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Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Her Cicada-Pole-Dancing Tattoo (Past)




     I 

My Sweetheart stands five foot plus two.
Her cheeks...? Chapp'd. Her bangs...? Bird's-egg Blue.
But the item she bears 
that's the top one she wears...?
Her cicada-pole-dancing tattoo. 

Here...? No flash -- no motifs of her crew,
no starr'd bars, no Miss Liberty's moue,
no Love's darts piercing hearts,
no black-magical arts --
just original skin -- through and through:
her cicada-pole-dancing tattoo.

     II

In Cashew, New Hampshire, I'm grocer.
(One can groce here until one grows old.)
A brand new cash register late I've acquired
to keep fives, tens and twenties controll'd. 
     To keep up with the news of my town
I subscribe to our local gazette.
The New Cashew Register keeps me inform'd
and enlightened. It's ne'er fail'd me yet.

     III

OuSiLiPo's the name proposed 
by Poe* to designate
the workshop setting silly lit 
parameters to date.
     Its namesake's France's OuLiPo --
or so thought we adherents.
Turns out it was Posillipo**
and its absurd appearance.

     * Ulysses Poe, composer 
of nonsense literature.
     ** An affluent residential 
quarter of Naples.
 
      (more nonsense to come: a work in progress)

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