A Poetry Book of Thirty or So Pages

A Poetry Book of Thirty or So Pages

For Rosemary Tonks wherever she may be

On the back, no, the brink of an evening

he schemed to follow in matter of course

the tone and tenor of Rosemary Tonks

beginning with an image of a bed with

curled up ramshackled sleeping bag

gutted by use, its innards coming out

like teddy bear's stuffing material

pulled out by a child that has clearly

outgrown and lost its will to believe

in fairy tales

the zipper, a deviant, a truant, as in

1950's sociology text lingo, "coming

off tracks", an oxbow of seam exposes

the cold like the flies of a late night

park flasher,

there lies the companion, an orange

and yellow checker board blanket

of synthetic textile with undisclosed

body fluid stains that patch the field

as dried up lakes upon the length

and breadth of

Siberia

In refuge, maybe the cat flea denizen

of detritus, waiting with the patience

of a thousand Jobs to bite and suck

without pleasure, to make one itch

to scratch, this arthropod upon which

a Miriam Rothschild spent a life,

jumps, no, leaps to the flatus of the

narrative, an air of crudity, winding

pathetically past its read by time.

Rosemary how do you take your coffee

or tea, one lump or two, or is it still

too sweet by half? Still with the bed

now it has congress with your mattress

February has gone, now we are in March,

the Iliad has yielded its pages to the Ides -

Beware of the poem, it is no Elysium,

on closer inspection, must we do this?

the stains impress one with the stamp

of love, love is not a cappucino nor a Vesper

motor scooter anymore, it is undefined

for the moment, now the flea of Miriam

leaps, no, jumps to the following Room.