Per Contra Spring 2009 Light Verse

Per Contra Spring 2009 Light Verse Supplement

Lee Slonimsky

Mate

This morning, through the slosh and quag of muck,
the rain torrents, through squish and splash of step,
I heard the croak,

a mud-mirrored bull twang from glossy green
owner of windstrewn pond. Protest
against weather's denial of lust,
perhaps, but then again
the joy of boom
has resonated since late trilobite.

His answer was just to himself,
another low dark moan.

Nothing like a rainy day
to feel so quite alone.

The Visit

         "Sets up his home, affixes snout,
          And eats his host from inside out."
         "The Slime Eel, Also Called Hagfish" by X. J. Kennedy

The slime eel's co-dependent, not much doubt -
it feeds on others' innards - many fish
fall victim to its so aggressive snout.
Slime eel's in need of a psychiatrist

(who asks:)

"With blue seas filled with flotsam, why do you
choose instead such inappropriate
private details for a meal or snack?

Go through

blue water's menu: much good food will fit
the smallest mouth; one-cells like molecules,
all nutrients of seep and wash. Your style
suggests neglectful upbringing; let go
of mis-"

But this frank consultation ends mid-thought:
a minute was all eel insurance bought.

Lee Slonimsky has two books of sonnets from Orchises Press, Pythagoras in Love (2007) and the forthcoming Logician of the Wind (2012). His sonnets have also appeared or are forthcoming in The Carolina Quarterly, Connecticut Review, Measure, The New York Times, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry Daily and elsewhere. He manages a hedge fund, Ocean Partners LP, that takes a special interest in companies which hire the developmentally disabled.