Author: David Wright

CLUED to the trap! One flick of his
STAVE, and he rises from the river’s reedy bank, a
CRANE. Aloft, he sees them swarming in to find the pit
EMPTY. A flap of wings carries him away. But how long can one escape an army?

STUFFs to be sold, stuffs to be bought,
DEBUT new methods, new products, new energies.
FORCE arising in history, on China’s heels.
RUPEE: will it be the sum of a nation’s desires?

GRUNTing pigs, their piggy lives
ODDLY compelling to a hungry,
UNWED, self-exiled profligate. Can’t
AVOID the thought: if there’s a next time, I’ll listen to Dad.

SINCE Eden, we’ve a disposition to
USURP what is not ours;
RADIO merely changed the scale,
SWORN thieves of our attention now beaming into living rooms.

SATIN smooth, you seize the seat of
SCOFFers, urge your camp in honied tones to
CRASH and plunder, to mint contempt as money.
SMIRK on; comes the end, soul is forfeit,
and nothing owned.

CHOCK full of gems was old Immanuel Kant,
MAXIM of our deeds: what we ourselves would want.
LOOPY that one against moral chicanery
ERODEd faith in our mental machinery.

TENOR of the story: first taste of a sourdough
BOULE, ordered in a bakery, was divine.
ELOPE? Yes, the bread decided it–for life holds unexpected treasures!
SHOWY? Yes. Yet, she has not regretted it.

BEVELs glint from shuddering screens as charges blast,
SONAR pings and pulses from ships above.
EXILEs enclosed in capsule hold and breathe,
RENEW their prayer to walk again beneath the sun.

ENJOY the mirror’s reproduction. What there stood as
SPOOF, we could bear, discern as truth: Our
NASTY nature, its grubbing drives, hasty casting off of every good.
DEALT at remove, we laugh. Yet, it’s the air we breathe, aloof.