Postcard from Poetry Daily

I loved today's poem on Poetry Daily, so I thought I would share--


Penguins


They've been handing out pamphlets in Leicester Square
(for 'Leicester' read 'Worcester')
ever since our latest victory
(for 'victory' read 'disaster')

and all the penguins in Worcester Square
(for 'penguins' read 'pigeons')
have, like dodos, forgotten how to fly
(for 'fly' read 'do long division')

and are flocking around the annoyed Admiral
(read 'Trafalgar' for 'Worcester')
like a mob of highly incensed cassowaries
(for 'cassowaries' read 'roosters').

Meanwhile, in the bay, the pilot boats
(for 'pilot' read 'pirate')
lull, bob and circle in the lazy tide
(for 'circle' read 'gyrate.')

And you, according to recent reports
(for 'Trafalgar' read 'Red')
may or may not have been recently seen
(for 'pamphlets' read 'bread')

in the presence of a certain shadowy figure
(for 'figure' read 'redhead')
who's been well known to hatch a few plots of her own
(and for 'presence' read 'bed')

like a dame straight out of Raymond Chandler.
(But for 'Chandler' read 'Carver').
Meanwhile, those penguins are mobbing Red Square
(but for 'Red' read 'Harvard')

and have rearranged so as to form
(for 'rearranged' read 'reappeared')
a message visible from the sky
(and for 'meanwhile,' read 'as we feared.')

And don't you think, comrade (for 'comrade' read 'friend')
(and for 'Harvard' read 'Tiananmen')
that all plots, all poems, all struggles must end?
(And for 'end'—if you would—read, 'begin again.')



Troy Jollimore


Pleiades
Issue 28:2

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