from AT THE MUSARIUM: [3601 – 3700], [5901 – 6000], and [6301 – 6400]

by Peter J. Grieco

[3601 – 3700]

Pot stirring, thirst bending, & threatening 
excess, Juan danced at one of our thirteen 
fortnightly Friday meetings, solemnly 
in consolation, hideous to his foes, 
all dumb sweetness to his niece, Clara, with 
everyone shaken from smallest to strongest, 
clothed in a tight scarlet shirt waist, his guarded
tribute to the rocky sweep of Portuguese 
mothers, sinking down holes where the unjust 
mob transcribe crimson prose into blank virus. 
Therefore, whip up from your sofa, mount
the ridge over the creek, convert your
notions, relieve your periodic disgust, 
bargain with your impressions, & accomplish
as much.

[5901 – 6000]

How joyful, Antonio, to crash 
an elephant into Jupiter! To barrel 
energetic through majestic Quebec.  
Amazing to have tasted the courteous 
displeasure of revolutionary 
Milan & salute the repetition 
of palaces & thieves. Fortunate too, 
for swimming trunks & democratic 
improvements, that warlike Edgar choked 
down repentance, his lungs decorated 
with tranquil lays of granite & ivory.
How, unexpectedly, then, will she impress 
a needle or compel a fold, & detach 
herself aloft, away from mute torment.

[6301 – 6400] 

From bachelor to bridegroom, his fondness 
for Sophia was no affectation. 
As he sez in his diary, “No mere 
bluff, her sagacity would dwarf a Montague. 
Her temperate mien as chaste an offense 
[sic] as filthy cigars in the winged 
puzzle of diversion.” As they, so we. 
We mourn each elementary unit of 
fearless utility, each inference 
of olive, rusty with a tint of dal. 
We un-cork the burgundy & sneer. We 
vanish, convicted, as in the fable of Mabel 
& her sweetheart, Otto, & marshal all
against the appalling rats of Amsterdam.

Peter J. Grieco is a former professor of English and retired school bus driver. His poems are widely published in small magazines online and in print. His blog, At the Musarium and Other Writings [pjgrieco.wordpress.com], archives much of this work. His chapbook collection of ekphrastic verse, The Blind Man’s Meal, is available from Finishing Line Press.