[Toc]

 

SO NOT DEAD BALLAD

Terese Svoboda

          (Nevermind, nevermind. The Ballad of Lazy Jane?)
(No. Two porkchops almost raw? Yes.)

                    (If waves meet out there, do fish turn around?
That's the kind of question you don't answer Alcohol.)

          (Au revoir, in a language I smear.)

                              (If the waves meet. How dumb. Not
even Zen.) (As if I knew a lick about Zen—
                                        it's a coin I'm spending)

(A ballad is deceptively easy to write.)
          (As in deceit.)
                    (As in undeserved.)
          (Cynicism reduces the charge of sadness.)

                    (Jane had heart disease, lupus, she was slow.)
(The fish drank too much.)
(France perfected goodbye.)
(Zen is all about waiting)
                                        (Pathetic.)
                                        (Parenthetically, my father
is standing by)
                    (that is, dying, after years and years)

          (A ballad about a woman who lived on the smell of roses.)
          (A ballad about very fat men.)

          (There's doom in everybody. That's what the waves
lap about.)
                    (Doom, doom, doom.)

                              (Don't be silly, Jane's windows are closed
          so she can't smell.)
                    (I didn't tell her to—)
                    (She didn't—)
                              (No more pink chops.)

(Dad's still alive, but very fat.)
                              (Not me, say the waves, meeting
                              in mid-ocean, fish missing.)

          (Au revoir.)
                                        (A revoir you can't miss.)

 

 

 

 

 


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[Here] is a link to the trichinosis larvae.

Early ballad subjects included the story of a woman who lived on the smell of roses, and very fat men.