Only $5

To protect against harm

to purse or person

purchase a dictionary

of the canting crew

Then inoculate yourself

against voices and jargon

that aim only to part

your money and you

Vendors and Mountebanks

While to certain modifiers

vendors modestly confined

themselves as they identified 

their goods

  "Fine oranges fine lemons"

  "New flounders new"

Mountebanks extravagantly advertised

  "That excellent and by all physicians approved drink"

  "A balsam that cures all that ails you"

Transforming through superlatives 

and promises their goods

not so good

Try Holding On

How is a blade of grass

growing from its middle

like or unlike a ladder

if that ladder is balanced

on the soles of the feet

of a Japanese acrobat

Musicologist's Prayer

Kleio, Send me your fire

That I may recount the eras

and make their musics famous

And lead me not into fiction

But deliver me from error

That I may dispel myths 

and pedal only truths

Translation Dictionary for an Eighteenth-century Fair-goer

dudeldumdei - stop thinking and look

hahiha - don't miss out on the fun

ipso - believe me for I am learned

trallala - I promise pleasure

Tight-Rope Dancer

with feats of equilibristic skill, 

the funambulist treats and thrills

his audience,

who exclaim of the

lofty tumbler: 

Oh, what a marvelous machine

He has made

The pair

He always arrives punctually

but rarely stays long

She often doesn't show

but never turns her back

He repeats himself compulsively

She can't stop borrowing

But they have one thing in common:

the moon and the cuckoo

are crazy