Michael Cluff- Two Poems

Hubert Minor

All the nubiles
go agog for him
he  now uses the lectern
as a pulpit of platitudes
and canards
criticism is jettisoned
for polemics
that support his
faux-messianic
point of view.

A three piece suit
and bowtie
and watch fob
monocle
his costume de siecle

Any resistance
is filibustered
out of existence
there is no vaccine
for this type of babble
bathed in a pleasing form
and unbalanced tangents.

And the rhetorical tongs
grab the emotions
to wring them dry
while the tongues
of thoughtfulness
are tossed into
the back pages
of defunct theories
that once led to
untimely
avoidable death
and scars.
no social penicillin
can cure



As If

Green snowcones
have fallen to ground
in the back forty
Candy told me
around four

And dogs sometimes
do comprehend
the thoughts of mockingbirds,
chickens,
doves, and rattlesnakes
as well as people
all at the same time.

And the spikes in Jesus' hands
did not know they were doing wrong
how could they,
they were always asleep
at such times
when they are forced
to go through the middle
of hands.

I am glad I am not a warden
she told me later
I would have to understand the bad
and I am not ready to do that
yet.

On days when purple orchids
wilt slightly and on
visiting days,
I recall these remarks
with the same finite awareness.