On
Opening a Packet Of Poems For Publication
(for Billy Collins)
Ah,
I see by the way
you've packaged your offerings
(clasped, sealed, even taped!)
there's no doubt they're real
pearls, like something from the bottom
of the Black Lagoon!
So when I get past the fiendish hazards
of the razor-sharp clasp, the indestructible
glue, there's still the invisible tape
sticking to my mouth, beard, fingers, whatever,
like wallpaper in a Laurel & Hardy classic--
I pull the treacherous stuff off
one hand, it sticks to the other,
then put both hands on the floor,
holding the stuff down with my feet
till it's re-soling my shoes--but
I finally get the envelope open,
draw out with trembling hands
the ghostly white paper--
the other piece of the map
to the lost land of the Snow Leopard
People!--which with my fragment
will guarantee my freeing Maria Montez
from the dungeon where she languishes (for me)
and beyond by secret passage
to freedom, to the forbidden
treasure of the great God Kali-Kali...?...Kazare...?
...Kalore...?--Something with a K--anyway,
Billy me boy,
I'M RICH! I'M RICH! I'M RICH!
--Ron
Offen
Copyright © 1995 by Ron Offen
|
From
Instead of Gifts
(Poems for Poets)
|
