"I'd rather flunk my Wasserman test
Than write a poem like Edgar Guest"

"Venus De Milo was noted for he charms,
But strictly between us,
You're cuter than Venus,
And, Baby, you've got arms!"

"The scented flames of the sun throw me,

Telling me how to move--I tell them

How to bend the light of shifting stars:

I order their curved wash so the moon

Will not escape, so rocks and seas

Will stretch their elbows under her.

I am the sun's toy--because I go against

The grain I feel the brush of my authority,

Its ripples straying from a star's collapse.

If I travel far enough, and fast enough, I seem

To be at rest, I see my closed life expanding

Through the crimson shells of time.

But the stars are still at large, they fly apart

From each other to a more soulful beginning;

And the sun holds good till it makes a point

Of telling itself to whiten to a traplight--

This emptiness was left from the start; with any choice

I'd double-back to the dullest blue of Mars."

--Medbh McGuckian