Singsonging the word asshole with the falsetto
of an apartment-bound child anthropomorphizing
the cat in the studio adjacent I ask myself
the very same monologaic rhetorical question…
Asshoooole…? yes, the viscerally perspicacious
innocence of youth sounding off in my ears’ memory:
asshole, with its surreptitious impertinence, like, hey,
asshole! When will you master the myriad forms of parabasis?
the dróttkvætt diæresis, instead of this, which,
by my approximation is hardly consider-worthy of the
appellation of broadside ballad, I am but a pot poet,
forlorn pilgrim of the Vorstadtkneipen and alehouses,
somehow managing to pull off this breezeblock-facing
typewriter buzzing in the window sill citylife/modern existence
asshole, when are you going to write that magazine article
that pays the rent with a maid to boot? when are you
going to finish reading H. G. Wells and invent time travel?
you must take on the colour of the dead, these paradoxes
you speak of, dear asshole, are but goatpaths in your tragic head.

Jay Miller (@sootynemm) is a young working writer. Recovering blogger and polyglot, reviewer, copywriter, translator, technical writer, editor, poet. His poetry appears in CWHOBB, Versification, mineral lit, and giallo. He edits The Lit Quarterly (@LitQuarterly) and holds a BA in Linguistics. He currently resides with his partner in downtown Montreal.