It's just poetry, it won't bite

If You Need a Reason to Read Under the Covers


02.02.15 Posted in today's words by

KJ Hannah Greenberg’s most recent poem to appear here was Privileged Fear (January 2014).

If You Need a Reason to Read Under the Covers
By KJ Hannah Greenberg

If you need a reason, its cousins, aunties, dogs, to read under the covers,
Or simply like to openly smile while making due with emptied
Beer cans, darabuka drums, management’s asperity, there’s hope.

If you can’t find a good hidey hole, in which to flush Little Brother’s piranha,
Before he discovers Goldfish’s missing, entice him to peek beyond his door.
Plant, in his chamber, nothing more sinister than an oubliette full of pain devices.

If exsanguination chills you, makes your wonkiness shrivel, discolor, grow limp,
Then nighttime jogs in Central Park, epicanthic surgery, also, maybe, constipation,
More than unclaimed socks or raised toilet seats, vivisectioned ragdolls, ill-suits you.

If tattoos, variegated flesh-borne intaglios, spurn your loyalty to particular traditions,
But keep alive your unprepossessing interpersonal relationships, worldly pressures aside,
You’d be better off invoking the skills of trephine-toting surgeons or grizzly bears.

If your market base relies on media sites without financial leverage, commonplace
Affections for water, or late literary pas de deux, perhaps it’s sagacious to consider
Less than a full measure of participation in high-context societies, tai-chi, chain smoking.

If staying informed about conglomerated food distributors means accepting school board
Kickbacks, wealth’s too overrated. Public speeches need more air time, poets in Europe
Ought to receive stipends to perform before isolated caliphs, or be required, to polka.

If it becomes tempting to espouse two opinions, simultaneously, out of your mouth,
But only one is as it should be, then spewing olden day healing wisdom might rescue
Your word play from contrite, from ensouled monsters, perhaps also from ancient ifrits.

If propinquity gives you hives, try testing Beef Eaters’ scrutiny of arctic tourists,
Cover your latrines with expository writing, return to teaching at community colleges,
Engage in cloaked activities, show boat, motor board, and stop appraising labels on fine wine.

 



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