The Fortress   

by Deborah Warren

 Deborah Warren reads 

The Fortress



in RealAudio format.
     

   
It’s not a journal; it’s a citadel 
where, on a dais, on a cushioned throne 
— warming his neck, I think, a little ermine — 
he disposes. Marvel! he can smell 
it when the housecarl brings the mail . . . a bone 
that’s decomposing? — “Poetasters! Vermin! 
Read it and weep; oh, we know this she-troll; 
she’s sent us stuff before — faugh! take it hence 
at once. Into the moat, or the cloaca! 
We won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. 
Dross! Ordure! Over the battlements 
throw it now to meet its sorry maker.” 
Thus it goes. In my SASE 
his minion then returns the poems to me. 

      Able Muse

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