Jeff Harrison


Hylactor and others


HYLACTOR:  And how did you requite me?

STICTE:  We have torn you quite.

AGRE:  You were a hart to us.

HYLACTOR:  I was ever your good Actaeon.

STICTE:  You were good to us, but what hound needs permission to course?

TIGRIS:  Or what hound awaits an order to course?

AGRE:  You never forbad us a hart.

HYLACTOR:  A hart saying, I am your Actaeon, that is a forbiddance.

STICTE:  A hound can impersonate, why not a hart?

TIGRIS:  The grove is a place of study, where beast learns from beast.

HYLACTOR:  And how does a hound impersonate?

AGRE:  Well enough, Hylactor.

STICTE:  A hound can limp, when he has no injury; can bare his teeth, when he means no injury.

TIGRIS:  He means injury, who bares his teeth.

STICTE:  He doesn't always plan injury, who bares his teeth.

HYLACTOR:  I have borne your teeth, and I'm torn quite.




Appius and Virginia


Appius told Minutius:  You're shedding the considerate judge.

Minutius told Calphurnia:  You're running down the accomplices. 

Calphurnia told Corbulo:  You're convinced the rest of your pictures stopped bursting the heights.

Corbulo told Horatio:  Your sanctity is no better than mine. 

Horatio told Icilius:  You're overlooking the storm in the middle of his favorite echo.

Icilius told Numitorius:  You're innocent, or ready and sparkling.

Numitorius told Virginia:  The model for my Siren lies under the skies. 

Icilius told Virginia:  I might easily have cretinization with feathers to spare. 

Horatio told Virginia:  I have nothing to do with these footprints. 

Corbulo told Virginia:  Appius reddens at each word I speak. 

Calphurnia told Virginia:  I am not to be eclipsed by hooves.  

Minutius told Virginia:  I was once prized by respectable unsociables. 

Appius told Virginia:  My equipment is becoming something of an American world. 

Virginia told Appius:  A poet puts too great a strain upon the night.

Jeff Harrison has publications from Writers Forum, Persistencia Press, and Furniture Press. He has e-books from BlazeVOX and Argotist Ebooks. His poetry has appeared in An Introduction to the Prose Poem (Firewheel Editions), Noon: An Anthology of Short Poems (Isobar Press), three Meritage Press hay(na)ku anthologies, Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics, Moria, and elsewhere.

 
 

previous page     contents     next page