On The Widespread Practice Of Paying Poets In Copies, If At All

was it better in the days we traded poems for cows?

(the ones with crumpled horns); for crumpled gift wrap

ironed at home; for bric-a-brac?

I tend to think so.  here's a poem for chocolate cake, o.k.?

a lake of marigold butter.

a sonnet for the answer to the riddle posed

by the King's only daughter;

the earth's last rose

for a green gold blotter.

a few rhymes for the merry bells that rang Olde

Christmas in; the game that never ends of

let's pretend, complete with game pieces.

how about a sheaf of this and that (well illustrated)

for tearing up the lease? a gold ink well brimmed with

sapphire ink merits a bologna sandwich,

 don't you think? with

heirloom tomatoes and a pinch of salt.

or else,a well stocked bank vault.

boysenberry malts

for valentine mottos drawn on a Candy Heart.

and just for this: a firefly road, to see in the dark.

a triolet for violets tied with a silver ribbon.

a little moonlight I can trade yields

orange frosting for a cake

the journeyman must bake, if he eats at all.

a galway shawl (rose-red) for a villanelle.

a deeper spring than can be dug:

the wishing kind oh I would barter and

take no shilling less than infinite starlight for

an apple blossom mind that cannot dull;

the scullery people freed from spells.

the King's own seal.

the princess healed.

and the whole kingdom with her.

mary angela douglas 29 september 2014