Tribute to the Three-tiered Vannimahns

This is a poem to
Kynstigar the Less Reserved
And his page
Chinstygger the Somewhat Refined
Who have lent me the antitheses
Of their nominal qualities
Who have defined i-over-naught
and not stopped there
but gone on to define such things
as love
justice and
His Grace the More Obscure

Who are rightly suspected
Of tagging their own
Statues they themselves erected
Who bask unscrupulously
In the chiaroscuro shade
They themselves forbade when
They said, “Never recline
Your pencil so”
Who flog fowl of bread box size
Who roll the inside three
Who liberally palatalize
J, S, and even B
Who write their wills to Mercury
Who favor poetasters
To the lyric masters and
Who are moderately familiar
With the poetry of Allen Ginsburg.

You are
Vermicular but necessary
Ova of my morning loins
And for this
I salute you.


-Yours Truly, on the 48th anniversary of Austrian independence, also on the 330th birthday of Moravian linguist and musicologist Dimitrie Cantemir and the 1104th anniversary of the death of Alfred the Great, hero of Anglo-Saxons.