[Michael Cantor]

This was - obviously - written a very long time ago, in my pre wise-ass year.

The Process

The way I write is
I get a long and graceful table
and an old fashioned pen

or a slender Japanese brush
and hack and hack and chop
with the dull wood sword

that disgraced ronins use for seppuku
until my guts spill on the table
then dip in the pen

and get something down on paper.

Sometimes these wounds
stay fresh for years.


This one is more about living a poem than writing it.

Slow Rondeau

A slow rondeau is an erotic way
for dancers to portray the interplay
of couples who, with lover’s vertigo,
surround each other in the ebb and flow
of dreams that intersect a white bouquet.

In time, he winces when he hears her bray,
and she’s convinced she’s wed a popinjay –
the metaphor’s no longer apropos:
a slow rondeau

becomes a tight and vicious rondelet
of iterating phrases that betray
the dancers and the dream – but even so,
though lovers seem to stumble they still know
when urge remains to honor and obey
a slow rondeau.


This one goes bad - like the eggs it describes - by line four or sooner. But it does qualify as a PAP.

King of the Sestina

Awake all night with a sick sestina
I know by dawn there is nothing meaner
than six bad lines entwined in unrhymed scrawl.
A half a dozen eggs flung at a wall
to form an omelet makes as much sense
as incubating this perversely dense
monstrosity, which, within an hour,
must blossom as a six-leaf flower.

I’ll persevere, because I play the game
to win - this poet’s in it for the fame -
and to assure acclaim I’ll delegate
a clever envoy, meant to orchestrate
my reign as King of the Sestina and cheer
the end game. Bishop topples King! Oh dear!