Three Repeating Forms
from the series Circumlocution: A Primer

1. Ballade

Shame on you. There’s no excusing
your oblivious neglect.
Family trips you’ve been refusing
stretch for miles, in retrospect.
Fact: your efforts to avoid
conflict with your Mom, by choosing
not to be there, have destroyed
the peace you wished to keep. You’re losing

time. For years, they both loved cruising
(bargain-rated, lower-decked).
Not for them, the poolside boozing:
travel meant to intersect
self with world. Now paranoid,
Dad just finds the world confusing,
fading like a Polaroid.
(The piece you wished to keep, you’re losing.)

Mom sends pamphlets she’s perusing.
You and she can reconnect!
Cruise-line credits Dad’s not using
might be switched to you! She’s checked!
Give the fist-sized hemorrhoid —
throbbing, cracking, itching, oozing —
in your chest a cortisoid:
the peace you wished to keep, you’re losing.

Lordy, what would Sigmund Freud
make of how your heart’s contusing,
while your mom’s is overjoyed
the peace you wished to keep, you’re losing?


2. Biolet

You’ll be with her
two weeks, away?
You’ll have your say!
(Don’t be so sure:
too weak’s a way
you’ll be with her.)


3. Rondel Supreme

That frank discussion’s overdue.
The touchy-feely stuff you’ve fled
remains back-burnered. Wimp! Instead
of telling how she’s hurting you,
you’ve kept the peace, and kept your dread
of stirring the emotion-stew
that frank discussions overdo —
the touchy-feely stuff you’ve fled.

You’ve lacked the heart, so use your head.
It’s time you had that rendezvous.
Stop stalling, coward. See it through.
Just do it, so it can be said,
“That frank discussion’s over.” Do
the touchy-feely stuff you’ve fled.

Julie Steiner

 
If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Julie Steiner would be pleased to hear them