[RCL]

Who Done It?

In a dream, analyzing a poem, I noticed various patterns of emphasis and ambiguous diction indicating the narrator’s loss of his beautiful lover. Attended by his Soul, he unintentionally travels to the tomb he took her to a year ago, on Halloween night. No mention of how she died. Tone, emphasizing his fear, also his Soul’s, suggests it was a woman the narrator/author murdered. Similarly, I’m finding possible murders by several other poets. We begin:

To Lenore

Lenore, your beauty was to me
xxLike when we both were poor,
And on cheap gin could barely see
xxAt the nearby Dollar Store,
xxFor our daily chore.

But lately you’ve been coughing, foaming,
xxA derelict’s disgrace.
Your naked airs that stink our home,
xxSmelling worse than cooking grease,
xxThe reason I would roam.

Lo! I am not Humbert-rich.
xxNo more with you I’ll stand.
You drank the jug held in your hand.
xx'Twas dry gin I sweetened which
xxYou sleep with deep in sand.



Of Lidian

Daughter of Time, hypocritic always,
As dumb as a single-file cub scout troop,
out marching robotically and dreamily
And sighing sighs about our savage friend
Who built a cabin out of pines he loves
In such insanely centric self-enwombing,
And so cold, I’d rather hug a tree,
But your admiration of his little
Gifts made out of grass and whittled wood
And tales about some ancient arrow heads
That cause your smiles and giggles like a girl’s
May make you suffer hypocritic scorn.



When learning there is only one of me

When learning there is only one of me
And that my once full brain pours down the drain,
I note my books are not a rarity,
Mere trifles of some poets who complain,
And seeing that my hand includes no ace,
The card I need to even have a chance
Of staking out a claim for your sweet face
So we might soon be blessed with rare romance,
I check my chronic watch and heed the hour,
Begin to feel that you’ve become a chore,
That it was due to my diminished power
You ever even saw my private door,
Which means I’m finally brainless, cannot think
Sufficiently so let your beauty sink.