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
Ah, allergies. A metaphor for love and love lost that's almost Shakespearean in measure!
ReplyDeleteAh, Jenny, I think I love you for alluding to my villanelle and Shakespeare in the same sentence! :-)
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of a sentence, Barry, I think yours should be at least ten to life for poetry like that.
ReplyDeleteHehHehHeh.
And thanks for a good groaner, too. You still da man.