave and wave-crests foam,
Nowhere for her to make a home,
If there’s a coast, it’s far away.  
From hovering and fluttering, her wings
Are weary, and her soaring droops.  
Neither scanning, nor her endless loops
Find shelter from cold blusterings.  
And soon she’ll drop, and soon she’ll drown.  
Unless she finds a landing spot.  
And there, out there, a blip, a dot.  
A floe, an island made of ice,
Too big to bob, and just as firm
As any continent, a berm
Bears, seals or penguins would think nice.  
Not great for birds, but she’s no choice.  

She lands, she rests, she lays her eggs.  
Her frigid roost has numbed her legs,
But it’s a nest, so she’ll rejoice.  
Her eggs are warm, and soon they’ll hatch.  
Hatchlings can sip from melted snow,
But grubs don’t squirm on this bare floe,
And there’s no fish around to catch.    
Icebergs are barren and they’re hard.  
But far beneath the ice and sea,
Rich bottomland, a cozy lea,
The sea-bed makes a better yard.  
Born to water, they will breathe
Water, as their mother did the air.
And though aquatic birds aren’t rare
Gilled scaups are scarce as hens that teethe.  
A separate species, her lost young
Will never know their mother soared,
Or dropped the offspring she adored.  
In ocean depths unwarmed by sun.  
In that strange element they’ll thrive,
Becoming what has never been,
A species hitherto unseen.
Unknown to her, but they’ll survive.  

She drops the eggs, and trills goodbye.  
Then, mournfully, the scaup takes wing.  
To cross what’s past accomplishing.
The coast’s too far, but she will try.

The Wit is nimble, and can skip
The longest distances with ease.  
It flits on an extended trip,
One day, and back from overseas.  
The Wisdom hasn’t cleared the dock, 
A wide, and long, and sluggish ship,
Her cargo a tremendous stock,
And filled as if by faucet drip.  
But such a huge displacement packs,
What takes a flimsy, skimming skiff
More than a hundred there’s and back’s,
A bounty to save Tenerife.

Loquacious people love to spill
Plump secrets they’re too vain to keep.  
To tell tremendous news can reap
Friends whom novelty alone can thrill.  
The truth is common property,
And independently abides,
While forgettings are all pseudocides,
And neglectful parents can’t agree.  
Whoever lies confers a gift
Devising falsehoods just for you.  
Facts thrive where thistles never grew.  
Don’t give what anyone can lift.  
In legend consumed bread regrows
To feed a nation from one loaf.  
Truths regenerate, so any oaf
Can pluck a common, banal rose.  
Truth-tellers safely can forget,
Because some checking resupplies.
Not so with lonely, fragile lies,
Whoever lies must ever fret.  
Glib, easy tongues who scatter facts
Have given every anyone
A tale regifted they’ve not spun.  
Lies are what imagining enacts.  
The stringent claim that facts are few
While falsehoods sprout in multitudes
But where the robust truth intrudes
Mendacity’s scorched residue.  
The truth is a replenished ore
Dug from an open, shallow mine.  
Lies are a moon-grown eglantine
Or stories from a private lore.  
Facts are devalued minted lead,
Coins of a debased currency,
But lies are golden filigree
Which melts wherever sunlight’s spread.

Our senses fashion effigies
Of a dead past, useless as guides
Where strict finality resides.  
Mute phantoms drowned in icy seas.  
But halved funereal diptychs show
Reflections of the things to be.  
The not yet displayed in symmetry,
A future mirrored long ago.

The strongest passions, joy and sorrow
Contract the feelings like a vice,
A solid block no word can slice,
As lead today, and lead tomorrow.
The thicker humors have congealed.
Water alone can spurt and run,
Too light to join that unison
When bliss and sadness have annealed.  
Though salted, tears can trickle down,
So fluid in comparison
To what calamity has stung.  
So grieve, repent, blame, weep, or clown,  
And breath is borrowed from the air,
And words but clipped and scripted breath.  
Can grief pronounce a shibboleth,
Or rapture limn what’s past compare?

