.................................
The Praise of Meter
.................................

You sing the praise of meter, poet boy,
and claim to rhyme and count your sticky feet.
Forgetting stress, an iamb trips its beat;
your scansion's like a broken wind-up toy.
Under duress, you use the stalest rhyme
to ramble on the dullest subjects, loves
or suicidal angst, refer to doves
and moony Junes. You spoon poetic crime
in every line until your ink blots stink.
Some nerve you have, when you can't even scan,
to state free verse is something we should ban,
and every hack conform to form. You think
that fourteen lines that rhyme is called a sonnet,
but boy, I wouldn't care to bet upon it.

 
.................................
The Sour Years
.................................

This photograph's so old the edges tear
and split. Who is the man who stands behind
Aunt Jane? Is he the beau who died? Remind
me, I forget these histories. Jane's hair
was black with youth; a smile still curled her lips
back then, but sour years have bleached her pale.
Was he the one who'd drowned? A roaring gale,
I've heard in tales, had sunk a dozen ships
that year, had wasted sailors' youth to feed
a greedy sea. I still do not recall
his name, if he was charming or was tall.
That fall, she withered like a frost-burned weed,
her sterile seeds all scattered and gone stale.
Poor Jane, the sour years have bleached her pale.

 
.................................
The Cave of Dreams
.................................

If fish were wishes floating on a wave
of songs from peri's throats that caught the breeze
in toothy nets they cast into the cave
of dreams, would anglers drop their lines in seas
to snare their fondest hopes? The flounders swim
in open circles through the bottom weeds;
they feed on hopes. Enchanted flounders skim
the sandy bottom; they ignore the foolish needs
of human vanity. I have no dream
of wishes granted by a flounder's tail.
I have no hope that peris' eyes will gleam
with love for me. It's just a fairytale
to lull a child to sleep, a fancy or
a dream, a veil that's fallen to the floor.

 
.................................
The Taste of Ropel
.................................

My dear, there's something bitter on your prick.
That stuff you sprayed on flowers to repel
the critters will deter your wife as well.
You'd better get it off, or I'll be sick.
I know you must protect each tasty tree,
yet, after working on the garden or
the lawn, you never wash your hands before
you rub your cock. This is a mystery.
to me. I should appreciate your toil;
Perennials are lovely in their bed,
but keep them out of mine. Their unmunched red
is charming, but that nasty taste can spoil
the mood, my love. There is the tub; go wash!
It must be sweet and clean before I'll nosh.

 
.................................
Radio Religion
.................................

He sells that old time faith. Religion rants
and raves the radio in waves. "God saves,"
he says and sister simpers hymns, "Cash paves
salvation's road; indulgences god grants
from sin for dollar bills." "Have you been washed,
been washed in Jesus' blood. We sell it by
the pint." And sister simpers hymns, "No lie
is Jesus' love. We drink his blood; we nosh
his holy flesh." "A mighty fortress is
our God, His building plan needs bucks. So give
to us." And sister simpers hymns, "Just live
by faith and thithes. Your pocketbook is His."
Religion rants the radio in waves.
He prays, and sister simpers hymns, "God saves."

.................................
Karen Tellefsen
.................................

 
Copyright © Karen Tellefsen
May 1996

...a poem in this room by Lee Merkel...
i lie in an autumn pile of your kisses
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