A Few More Fold-Out Postcard Sonnets - 6/23

Good morning all, & time for more of Marlowe's misadventures. After looking today’s sonnet over this morning, I'd have to say it may be the weakest entry in the sequence—the extended simile in the first quatrain gets a bit jumbled in its surreality & grammar, but yes, it is the coughdrop that’s gasping. An everyday occurrence in Marlowe’s life? Perhaps….

In case you haven’t been keeping track, this is the tenth sonnet in the sequence, which means there are seven more yet to come: one more in June (6/30), five in July & one in August. Other coming distractions here on Robert Frost’s Banjo: tomorrow: Moon June Spoon, while on Thursday Eberle asks the question, “Who Did the Laundry at Walden Pond?”

Hope you enjoy it.

6/23


A blue coughdrop lost in the depths of Marlowe’s
sport coat pocket like a spelunker run out of
luck amongst vampire bats & subterranean
phone numbers no one answers gives up the ghost

gasping We are such stuff as dreams are etc. &
sinks like a mollusk that’s lost it’s shell into the
godforsaken depths of a lachrymose pre-socratic
tidal pool tastes like a stale Carling Black Label

& it wasn’t so long ago either Jekyl Island GA
June 1988 Jane did the australian crawl in a
lukewarm ocean of interminable love or at least

sex with loads of good will behind it like
a water bed on castors with a burnt clutch lurching
like the subway Marlowe now stumbles into

© John Hayes 1996-2009