24 July 2022

By Philip Kuepper

Did I lie to you, deliberately?
Or is it only my change of mind?
In my poem O.A.R.
I promised next R.O.W.
But, now, instead,
I give you B.L.A.D.E.
For what is an O.A.R.
without a B.L.A.D.E.?
Can you guess the five poets
who, here, row us?
Allow me provide clues:
One who has the temerity
to wear in his lapel a flower of evil;
one who bears a bullet in his heart;
another who sees, in the water,
his convex, abstract face reflected;
still another who sermonizes
on yet another’s vast land of waste;
not, as you can tell,
a particularly happy crew,
the waters they row the disenchanted waters
of past centuries, made so
by the disenchanted acts of man.
Yet, row, nonetheless, they do.
Either that, or sit swamped.

(10 July 2022)