I thought poems would offset
the verbose markings of time
on my chiseled countenance;
perchance you had missed my ad
as it cowered beneath a fine youth's
his perfect goutee
and a casual sentence or two
about dining, beaches, film
beneath a commanding photo
that seemed to have been clipped
from the NYT Sunday Fashion 'zine
or perhaps overshadowed
by a particularly eloquent plea
from a swarthy mustachioed man
for a plus sized counterpart
with especially sentient cellulose.
or disapproved of my copy
referring to Dr. Strangelove
& Brando's Tango
as characters appearing
in my adaptation
of a Christopher Marlowe play,
the completion of which
I recklessly proclaimed
your presence would ensure.
The next epistle,
"Why you didn't write,"
will have even less to work with
contrived references
growing ever more oblique
by each subordinate clause
the trick is to say more with less
but the cupboard grows bare.
and the room contracts
paramours once thought legion
tire of so much versified braying
to take up with leading8 S men
voluble
with the aspirations of small town
playwrights
& the occasional flash of brilliance
that pass for stars
in a darkening sky
8 September 2011