Plantagenet kings on the morning gristle,
Knouts and burls on the tree where limbs should be,
Now shorn and wicked,
Stunted by imagination’s too distant star,
Her glint of prefectures and offices
Gleaned and earned from the lamb.

Symphony of earnings
Glyph of the graduate school
Snubbed like a pub smoker,
Stoker of wet ashes,
Crier on the grave
Saluting all of the soldiers –
Miserable in their victories
With their wives.

By Rolf Stavig

12-22-2020