The boy-king wanted to incinerate
A fell and meretricious thryrus.  
His grandfather would venerate
The same staff, terrified of curses.  
His mother’d slandered the drunk god,
But regretting feckless blasphemy
She counseled them to spare the rod,
Until they heard the divine decree.  
Once the summoned prophet had appeared,  
Blind, and clad in a frayed, goatskin cloak,  
The monarch sputtered “It’s cursed, weird,
And wrong, burn it down to ash and smoke!”
The former monarch begged, “Appease
Bromius with primeval rite,  
A lord who smites his enemies
A lord too terrible to fight.”
The daughter next, “His worshipers
Run mad, and slaughter their own kin,
Even children.   The god massacres
Those who dispute his origin”
The prophet lifted up the staff
And tore the ivy from its tip.  
“Rites, massacres, don’t make me laugh,
And immolation’s sponsorship.”
He swung the staff to test its heft,
And said, “I need a walking stick,  
The drunkard has no bacchics left,
****** the goatish lunatic.”
At this, the grandfather turned pale,
And the repentant mother winced.  
Matched severity cannot avail
If fear and butchery convinced.  
A proverb soothes the quondam king
And the dowager, “He frightens you,  
But moderation in each thing,
And that in moderation too.”

Our undercroft had housed our dead
Unseen, in gloomy sepulture.  
But pagan chieftains much prefer
Barrows, where height can show instead.  
And the busier departments need
Those lowest levels for their work.
Glib passers-by avoid that murk,
And absent bosses don’t impede.      
Ensconsed where corpses decomposed,
Those in cubicles will thrive, unvexed,
And never taken from their desks,
They’ll finish the great work imposed.  
Interrers from a raucous age
Buried their kings and queens in mounds.
Since robbers filch, and greed abounds,
The wise entombed their heritage.  
Sarcophaguses, then the norm,  
Are too chilly for a comfy bed.  
The dawn should kiss those lids of lead,
To heat what blankets cannot warm.
Rather than burying in hills,
Top those barrows with their occupants.  
These somber monuments enhance
What would be dowdy domiciles.  
Coffins as cenotaphs and plaques,
Allow the dead to bask in sun,
And feel what veneration’s done.  
Hilltops make the best catafalques.

In mainland meadows, flowers tempt,
Yet spurn those animals they tease,
Except caprificating bees.  
Here, whatever’s edible’s unkempt.  

There is an isle more fortunate
Where nettles sow chrysanthemums,
And farming isn’t wearisome,  
And where what tempts must satiate.

Clacking belongs to hollow shells,
And echoes stilled, and tongueless bells.
Toys are made flimsier than tools,
And sloth is banished from the schools.  
When clacking’s ceased, adults relax.  
Childhood is hardship and attacks.

A hungry alphabet will flock
One word to several things.  
Taut meanings have diverged
From verbal hankerings.

One of their neighbors is afflicted
With a fell spirit, lost, and doomed
To roam alone among the tombs,
The spirit’s fierce, but some have tricked it.      
Citizens have bound the madman tight,
Caught him in fetters or in chains,
But strength no ligature contains
Breaks them like braided aconite.  
And after this, they let him be
Because his might has always snapped
Twine tying wrists, but flesh has trapped
Unspeakable malignancy.

This sleep has sunk to catacombs
Where dreams are dreaming of themselves,
And where they slump to deeper shelves
A dim and voiceless banshee roams.  
Interlopers jostle memory,
And pressing on his signet ring,
Take on the seal of realer things.  
Truth’s rejected for hyperbole.  
Delusions stack in strata, drowned,
Lives never lived, in parallel,
That puzzle sleepers who can’t tell
Where waking lies, so lies confound.

Some planets flatten at their rumps.
Some have grown a paunch, and not quite round,
They wander from their orbital bounds.
Ellipses bulge because of lumps.