Canto 5

Canto 5

Bang, for a moment you’re nearly dead,

done in by your own tomfoolery,

stayed merely because we’re American-girl bred

to soldier on despite your Disney cartoonery.

Trees have bled

since Ovid’s version of Dryopery

as male gods have relentlessy fed

their unquenchable appetite for roebuckery

on every virgin misled

into their libidinous huggermuggery.

Dante’s spins a thread

of jabberwockery

whiffling from the maw of Fred-

erick the 2nd’s castoffery

hypothesizing scorn & envy could be shed

by suicide. Spare me the nincompoopery

of that dunderhead. Instead,

let’s focus on VIP poltroonery

whereby Virgil petitions to be led

by Nessus across River Blood to the tree nursery.

Why don’t a rapist rot in the foul bed

he’s made? No doubt, it’s garden-variety chicanery

sowed in hell. I’ve heard said

that Boston beanery

mobsters to Chicago wardheelers are wed

then jammed into the upholstery

of airplane overheads,

a species of cocoonery

due to nothing more than Dante’s being widely read,

a six-pack of lampoonery

God-sped.