Effete Nonets

You’ll Never Guess What’s Under These Stays

A powdered wig and a sweet perfume
are miasmatic, licey masks.
But to see a human face
without its wonted veil
is nothing to fear,
dear: love’s sharp awl
will put out
both your
eyes.

Cruikshank and Gillray, Eat Your Heart Out

She said, “Draw me a caricature
to kill all vanity with wit.
Draw my youthful face pox-marred,
yourself with wrinkled breasts,
a worm’s wedding day.”
In the attempt,
my damned quill
broke in
half.

Early Modern Notions of Revenge

Oh!
I’ve gone
deaf and blind!
William Hogarth’s
punished me for vain-
glory by painting me
into an allegory
of Hermaphroditus Enthroned—
I am the flayed saint in the corner.

But I Can’t Because I’m a Woman

Sins
abound—
card-playing,
whoring, voting.
In rotten boroughs
even a pig can vote!
Polish aristocrats vote.
Minor German princelings vote.
Have you ever seen such wickedness?!

Early Modern Notions of Gender

I
am a
waistcoated,
petticoated
menace to polite
society. My sex
has no equal, except for
the moribund animalcules
that swim deep in rococo sewers.

Unhappy Voyage to the New World

I’ve squandered my inheritance and
killed first a wife, then a husband.
So, indentured servitude
it is. Seven long years
of polishing spoons!
First impressions:
all this grime
feels like
home.

Order in the Animal Kingdom

Dogs,
cats, and
rats all bite
back when they are
wronged. It’s not easy
to wound such creatures’ pride,
their souls being untainted
by notions of nobility.
They’ll chew any fashionable heel.

Did Van Gogh Ever Commit Such Crimes?

Sun-
shine don’t
come cheap here,
but raindrops are
a penny a pound.
When I saw the yellow
daffodils defenseless on
the table, I was so tempted
to thieve them and run. (Would you blame me?)

I’m Like a Medieval Chronicler

Bad
scholars
don’t always
make good poets,
but I’ve a knack for
unspooling tapestries
thread by jeweled thread and
weaving a better story.
I sin against every discipline.

And All the Clocks in the House are Off

Anne Carson wrote, why can’t I / live in
the nineteenth century. Time flies
in the wrong direction: fall
comes before summer and
spring doesn’t arrive
at all. Great men
turn in out-
dated
graves.

The Decadent Movement Passed Me By

An impressionistic portrait of
the artist as an aimless youth:
slightly foppish, full of words,
owner of a lovely
collection of scarves,
doesn’t drink or
smoke, fancies
older
men.

Let’s Sing “Gaudeamus Igitur”

A university picaresque:
the saturnine chairman of the
history department goes
mad, while some girls from the
poetry club steal
the Holy Grail.
(Exams are
not post-
poned.)

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