Edward
Gorey
Procrastination
I noted that . . . And when they come up
they come up all around us
Powdery explosions of lilacs,
Long legged tulips.
Small clouds, flocks of small beaked birds
with incipient tunes They gave their all
and disappeared in small pieces.
I was going to write earlier . .
but was distracted by all this Spring
leaving its details on the furniture.
Such a job.
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And
why, you asked, did I have
a perfectly
compacted alligator
rise from a lengthy puddle, |
Succumb
to a tap on the nose
uttering his last Shakespearean line
“I die”? |
 |
What else
could I do?
Would you have St Exupery’s elephant
swallowed by a boa constrictor
that became a hat?
Those last glorious words
give stature to this tragic hero
Leaves pedaling to protagonists
free of guilt to ride on
to the end of blessed April . . . and beyond.
I sense you wanted some
smiling tulip to offer
mouth to mouth resuscitation.
. . .That might have worked . . .
if it had not been distracted by Spring
like the rest of us.
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