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When the poems
Come down to the water
To drink,
I am miles away.
I am examining
A car
Or my husband’s leg
Or a torn appointment card
To see if there are any wildish animals
In there. If I found one,
I would truss it up
And drag it with ropes
Protesting and moaning
Down to my study
To analyze the hooves
And pigeonhole the ears.
The tail would be nailed
Above the fireplace
To show to guests.
The poems have
Learned this the hard way.
So when I am in the blind
They make no sound.
They don’t even blink.
When the poems
Come down to the water to drink,
They want only ripples
And companionship,
Not sportsmen.
I don’t remember how
I came to be a sharpshooter.
It had something to do
With sanity,
With thinking ahead,
looking both ways for traffic,
Obeying the lights.
Debralee Pagan
California
Oh, please do read it
by
Gary Lehmann
New York
Charles Algernon Swinburne was a poet who loved himself
and his poetry so much he would read verse at any time.
He wrote poetry that the public considered scandalous, so
he particularly loved to show off when calling on friends.
To lure them in, he cleverly placed an oversized sheaf of poems
in his breast pocket where it could not be missed.
“Oh, please do read it.” This was all the goading the poet needed
to be induced to produce some delicious new verse to delight all.
While reading, he’d get so excited he couldn’t sit still,
but jumped up gesticulating wildly as he pranced about the room.
The audience usually tired of this show before he did,
but he appeared not to notice. So enthralled was he with himself.