Melissa
Lives in Alpine
Is pure Jersey
Always calls me sweetheart

Tight jeans
Low-cut top
She’s got it
No doubt about that

Shepherdess
Her flock all strays
She presides
My third favorite bartender

Arnoud something, Frenchman, poet, masochist
Invented the bloody thing
thought that 6 by six plus troi
would make a bitchin’ poem
perhaps there are other rules
I shall ignore them

Arnoud something, Frenchman, poet, masochist
possibly liked the cadence
A play in six brief acts
A story told in slices
Of defined form
While the band plays on.

Arnoud something, Frenchman, poet, masochist
was fond of numbers
and the mystical power they hold
The most powerful number is three
The most powerful number is three
The most powerful number is three

Arnoud something, Frenchman, poet, masochist
using the most powerful number
the way a child uses LEGO
built a new structure
not with white and yellow plastic
but with a rhythm he heard from the stars

Arnoud something, Frenchman, poet, masochist
Spent his days casting about the house
Counting things without reason and without hope
Muttering, rambling, talking to himself
The way poets do when they’re close
But haven’t got there yet

Arnoud something, Frenchman, poet, masochist
A serious individual
As masochists are
never knew the fun I would have
with a form I never knew
And if he did, he wouldn’t like it.

Arnoud something, Frenchman, poet, masochist
inventor of the sestina
is dead now