Sammy hated poetry--it scared him. 

Why couldn't people say

Why did one thing

stand for another?

WHY did they have to invoke

gods and demons,

heroes and villains?

Was not life strange enough?

And who wanted

the hear an angel sing?  

It was Friday. Sammy

was working late.

Everyone else had gone early

for the long weekend. 

Not Sammy

Sammy lived to work. 

Play was anathema

Sammy had a wife once. 

But he forgot about her:

She could be at home; she could be gone. 

Sammy did not know.

Sammy lived to work, 

A wife took time.

Time away from his money.

Besides she made

him feel strange,

when she touched him.

She made him feel

like a poem made him feel...

and Sammy hated poetry,

epically when t made him feel...

Sammy was working away. 

pling up figures

against life’s strangeness

building his fortress of rationality

facts, cold hard facts.

Sammy hunkered down in

his shelter from strangeness

built from figures and facts

all proven false all proven wrong

no matter they blocked out

the earth and the sky,

the sea and the sun.

But this Friday was different.

This Friday Sammy

laid down his pen and died

in the sure and certain hope

that the grave

would be his ultimate

defense from strangeness

the ultimate defense

against poetry and

the life uncanny life.

Somewhere an angel sang.

and an angel choir

rejoiced to respond

Sammy was starting

music lessons…