The Polititian Speaks of Allies
There must be some pleasure in it,
the rat must at least smell the cheese,
before crushing his body and pinning it,
for the trap to really please.
When the nose rustles the trigger
the killing bar must descend,
but the rat dies, so I figure,
with the joyous smell of cheese in the end.
Shoe Fetish
The servant girl
encounters a party shoe
under the bed.
It lies on its side.
She tips it up with her bare toe.
And then...
She turns it around
Orienting the fancy strap to her bare heel.
She raises her foot.
Her toe points tentatively,
but stops in mid-air.
Her hand returns automatically to the sheets
to relieve them of their passion.
Somewhere in the house,
a door slams in the wind.
We met...
We met at a corner
Too fast to stop,
We'd never met before or since.
I was raising my leg in walking
As she was striding forward
Our legs engaged until they had to stop,
In a brief but intimate encounter.
I felt the heat of her exhale,
the brush of her breast
upon my chest,
the push of her hip
upon my innocent hand.
It was instant, but tender.
We were all but lovers
in a passing second.
The disengagement was just as quick.
Her heat lingered on my thigh,
her breath filled me with sensations.
The memory of her body
remained like an impression in hot clay.
No wonder this is frequently mistaken for
love
| Gary Lehmann has degrees from Duke University [Ph.D.], University of Michigan [M.A.], Syracuse University [B.A.] and University College Galway, Ireland. He is a writer, playwright and poet who is widely published. He has worked with the Gobe Theatre in London, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Smithsonian Institution, and a number of local museums including the Rochester Museum and Science Center, the Strong Museum, the Biloxi Cultural Center, and the Genesee Country Museum. Gary teaches at the Rochester Institute of Technology: as a professor of writing and poetry in the School of Liberal Arts, and as the director of the Athenaeum Poetry Group, a consortium of published poets. He has written 5 books including the novel Obediah Greenough: His Tool Chest, an Erie Canal story, and Patrick's Purgatory, a full-length biography of Saint Patrick. He has been the Writer in Residence at Roberts Wesleyan College. His three act play "Susan B," about Susan B. Anthony's role in the suffrage movement in the nineteenth century, has been produced in several states, published, and reviewed nationally. He regularly publishes 30-40 poems and short stories per year, does some journalism, and is currently building a literary web site for creative writers. |
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