FOUR EPIGRAMS

by Richard O'Connell

Quick Canonization

Instant sainthood's the chic ideal  

Broadcast from Rome of late;

I prefer the conventional spiel

When they sat a Devil's Advocate.*

*The office of Advocatus Diaboli was abolished by 

Pope John Paul II.

Retromartyr

Bruno never did repent

But died in flames for heresy.

The Church retracts an ancient wrong  

And promulgates apology.

Less Said

The Laceademonians,* famous for few words,

Demonstrated their gruff, laconic gift  

When Philip of Macedonia threatened them: 

"If I enter Laconia, I'll burn it to the ground."

To which the Lacedaemonians responded: "If."

* Spartans

Poltically Correct

Nerva never publishes or recites.

For fear of Nero, Nerva never writes.

              Martial, VIII,70

Richard O'Connell lives in Hillsboro Beach, Florida. Collections of his poetry include RetroWorlds, Simulations, Voyages, and The Bright Tower, all published by the University of Salzburg Press (now Poetry Salzburg). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Measure, Trinacria The Atlantic Monthly, National Review, Margie, The Texas Review, Acumen, The Formalist, Light.

SMALL WAR

by Richard O'Connell

Image Source: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Evil is statistical: a long-range game of mind:
Programming the data: it's merely a matter
Of parallel logistics: a mythic country
Ground in the joint jaws of an identical cancer.

Look at the map: It's a lesson in dissolution.
It could go on forever if we're careful,
Diverting blood and the precise amount of terror:
The only treason: reason: quelling the confusion.

It's a matter of girding them: a bright meat grinder:
Of obfuscating all the nasty boring facts:
Those muddy faces fleeing towards you from vague fire,
Carrying their homes and the maimed on their backs.


Richard O'Connell lives in Hillsboro Beach, Florida. Collections of his poetry include RetroWorlds, Simulations, Voyages, and The Bright Tower, all published by the University of Salzburg Press (now Poetry Salzburg). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Measure, Trinacria The Atlantic Monthly, National Review, Margie, The Texas Review, Acumen, The Formalist, Light.