The Mods Put a Stop to Zephyr’s Antics
Who returns and rants, we think, seeks to scathe.
How can you cut us down, when there’s no sharpness to your wit?
Martial 8.29
PurpleZephyrUnicorn Returns Under an Alias
No one knows what poetry is who calls my pieces
journal entries. Oh, they are epic, those who write
of roosters rutting in the yard or Ariadne wailing
by her brother-beast. My poems don’t presume,
don’t posture with extravagant images. “Craft,
diction, sonics, blahblah admire this.” I concede
plenty praise those, but everyone reads mine.
Martial 4.49
The Forum Rolls Its Eyes
Oh, come now, PurpleZephyrUnicorn.
You said Give me the truth, tell it straight,
I can handle anything. We told it right.
We try again: the truth? You don’t listen.
Martial 8.76
PurpleZephyrUnicorn Flounces from the Forum
i been @7 other sites n every1 says my poems
touch there souls n also i won a contest once
and was published in an anthology you might
have heard of—by the National Library of Poetry.
so who r u to hold up ten thousand commandments
to the sky and say i cant write or post my poems
or anything? u dont know what poetry is and also
u cant teach me anything but you said my poems
made you cry and that proves my poems are
affective and touch even your tiny soul. so there.
Martial 6.60
Burn Barrel
The house was cleaned by neighbor girls,
who pulled out the couch as if vacuuming
unused corners of the room could help.
Everyone’s gone home, carrying their empty
lasagna pans, pie tins, Tupperware. We froze
what we could, divided out the rest to aunts
and cousins. I’m here to gather trash,
sort recycling, toss wilted flowers to the cows.
I drag the paper bin across the yard
to the burn barrel—rusted, stained with use—
and return to ask where Grandfather kept
the matches. Grandmother’s in the bedroom,
sorting clothes: some for charity, some so ratty
that she sighs and says I suppose these
must be burned. I box and haul it all, piling
in the yard shirts and pants that smell of him.
The barrel isn’t large enough for this.