Absence of excess in a rote caress,
midstreamed streamlined virtues in a catalog
chock-full of artless reference. You know the look –
the one that reads you like an all too familiar book,
the one that views you as a faithful dog,
as a breathless letter sent to a dead address.
Grasses growing in exsiccated, riven rows,
excessive seed scattered on land as aridly firm
throughout as thin-spun plates of gaugeless steel,
blades blunted on an endless spinning wheel,
branches bared and broken by a raging storm –
endless argument lost to easeful compromise.
Half-remembered sentiments in testimonial
to those recalled as well as those remotely known,
uttered and published in a blur of anxious type,
rushing towards a fond embrace – or premature escape:
bits of obits slashed across buffed cemetery stone
in finial phrases turned to sentences lushly ceremonial….
A native New Englander, Daniel Pettee currently operates his own freelance writing business in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His poems have been published in a wide range of publications including Chicago Review, Texas Review, The Old Red Kimono, The Lyric, Evansville Review, and Poem.