Librarians

Librarians, booky glamour,

A lady dressed as a hammer,

Twenty brass bands, a road, no shade:

All stuff in a perfumed parade,

All steeped in a cloud of clamor.

More was arrayed, yet I stammer

For the nouns. Marjoram? Amor?

A past-tense verb? Sashayed? No. Prayed? 

Librarians.

That of which we all enamor, 

And for which we loosen grammar:

Maybe that was found, sold, or weighed

In my library cavalcade?

Maybe not, and I'm a shammer.

Librarians.

I Flee Trombone

I flee trombone by any band 

That turns a blind eye to my brand 

Of sound. Refined, no, nor martial,

Nor, often, on the right partial,

But curious, concave, unplanned.

Notes shaped by? Bile? Or by grand 

Excrescence of adrenal gland? 

Or by the mind duodenal?

I flee trombone.

If not my body than a hand

Incorporeal has command

And through the nooks of a marsh all

Crooked slides keelboats with jars full, 

Yes, brass-bound jars, of contraband.

I flee trombone.

Pecan, You Are

Pecan, You Are
dgw 9-17-13

Pecan, you are a family thing,
Dropping as his arms upswing,
That somber tree as broad as China,
Of Johnston, South Carolina,
In my Grandmom's garden growing.

A broomstick fastened to a spring
Or coil helps our harvesting:
Gleaning and the pink verbena.
Pecan, you are.

Though one sad day the state will wring
Our garden from our gardening,
As was Granddad by angina,
I'll protect from Proserpina
You, grooved pecan, my signet ring.
Pecan, you are.

Conspicuous

Conspicuous
Rondeau
dgw 9-7-13

Conspicuous means to be seen,
But it feels like it ought to mean
Something other, something sneaky,
Something punctual and leaky,
Such as a copper submarine

Or a steam-powered guillotine,
Imperfectly assembled, keen
In some ways, in others creaky.
Conspicuous.

The word, I sanction, shares a gene
With conspiracy and piscine
And incongruous. Dashiki
Floats serenely on Kon-Tiki?
The shirt's wearer is never seen.
Conspicuous.

To Jail We Go

To Jail We Go

Rondeau

DGW 9-6-13

To jail we go, arraigned by me.

Go my words, particularly,

Or to be even more precise,

Goes my power of speech, a vice

When left alone, to custody.

Wait--thinking is accessory,

And to thought, perception is key:

Open and close the cell door thrice!

To jail we go.

I perceive mechanically,

But God knowingly machines the

Earth.  And he makes the Earth entice!

So remand God.  And grab the dice:

We'll be four at Pictionary.

To jail we go.   

Well Built, This House

Well Built, This House

8-25-13

DGW

Well built, this house antebellum. 

Garden paths of oyster shell, dumb 

Cypress columns, a belvedere?

William B. Gould's plaster still there, 

Rain cowering in the well. Plumb  

And level all. Yet the fell sum,

The cost, the smell of the vellum 

Ledger, the leer of the cashier. 

Well built, this house.

William B. Gould, he could spell some,

But he didn't write "farewell!" Come

The morning, he'd rowed past Cape Fear.

If that suggests there's rot somewhere,

Owner's gone, and none to tell him. 

Well built, this house.

My Daughter I

My Daughter I 
Rondeau
8-3-13
dgw

My daughter I made wear a dress,
Egg-yolk yellow with white straps. Yes,
She did not readily consent.
But a treaty came, as in Ghent,
After a little bit of mess.

Yet though the envoys stopped their chess,
And as at New Orleans, I guess,
Some arguments remained unspent. 
My daughter I.

Thus many a lively address
Was launched after the court's recess.
For my foe--the other event
made Andrew Jackson president--
I foresee worldly success.
My daughter I.