Climax Change

You may know me, watchful one, by my alias

Old Man, Buccaneer, Water Strider, Bilious

Busted Monometer of Planetary Celsius.

No? Go fuck yourself. I’m listening to Delius,

“On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring,” envious

Of ovenbirds, swallows, swifts, clamorous canaries; furious

At the soft-bedded shale and its gaseous

Nonlethal vapors. I’m not laughing. I’m hilarious.

I have a problem, it does, they do, you, him, I, us,

All creatures craven and judicious

Having departed in kayaks and fuming Kias.

Has it not been foretold, Leviticus, lascivious

One? — The way you bade us kneel, twisted like a Möbius

Belt, before insinuating your noxious

Nectar — omnivorous, odoriferous, officious

Orifice-filler, you. In a previous

Proxy you descended, empty charioteer, to query us

About our outerwear’s whereabouts. Think on it, Rufous-

Headed woodpecker, use your barbed brain, be suspicious

Of high motives as you crown yourself on the dead tree as

Who comes to your rescue? Not I. Unconscious

Tremors, climbing the coils of the virtuous

Time-worn wooden flesh, leave me be. “Witty Is

As Witty Does,” sings the sorry fellow atop his eggs. Hush.

He’ll sit through anything. As in days of yore, he is

Blooming, blazing, withering with his prize zinnias.