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)
