Little Big Song

"Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator"
    ----.William Shakespeare

Doing battle all day with Petrarch's ghost
left us face down in a dark pool
of coagulating ink—
Pyrrhic victory at best

Outmatched from the start
eight times the Order of the Octave called out to us
(as we shook behind our individual blocks)
eight times our volleys fell clumsily from the sky

Then, there came a chance to  turn  the  tale
and yet, so complete was the disarticulation of our bones
even the Volta escaped us.

We fared no better against
the Six Horsemen of the Sestet
Stoic and stubborn, no answers crossed their lips

The battle came in waves, fourteen in all; in each wave
five noisy knights paired with five soft-spoken squires
Finally, the Knights Pentameter stood astride us;
we lay face down in the muck, as foot by metrical foot
they first unstressed then stressed our necks

I cried for a clean death.