Monkey see, monkey do, I see a monkey just like you.

Is the American psyche terminally fucked up?  Prolly.  I’m sick of it.  Here’s an old poem, mostly an Italian sonnet by construction, on something about cognitive development, not that that was the original intent; there was zero intention, except to describe someone.  The rest happened like a bad car accident.  I found the extreme collision with the pun unavoidable at the time.  Whoever said I could drive?  Not me.  If you want Wallace Stevens, go read Stevens, or Snoop Dogg.  I did like the idea of putting words into the container of a specific meter and rhyme, because otherwise, “it’s like playing tennis without a net.” Once upon a time, deigning to write in metered verse was pretentious, if not tendentious.  Piffle, poffle.  If you can’t have a dreary slide into nostalgia now and again, what’s the point?

Stage theory

Their dry lament, “The streets are full of tears,”
Brought tittered warmth that lightly kissed the pane
Through which the world’s seen when skies bring rain.
You paused to think it over, swathed in sheers.

Before the season mucked the garden way,
You thought the time was wasted trying to choose
The rules by which you’d play–just to excuse
Your best-est friend for something she might say?

For once upon a butter-yellow day
You skipped along a sidewalk joints all loose,
And whistled favorite tunes from Mother Goose,
And never said a word that wasn’t gay.