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Kathleen Naureckas: Q.E.D.

I pose without apology
the following analogy:
as prey is to the predator
the writer's to the editor.

 

Derek Sellen: Great-Aunt Ermintrude's Dream

When she left this earth, she told her doctor,
she’d invite the authors who had shocked her –
Rochester, Lawrence, Burton, Behn,
Larkin (he wrote ‘f*ck’ once) and another ten –
to a grand dinner with silver tableware,
covers that might conceal pheasant or hare,
but in fact would hide – a moral menu, her hope –
first course, second course, third course: soap.

 

Jonathan Humble: Clog

In search of worthy epithets to praise the lovely clog,
The poet’s mind went AWOL in a thick prosaic fog,
And though he searched as would the most determined pedagogue,
The words remained elusive like Idukki’s Purple Frog.

 

Barbara Lydecker Crane: The Cloud

I wandered, lonely – as a cloud
storage system must –
above it all, both mute and proud.
One leak, and I’d go bust.

No sharing with a single chum
of any juicy bit
began to make this nimbus numb.
I had to chat. I quit.

 

Daniel Galef: In The Crook Of An Arm

H. P. Lovecraft I’m above, but sometimes he gets through.
Stephen King is just the thing, I had to take him, too.
I was staggered reading Haggard, king of adventure lit,
But I garnered looks for the trio of books I carried: He, She, and It.