Pages

Monday, January 16, 2012

"Time Pieces" by Rachel Wetzsteon

Eden time


They spent every day,
blissfully ignorant, in
amorous delay.


Temp time

Will I be alive
when the twelve-headed jailer
announces it’s five?


In a parched time

Clouds make this appeal:
the more you wait, the wetter
the water will feel.


Intermission time

Guilty admission:
this plunge from art to life’s a
painful transition.


Sleep time

Quick nap—but it seemed
an ocean of joys, a sea
of griefs that I dreamed.


Reunion time

Days passed like drugged snails.
I met you at the station,
laughed at their faint trails.


Just give it time

Though I frankly feel
better, there's nothing sadder
than starting to heal.


Retronym time

Cheering: it was done.
But soon the Great War would be
renamed World War One.


Lately I haven't had the easiest time

Overcathexis
has me asking clouds if they
know where my ex is.


The Marshallin returns for the third and final time

Ja, ja, so it goes:
I've got memories, but she's
got the silver rose.


Ahab time

Though I do not thrive,
I confess I've never felt
so purely alive.


You get lucky from time to time

Once, in a mad rush,
I painted a blizzard that
blew away my brush.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Baroque Sandwich


Roast beef on whole wheat, please,
With lettuce, mayonnaise and a center slice
Of beefsteak tomato.
The lettuce splayed, if you will,
In a Beaux Arts derivative of classical acanthus,
And the roast beef, thinly sliced, folded
In a multi-foil arrangement
That eschews Bragdonian pretensions
Or any idea of divine geometric projection
For that matter, but simply provides
A setting for the tomato
To form a medallion with a dab
Of mayonnaise as a fleuron.
And — as eclectic as this may sound —
If the mayonnaise can also be applied
Along the crust in a Vitruvian scroll
And as a festoon below the medallion,
That would be swell.

You mean like in the Cathedral St. Pierre in Geneva?

Yes, but the swag more like the one below the rosette
At the Royal Palace in Amsterdam.

You got it.
Next.

- Paul Violi, from Counterman