To Hans Andersen Poem by Morgan Michaels

A nine foot gross-mutter
Like a spruce, a-tilt
Hung with glitter-schiller
In a match's aftersputter
Looming and smiling

A flower-born bride
Sunk in swallow's down
Copping a getaway ride
Staring in wonder down
At the fleeting countryside

A soldier on the gallows
Toeing precipitous
Death- by his tinderbox
Summoning a kind of
Biedermeier Cerberus

And that poor king's son-
Sparking eternal pity
Flapping his single wing
By day, by night a man
Bent into a swan

Then, that gaunt fellow
That trails us all
The ominous Shadow
Hanging corners piecemeal
Little by little-

So, you looked, Hans,
Like an ostrich in a top hat
A queen in drag,
A trifle Marfanoid, at that-
From Tsouris you spun gold

Surely, Hans Andersen,
Your constellation
Sits in witty conversation
Full of breathless speculation
With Aesop's, La Fontaine's, the Grimms'.