Three Poems

Edison Jennings

Beatrice & Dante Call It Quits in Beverly Hills

Beatrice and Dante
Walk hand in hand,
The houses splendid, the weather, grand.

Beatrice and Dante,
Feeling unsure,
Abandon the path of the pious and pure

To follow the trend
Of Rodeo boutiques.
Beatrice lusts for the lives of the chic.

Beatrice and Dante
Stop for lunch.
Dante listens to Beatrice munch.

Beatrice and Dante
Juvenescent,
Thirsty for the effervescent,

Sip from flutes
Of rose champagne,
Then part and never meet again.

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Pathogenesis of Losing
(apologies to MS Bishop)

To lose something once
requires a dunce,

but to lose something twice
is an acquired vice

that once achieved
leads to losses abundant,

and loss after loss
becomes redundant.

till you too are lost
under the Fundament.

- - -

Threadbare Cotillion

(A Dream)

Nothing you know is simpler than this:
begin the dance with a bow and a kiss
and rely on the heart to carry the beat,
with a ghost for your partner, light on her feet,
together making a threadbare cotillion
circling beneath a starry pavilion,
recalling all the once vernal pleasures
now reprised in three-quarter measures.

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Edison Jennings lives in Southern Appalachia. He is a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellow. His poetry has appeared in Boulevard, The Kenyon Review, Slate, The Southern Review, Southern Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. His poetry collection, Intentional Fallacies, and his chapbook, Reckoning, are available through Broadstone Press and Jacar Press, respectively. His most recent chapbook, Plumb Lines, is also available from Broadstone Press.

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Three Poems Edison Jennings

Three Poems

Edison Jennings