Three Poems by Jeff Crouch

Painter's Tape

I stood there limp

From the blast of fume spent

The can you had opened
Was liquid cement

The phone ringing, I cross the room

You tell me you're filming birds
In the garden
But we don't have a garden

Why did you call me on the phone?

We could have spoken

Yes, but the painter's tape rule
Would have been broken

Hitler Rapes Mary Poppins_

How you managed to trick The bull mastiff into a filmatic feat
The Yorkie looked stunned

Your brother was still sleeping
When you filmed the whole thing in his room

You got several barks from the dogs,
And I think _That Touch of Mink_
Served its purpose

But how that Doris Day film was your inspiration
I missed in my critique

I wasn't thinking about liberation
I was thinking about _Animal Farm_
Even William Wegman

Your title proved my undoing
An allegory, I tried to pursue it

Where was the German shepherd?
My wrong-headed question

a truck full of ready-made windows

darting like a sick bird
cloud

dainty dandelion breeze

in fickle sunshine

plate glass scattered across the road

you were my last romance
the whole wide world

Jeff Crouch is a writer in Grand Prairie, Texas. His writing has appeared in Above Ground Testing, Canopic Jar, The Cerebral Catalyst, Cordite,The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The Dream People, Lunatic Chameleon, My Favorite Bullet, saucy vox, semantikon, Subterranean Quarterly, Underground Window, Venue--A Southern Forum, Static Movement, The Rose and Thorn, Spent Meat, tre_a_ tro, Unlikely Stories, MG Version 2, and Wire Sandwich with more forthcoming in SN Review and Laika Poetry Review.

Copyright 2006, Jeff Crouch © This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.