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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


GHAZALS: 14 by JAMES HARRISON

Poet Analysis

First Line: THAT HEARTLESS FINCH, BOTULINAL. AN OFFICIAL WHEEZE PASSES THROUGH
Last Line: AROUND ME AND THE ROTTING ELK HIDES. THE TRUE SOURCE OF THE STINK.

That heartless finch, botulinal. An official wheeze passes through
the screen door into the night, the vision of her finally dead.

I've decided here in Chico, Montana, that Nixon isn't president
and that that nasty item, Agnew, is retired to a hamster farm.

And that those mountains hold no people but geologists
spying on each other, and beasts spying on the geologists.

Mule deer die from curiosity - what can that thing be
wandering around with a stick, forgotten from last year?

Some tourists confuse me for an actual cowboy, ecstasy in
deceit, no longer a poet but a bona fide paper buckaroo.

I offer a twenty-one-gun salute to the caress as the blackflies buzz
around me and the rotting elk hides. The true source of the stink.



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