THE ART OF THE LONESOME ORIOLE Poem by Nicolae Coande

A woman smokes in America and I can sense her aroma entering
My home on the stealth down the untrodden paths of life with the almost ideal
Listlessness and stasis in the portrayals of life in the eclectic South
Where crime and love are the conversational topic over tea for the cool-

Tivated ones feeling threatened by Trump's toupee or the hypocritical
Democracy of the founding fathers. The art of the lonesome oriole-
Like bigshot René Char was so much into the Whitmanesque illusion of a peaceful
Death when lilacs last on the good old farm bloomed those are topics

That slip through the cracks of the thin rye slices gently buttered
With caviar and down the benevolent throats uttering the mot sacré,
"Per barrel"…—while the ongoing small wars turning people into fish-
Ing worms crucified on a well-geared angler's hook

Keep me away from all the things a man should do as I a-ban-
Don my thoughts and dive in to rescue the soon-to-be drowning victim.