Richard O'CONNELL lives in Hillsboro Beach, Florida. Collections of his poetry include RetroWorlds, Simulations, Voyages, and The Birght Tower, all published by the University of Salzburg Press. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The National Review, Margie, The Texas Review, Acumen, and The Formalist, among others.

ANNALS OF VOLUSIUS

Annals of Volusius—what shit paper!
At least they'll make my darling keep her vows
to Venus and her little cupids
if I laid off my terrible iambics
and made love to her again, she'd feed
the votive fire of the lame-footed Vulcan—
poetry, the most atrocious ever written.
What a treasure trove of trash is here
to offer to the flames and entertain
with an evening of unimpeded laughter.
Annals of Volusius—what shit paper!

Copyright © Richard O'Connell, 2005. All Rights Reserved.
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