140 Shorties II: [More Verse Bits]

140 Shorties II [More Verse Bits] may be something of an added insistence, or infliction, in the world. The collection's essential motif, which is of a quasi-form that includes evidently interlocking aspects in terms of titles that often blatantly rhyme with each other, might seem hopelessly ingrown and juvenile. The ultimate effect, despite any apparent expressed and re-expressed sadness or misery, is likely to be a very playful back-and-forth sort of thing.


The individual versifications, which sometimes internally rhyme and sometimes don't rhyme, and which seldom evince anything very much like standard meter, are brief indeed-no longer, usually, than about 35 words. Here are a couple of samples.


WANDER

Wander about,

and imagine a doubt

evidently ready

to turn us unsteady.

At about-say-dawn

forest and lawn

present a new dew

akin to you.

Varied surmises

yield new surprises.

SQUANDER

Squander all money

provided by concerns

bigger than small.

Certain sums of

potency and power

are, likely, nothings

that nonetheless

may shimmer hugely.

To flip or slip

currency remains

very sporting.