Poems
by KJ Hannah Greenberg
Emptying the Audio Trash Box
Sometime after the excursion, when the expatiated lady needed language
To allay copious followers, she shooed her offspring to another clime.
Her kids gawped, mesmerized by the provincial elisions fricatives.
Typically maternal, she sought a soft landing subsequent to chucking
Hometown dialect. When natives posited the desirability of quiet,
She countered, claiming obsequious others orbit calm spaces.
Forward-thinking, thereafter, she smoothed a route toward local hoydens,
Shed realized neighborhood intellects focused on numerical fire drills,
Aeonic or otherwise enigmatic quasars, antagonists, but not comets.
Resident leaders, too, fled from thunderbolts, failed to embrace cicadas,
Turned their backs on volcanoes, tried to dampen the sound of rockets,
Overall, aborted any decibels beyond silence.
So the gal asked her seneschals to record aimless acts of depredation,
Unproductive loving of slipstream fiction, odd albatrosses, candors,
Thermal cloths limited protection against copyright infringement.
Summarily, having observed too many counterparts to casuistry, ample
Odd persons living in quaint garrets, ersatz bedsits, castoff dumpsters,
Asp-laden, Cleopatra-like, she and her scion vamoosed.
Burnt Roast
Yesterday, before: smoke alarms sounded, the neighbors frenzied
At the firemens arrival, the dog got sick from smoke, I weighed
Whether or not we haver when straining to resolve marital strife
(As karsts formed by dissolvable rocks, all dolomite, not granite).
No matter legal jurisdictions agency, virtually all prompted dialectic,
On Truth, elsewise, on the meaning of family, resembles sundry
Longitudinal limitsparenting leaves asunder demarcations of need
til we rethink talk, in general, or, specifically, spawn fresh chances.
Allowing the limitations of over-crisped beef, also of bald questions,
Preliminary arguments, found in bodies of scholarship, ostensibly,
Merely raise kindred issues, simply attach coruscations to discourse.
On the other hand, great numbers of cachinnators couldnt care less.
People laughing loudly and immoderately about swaths of genius art,
Cant quantify, otherwise measure virtuosity, or even graphic novels.
Such folks remain distinct by historical standards, failing to contribute
Since their interpersonal hyphae do nothing, really, to connect publics.
Rather, their words remain unctuous and their status stays stagnate.
(In lifes important districts, crowings consistent with agelasts, not
Jokers.) Plus, in the marital realm, where prejudices about liberal,
Conservative successfully negate, feminist actions, are valued.
Overcooked meat aside, it doesnt matter if perspectives are risible,
Or, if stealthy aphorisms negate sapience backing ultraviolet-colored
Coryzas, gold-dusted pimples. Boundaries humble acknowledgement
Creates self-reference, bridging loved ones greatly needed isthmuses.
Cardsharper
Card sharks, cheaters in violet fedoras, peppered
With good luck charms, cigar ash, random coins,
Perhaps mendicant men, or women whose thighs,
Busts marshal donations to their tables pockets.
Genders rarely relevant to mountebanks, to lovers
Of chemin de fer or poker. Rather, charlatans adore
Easy pickings among military folk, tourists, maybe,
Equally, local residents dumb enough to play along.
Tricksters, ostensibly, Monsanto Food brands and
Citizen victimizers, infamous living chrysophiles,
Edit many salacious maidens, aroused by danger,
Eyes permanently lambent from prompted dreams.
If dido-loving twats could fall asleep for centuries,
In rose bowers, sip potages thick with hypochlorite,
Dance with undines, walk on railroad tracks, choke,
Bungee jump from some relay towers, wed be fine.
Unfortunately, criminal is as integral to goings-on
As precipitation is to every single unforgiving clime.
Grasp, piano wires still less a solution than: posies,
Song birds, the birth of kittens, rejoicing modestly.
Copyright reserved. Please do not reproduce without consent.