It was love at first poem. Jim has written many poems since, but this is still one of my favorites.
Do you have favorite stories or poems where words act as aphrodisiacs?
The Retreat
(after teaching legal writing)
I retreat to verse, verses without any
smack of plaintiff, client, or defendant.
I’ve spoken my fill of memos, issues, briefs,
complaints, jurisprudent circumlocutions.
“. . . aforementioned decedent, that Pother
woman, found by defendant deceased beneath
said truck on or about that point in time,
in invitium, without consent or contract. . . .”
So I to verse, soothing daily language,
spleenic and fleshy, that sweats and breathes.
It touches, tints, babbles like common folk,
whispers, giggles like children feigning sleep.
Juridic jargon tries the tongue which forms it
as it meanders along obfuscating.
“. . . supply and furnish us this day and forward,
baked grain foodstuffs, hereinafter called ‘bread’ . . . .”
Caveat emptor; caveat lector.
I retreat to my verse, bland words, blank verse,
and hew of coarser, meaner stuff, some lines.
James A. Zarzana