SUNDOWN SAILBOAT
Anchored
in some hypothetical harbor
in a dead-centered calm.
Someone’s craft;
whose, we've no idea.
Could it be she’s below-decks
making love with the boatswain?
Yet this sailboat is far too small
for a crew of more than just one.
Evening;
sky scribbled red,
water scribbled red, yellow, and green.
Red in the sky because
the sun is happy
to bed down after a hard day’s trek
across a thankless earth;
Red, yellow, and green on the water because
a calm harbor delights
in reflecting back more than it captures.
THE MINSTREL
He surely does look happy
strumming away on that guitar...
or is it a lute?
(I'm not sure what they played
back in the sixteen hundreds.)
He surely does look the part
of a well-fed cat in a birdcage!
But who knows whether
he retired to his private chamber
weeping tears of torture after his performance
for some fart-cheeked Bavarian princeling
who told him his act stank?
