Romeo, O Romeo

Virile, slime-backed bull of tropic palms,
Prurient passions rising to your throat,
 Ange Adorable asks holy alms,
Demands no quiver in her lover's croak.

She understands her perfume, peril scent
Fires a feud between your loins of rage,
And tadpole instincts pilgrims must repent
To duel the shrieking Frenchman of the cave.

He listens for a lovesong filled with lust,
Indulging in the Sun's insistent taste
For plumper, braver grenouille to suck.
Still, cramming your heroic lungs in haste,

And climbing to her moonlit canopy,
You blast your Aria 'neath her balcony.



This sonnet was written based on the description of the frog Physalaemus in Central America by Diane Ackerman in her beautiful book "The Natural History of the Senses". There should be accent marks on Ange Adorable and grenouille. Ange Adorable is the aria from the balcony scene in the opera Romeo and Juliet.
The "shrieking Frenchman" is the bat that preys upon this frog. As the French eat frogs, and Paris is Romeo's rival, I borrowed this image for the sonnet. The form is a Shakespearean sonnet, for what else should it be?

Aurora, CO Theater Shooting (July 20, 2012)

Dark Knight

The night falls and The Knight Rises.
 In the Dark, the theater screen
Draws a Gothic play of crisis
 Where all that's Comic leaves the scene.
Smoke and bullets. Madness. Mayhem.
 Megaplex of camera plays
Transforms into Dark Asylum,
 Arkham, Riddled with the sprays

Of shotgun shells and rifle rounds,
The screams of panicked patrons down,
And one, mad Joker on the grounds:
"Why so serious? Why the frown?"
The Ledger tallies up the Score.
The puerile madman goes to jail.
The victims see the Knight no more,
And explanations can't but fail.

The gunman but an ungrown boy,
Whose world is tragic fantasy:
A paltry fool we'll now destroy.
Real Jokers, rightly, don't go free.
The dignity of human life,
The love of life, of all for all,
Are they passing in this night
Where the Code of Knights meets gall?



One reader of this poem believed I was aggrandizing the gunman in this poem by making him into just what he wished to be - the Joker. I cannot see how my descriptions of him as mad, puerile, ungrown boy, paltry fool and an enemy of all that is good can be interpreted this way.

Boston Marathon Bombing

Run the good race on Patriot's Day,
It is Spring, and the bare branches blossom.
Near the ribbon's rest, a harvest bray,
And the bare limbs fall in Boston.

No lantern lit in the North Church Tower
To warn Red was coming by land.
No cover of night for the violent hour -
For the bloody work, vilely planned.

"Sweet April!" sadly turned to Autumn,
"Life's golden fruit is shed."
But Patriot's yet run in Boston,
Unlike cowards with bombs, who have fled.

Poem written April 15, 2013, published in Loaves and Fishes, available through bookstorexlibris.com , Amazon.com and bn.com