Sunday, August 21, 2011

Poetry: "STERN(UTATIVE) MEASURES" by Barry Ergang


STERN(UTATIVE) MEASURES

by Barry Ergang

I find it hard to feel at ease
Since I’m beset with pause and doubt:
When we make love you always sneeze.

Although I know you’ve allergies
That medicines may fail to rout,
I find it hard to feel at ease.

You must inhale each dusty breeze,
Each pollen grain come rain or drought:
When we make love you always sneeze.

Am I an allergen that sees
Your system as a place to clout?
I find it hard to feel at ease.

Your passion often sounds a wheeze
Asthmatic sigh from coital shout:
When we make love you always sneeze.

While all your nasal rhapsodies
Give vent to proof your heart’s devout,
I find it hard to feel at ease:
When we make love you always sneeze.


*****
Former Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine and First Senior Editor of Mysterical-E, winner of the Derringer Award for the best flash fiction story of 2006, Barry Ergang's poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. "Stern(utative) Measures" is one of the poems in A Whimsical Is a Popsicle of the Mind: A Collection of Light Verse, available in a Kindle edition at Amazon.com

3 comments:

Jenny Milchman said...

Ah, allergies. A metaphor for love and love lost that's almost Shakespearean in measure!

Barry Ergang said...

Ah, Jenny, I think I love you for alluding to my villanelle and Shakespeare in the same sentence! :-)

Earl Staggs said...

Speaking of a sentence, Barry, I think yours should be at least ten to life for poetry like that.

HehHehHeh.

And thanks for a good groaner, too. You still da man.