VIII. A I L M N O P T
I am a minimal animal
a pinpoint pinto in pain
a nominal limo palamino
a limp impala on a pantaloon plain.
I’m a Milano lollipop lion
in a Tampa tilapia nation
I plan to plant lantana in Atlanta
I aim to maintain a plantation.
I tattoo a militant motto
on a lamplit Latino mailman
I paint an opal lanolin lotion
onto a manila-tan ottoman.
I pop a tall pom-pom piñata
atop a million-mañana platoon
A total timpani militia
on a pliant palatial moon.
IX. STEPHEN KING POLICE CALL
ROUTE 56 ICE PATCH SPUN OUT OF CONTROL OH THEN THE ANIMALS
X. QUINTENT
She believed in justice and reason
He in paths already taken
Together they drifted toward heaven
The brightest cherry
is plucked from the lowest branch
where we see it best.
Money – a store of value
and the story of you:
how you obtained it,
where you hoarded it,
when you let go of it,
what you exchanged it for,
whom you bequeathed it to,
why it meant so much to you,
e pluribus you.
Songbirds do not know
the sour hearts of those
to whom sweetly they sing
I never used a line on you
I never had to
I never had one.
XI. WHEN THE CIRCUS CAME TO TOWN
229 E. Washington St., New Castle, Pennsylvania, 1973
Kodak 126 Instamatic Film
XII. MY HAIR IS NICE
I tell myself
my hair is nice
but that doesn’t make it so
I contemplate
how to disguise
my pate with some chapeau
Mayhaps my pate
should celebrate
how my haircuts take
just a minute
And thus I should
just knock on wood –
my head, that is –
and accept it.
(Or, This Body Will Come to Alphabetical Or-der!)
She speaks with that half-hearted Ardor
from her perch in the whiteness of Bangor
mouthing what she thinks passes for Candor
with her eye on who might be her next Donor.
She reigns as our national Equivocator:
It’s the one thing that makes her a Factor.
Having failed in her bid to be Governor,
Maine elected her their main Hesitator.
Lacking creds as a dogged Investigator,
Susan presents herself as an impartial Juror
(disregarding the con-job by Kavanaugh)
and the Senate’s most serious Legislator
always ‘troubled’ by some gross Misbehavior.
She’s never been much of a Negotiator
but simply another shrewd Operator
in the dress of a centrist Protector
and the voice of the dullest of Question-ors.
Her true calling was probably a Realtor
instead of a mealy-mouthed Spin-doctor,
a half-truth and quarter-truth Tolerator
whose motives are reliably Ulterior.
Ms. Collins found her niche as a Vacillator.
So who needs to be a gender Warrior,
And who needs to be a government X-rayor,
when you can be a fence-sitting Yea-sayor
and get elected as Senator Zig-zaggor?
Madame Senate-Or Susan M. Collins
No relation, no, none at all
Playing both sides, A to Z, clumsily.
Maybe the only poem ever written about her
The mediocre poem she’s long deserved.