By Mary L. Gardner
CNY Branch

 

Being Clear

There’s not a follicle of truth

in a colleague’s chronicled memoir

that observing a tropical botanical

requires a monocle.

 

Footnotes for Thesis Writers

Straight from a reputable source

comes a cautionary corollary:   

^* Use one’s trove of melancholia with caution. 

^* Make time for sheer bacchanalia.  

^* Be not deterred

 by the weight of scholarly tomes and texts

 in the pursuit of intent, color and cadence,

 and the laying down of lyrical lines.

 

Reasoning

Though the elegant Narcissus spurned

the maiden Echo’s love  

(herself denied the gift of speech)

and was consigned forever

to a watery view of himself,

it does not follow that midday narcolepsy

in the pursuit of artful prosody

is the result of narcissistic obsession

nor the folly of spinning meter & rhyme

in the middle of the night,

though upon waking,

it seems the intent of these lines

has gone awry in this

overwrought writ.