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Dilemma in The Garden

“Es war ein perfekter Garten, voller Unkraut.”

Then, should I reclog this wilting bower,

For shame of nothingness sways the flower;

An ink-spilt contempt veins the ember’s fuse,

That no garden e’er blew such gaudy ruse.

Still, by some shunt weed about this field o’erlooked

Should sprout like Snowdrops as Earth’s foreign crooks

And stand anomalous by th’surmised foot,

That tramped its neighbour by its guilt-borne root.

But, some plots grow and by ages deed

Ne’er a Catchfly to produce from seed;

Or a Bishop, a Blanket, or a Foxglove—

Who, by her siren’s song, assays above

This incorrigible bouquet of wilt and wane,

That on dead leaves no splendors rest,

Save, by its cloaking tinge and green-sleeve fame,

To survive the winter in the hornet’s nest.

Yet, by a coarse and dubious restraint,

Should grow within like a rough formed jewel,

Without, against this troublesome stain,

Which repeats and stutters to no avail;

Then, should I reclog the wilting bower,

Or with a plow dismiss its flower;

Should I endure this devolving deluge,

Or whisk ‘way what weed’d dreams have wax’d to lose?

Perhaps Formaldehyde

He is an ancient man,
Machined by mangled trends, and ends
Abridged in some other lesson,
Pinned to a board still fluttering,

Held on display for scowls o’ critical faces—
Meticulous cuts and cross-glances,
Glassy smirks, perpetual by his penning—
But, now He does not fit into her bedroom.

It must be a woman who dies second;
For man cannot cry and dry
In loosing such hoary…youth;

Still, I believe I taste the tears
In this chicken just now fried,

Maybe, she left for good;
Maybe,

Or perhaps formaldehyde.

The Battle of Poet’s Tree

I

Bound in ivory, some in gray;

The old in yellowing dress:

They tramped in gaits of paginates,

Imposing grim duress;

It rung us clear, their quiet jeers

Had spoken for our flesh!

With sarcastic wits and wistful whips,

We held back our tears to cry,

For our little Race of scribbling haste

Chose not ourselves to die,

But Time’s little clicks lent closer ticks,

That our grave shall not pass by.

The Pages flipped and stood there crisp

In their ivory clad cloaks,

Staring Blank in an awful shank

That pierced us where it smote,

And the angry stone Medusa shone

Were the Pages’ gaze to note.

Each one bounding, each one counting,

Tempting us to write;

But in each chance we fell entranced,

By their great and perfect light;

For each blank Page had fought with age

To keep us from the Fight.

Irony was on our armor,

In a twist and fancy way

It glints and gleams a crystal sheen,

In a mock of shining Day,

It mocks the Light in leer of Night,

For nighttime’s when We play:

They then advanced with a cold steel lance

To brand Us with our doom,

With acts of fright in clever fight,

My Sabre struck aboon

The end my thought had aimed to fare,

And left the Page to swoon.

Ink black blood dripped from my Spear,

And my scribe upon the Lace,

Beneath my rage, and paraphrase:

A poem there be lain;

On th’blank grotesques I made arabesques

Like old age upon a face!

Within a dark synecdoche,

Found the scattering of Leaves,

That caught the wind of a hurried Sail

Speeding ahead the breeze—

For a Page blanked with faultlessness,

Is Metaphor in disease.

II

We met the Page with fettered doom,

In a bitter, tranquil fit;

We lock’d our grip to shroud with care;

Our lantern’s burning wick—

And like Seraph swords our Pen did bore

Our tongues in mighty writ:

We took the Tree the Poet sows

Splaying pages, spiraling—

Like string quartets of marionettes,

We draped them from the leaves;

We made them dance and watch’d them prance

In a Perfect mangling.

For what we lead a Poet said,

“Was the bitter of the sweet,”

What we had, our Pen had laid

Beneath our Nose and feet,

Some in rhyme and some with lines

No Man would care to read:

But some flashed Hate, and some more Great

Than the living word of Man;

Some had Span, and one held a taste

Of a ripe and tender Orange—

Some were stark and woke the lark

In a rhythmic saraband,

Some alone became as Stone

And fell upon the Grave,

The Epitaph—the Elegy,

Wrote us there before the Knave;

Lo! The Fool did pin Us all

Within a Poet’s Masquerade!

Ethan Grothues (2011)

The Ghost was She

The ghost was she who crossed the Dewpond fain,

Tho’ my New love didst not hear, nor question,

Across the Channel, through mist and rain;

This remembrance spears in recollection—

For it was I who found the gentle Grave—

The fresh dug earth in two hearts lie as one;

I watch’d the last drop of red Passion leave

Like tears the Night doth smear a face alone;

The Smoke is a sad place love doth wander,

For when it rains all Grey buildings weep;

Morose cornices like death drip yonder

To embrace a ghost Mem’ry treks ‘cross th’sea.

I glance a view athwart my chamber-bed,

And t’see her ghost, know I, to Love am dead.

Love is not worth a lifetime for

Love is not worth a lifetime for;

Only Death brews lifelong—

To the lips, coursing drunk, wherefor

Have all the daft lovers gone?

Love lost Her grapple for;

For the grope and the throng—

For the Great Lamb in Paramour

Hast raped the muddy Swan!

Why not lust one life evermore,

Than allow dust t’prolong?

Till Nature’s thrust comes nevermore

In Love’s blinding singsong—

Man’s propensity t’score;

To steal and have a proclaimed Prong,

To flaunt hither and thither for

Coiling Women’s diphthong—

They do lie well in double-score;

By speech, divides the tongue—

Emotion purged in loss and lore:

Love’s tale doth best Her song.

Love is not worth a lifetime, for

Life’s but a world furlong—

For living passion is cocksure

T’surpass in gobs among

The maid and the maiden’s door—

Through in and out, along

Slinky moans and a silk contour

It’s Lust in love’s sarong!

What is love that was not lust before?

Mayhaps a word, or a strong

Odor exuded from the Core;

Or A-night stand oblong?

The misconception lies, therefore,

‘Tween Love and Lust’s erelong

State is not a hair-splitting roar,

But the placement of Tongue.