These People Do

These People Do

Rondeau

6-29-13

dgw

These people do not need more law.

More things of which to be in awe:

That is my prescription. Describe 

An indescribable. Proscribe

Proscription, if at all. Law, shmaw.

Signs that say no stick in my craw

Like a too-big pinch of old chaw

Suppressing expression and vibe.

These people do.

To a wise, gentle hand, or paw

Of mother cat, or Robert Shaw

In Jaws, I might subscribe,

To guide the youthful of the tribe.

At laws more martial I guffaw.

These people do.

Let's Separate

Let's Separate

Rondeau

6-29-13

dgw

Let's separate and recombine

Some things. Corning beef, tub of brine.

Cards intertwined with shuffling hands.

The wine-red glass and ocean sands.

Rubbery  peel and clementine.

Cubicle and the concubine.

The sign and conquered Constantine.

The 

die thrown and the way it lands.

Let's separate.

Lines dotted, dashed, and serpentine.

Thoughts bellicose and anodyne.

Pigtails and other twisted strands.

And even, sigh, my own fig stands

And timeless market Byzantine.

Let's separate.

Why Usufruct?

Why Usufruct?
English Rondeau
dgw
6/22/13

Why usufruct? I'm glad you ask.
The word, a plume on a watchman's casque,
Means to enjoy but not destruct.
Pass by, but leave, the viaduct.
Who'd abduct the sun, just to bask?

To own a thing? Let me unmask
Possession. Once an evil flask
Its sucker's very marrow sucked.
Why usufruct?

And then there was likewise a mask
That in the wearing wore the Basque
Away who donned it.  The air duct
should only duct, not deconstruct,
The air. To breathe's a toothsome task.
Why? Usufruct.

Hail, Afternoon!

Hail, Afternoon!
Rondeau
dgw
6-16-13

Hail afternoon, the day's spittoon!
You hole up in the hot saloon,
Receiving, spat, brown, and sour,
The spent juice of every hour,
As buoyant as a burst balloon

Or trash bag torn by mad raccoon.
Sweaty equatorial June,
Where e'en lovers frowning glower,
Hail, afternoon!

Flowers show tendency to swoon
When thus bound, like Laocoon,
In your seething, sordid bower.
"Oh, where is my cooling shower
or fragrant moon?" they often croon.
Hail, afternoon!

A Poem Is Like a Tattoo

A Poem Is Like a Tattoo
English Rondeau
dgw
6-9-13

A poem is like a tattoo:
A mark on a birch bark canoe,
Flavor of yew berries and sweat.
The new pen-prick fades to regret,
Resisting attempts to undo.

Some are hieroglyphs, some Hebrew.
Some mumble, some menace, some woo,
Some glow blue like a TV set.
A poem is.

The news is, if you own one, you
Can't join him in the special pew,
Whose ink-free arm smoothes aiguillette,
Unmarred and unmarvelous. Bet
You approve this distinction. Me, too.
A poem is.

Her Gentle Flaws

Her Gentle Flaws
English Rondeau
dgw
6-2-13 v1

Her gentle flaws do not conspire.
Because I say they inspire.
Not as claws scare muslin.  Nor with
Haunted shaws share kin nor kith.
These saws sing in no mean choir.

Flaw is an awful name. Pyre,
Rickshaw, jackdaw of desire.
Delicious slaws of awesome pith,
Her gentle flaws.

A mob of fryers in the fryer,
All in crackly brown attire;
In each crevice oil goeth
And herewith flavor, flesh, and myth
Arise.  Applause!  And admire
Her gentle flaws.