THE BATTLEFIELD OF A PIECE OF PAPER

The field of battle is smooth and neat,
A bright plain, rectangular and clean,
A piece of paper soon will be the scene
Where ink will stain the now immaculate sheet.

The margins guard the borders they comprise,
The spaces stretch incised in white and black,
Facing ineluctable attack
From future works now poised on the horizon.

They crouch alert before our troops engage —
The champing words, the clamorous refrains,
Is that faint sound the rustling of their reins
Before their forces pour onto the page?

Who dares to scout the edges of this form,
To type beyond the Pillars of Hercules?
One word will launch the shrill hyperboles,
Massing in the calm before the storm.

A BACKYARD VIGNETTE

What has come over the neighbor's wife?
The captain's wife who was always singing;
What has come over the brightness of life?

She ran in the house and slammed the door,
And her short sobs have ended the ringing
Of expectations we hear no more.

There's her laundry, flapping in the breeze,
They're phantom sails that pull no ship at all,
The silly way they pantomime a squall
Should surely put an anxious heart at ease.

And yet her husband finds no mirth in shrouds
Of bright colors that curl and clap,
He comes to the door to watch the ominous clouds,
And only fears the burdened lines will snap.