I.
’Sonneteering for sale,’ hushes the gale,
dockyward workers treating the crates with care,
its contents strictly for the healthy and the hale,
knowing that if released into the air,
it would bend the ring around the cozy
sound four-hundred years into this year’s round,
boxing gloves gloving the blood, rosy
in the raw or tumultuous paw, sound
bouncing off sound seeking a ship to board,
drawing a navy onto the sea as sudden
and proud as if it were drawn from a sword,
mixing the water, the sky, the mud and
these, the boxes are left alone on the docks,
waiting for a ski-mask to come and pick the locks.
II.
What would the Russians want with a sonnet?
I don’t know, sir. It doesn’t blow anything up.
This is geopolitics run by an old lady in a bonnet.
Yes, sir. Shall I ring the kitchen for sup?
No, Simon. You’ve done enough for tonight.
Go home to your wife and your limousine.
Give a kiss to each: but: your wife, might
I suggest an article I published in this magazine?
I hope you don’t mind I used our real names:
I’m trying get thrown out of office,
and making my hope for dalliances plain
assures me of nothing but moral profits.
I’ll keep my eye on the situation.
For now, this train hasn’t left the station.
III.
A ghost discovers that a ghost is ghost-
writing the former ghost’s autobiography.
His editor at the Washington Post
wants to know why this habberdashery.
“I give you six weeks leave, full pay, and you
decide this is gratitude’s true parade?
Where’s the book? The young cub learning to spew?
What have you to say? Que charade charade?
This is a problem, and this should be fixed.
My paper’s reputation is at stake.
If they learn a ghost is one of my tricks,
I’ll end up penniless in the park, a wraith.
Oh, I didn’t mean that. That came out wrong.
Forgive me. I’ve work to do. Move along.”
IV.
Listen, honey. Listen, toots. Listen, love.
Tell the policeman what you saw this morning.
I was down out at the docks shooting a Dove
commercial, see? Just me and the forming
trenchcoats by the fence, Larry (the director),
the lighting guys, and the clock hadn’t struck
four when there was an explosion in sector
five, and our prop roosters began to cluck
like mad, and the cops rushed through our shoot
to arrest everyone in sight and see
if everyone was all right, the galoots,
all the while ignoring the boat at sea,
floating away one paddle at a time,
the larger act hiding the tinier crime.
Prologue from “The Pulp Sonnets.”
