Dan Broudy writes

No Big Whoop

a crying game

team player womanizer

playing ball bearing love

romance pumping vigorous exclamations

in the loudly silenced wind

paradox rolled into contradiction

turmoil confusion

smoked in a water pipe

of butter and jam

showered with a warm yellow discovery

an adventure running desperately

breathless dying leaves

in elm trees and

woodpeckers in maples

where I sat on stairs slippery

when wet women wink

and drink Listerine

cleanse Ivory towers clean

when chaste we chased away

their innocence

until they fell I did not know

what to say

don’t worry be happy

when the Lord says to

pay the rent

when famine, pestilence chance,

and trance induced us to labor

all day flying

as birds watching worms

wiggle out of the way

down under where a bridge

whose dictator

Napoleon generally loitered

hospitalized and went

to his grave sick

and tired

drooping eyelids

and all

when the heavy weight

of thoughts

trickled

down