A lung skulk.

A lung leash.

Little fox lungs in the northern sky.

Lungs of yelp and combative call.

Lungs of growl and bark.

Fox lungs crushed, sifted and salted to taste.

Swift fox lungs for wheeze and cough.

Kit fox lungs for shortness of breath.

Cockroach [Book 2.38]

Carboniferous cockroach.

Gregarious cockroach.

Cockroaches who aggregate.

Cockroaches who shun the light.

Pound a millhouse cockroach with oil.

Boil a bakehouse cockroach to insect succulence.

Drip a drop in an ear to diminish an ache.

A dollop on the tongue to unlock the lungs.

Grasshopper [Book 2.56]

An aposematic poem.

Beginning of the End.¹

Still life with grasshopper:

Flowers in a Vase (c. 1685);²

Flowers in a Vase with Shells and Insects (c. 1630).³

Take grasshoppers for the bladder roasted and bland.

Beware the warning coloration.

Beware the anti-predator adaptations.

_____________

¹ 1957 B movie in which giant grasshoppers attack Chicago.

² Painting by Rachel Ruysch.

³ Painting by Balthasar van der Ast.

Earthworm [Book 2.72]

Dew-worm, rainworm, angleworm.

The annelidical worm who questions the soil.

The reciprocal worm who aerates the earth.

The skin-breathing worm (the gas-exchanger).

The mathematical worm who measures the depth.

The worm who cures both earache and toothache.

The worm who glues sinews torn apart.

Hence a small song for the multitasking worm.

Thus Some Cuttings of Book 3 and Book 4, the Virtues and the Roots, the Juices and the Herbs

(for uses both curative and quotidian)

Rhubarb [Book 3.2]

Great esculent garden.

Wisdom’s sharp companion.

Patient rhubarb, wild rhubarb.

Beyond the Bosporus.

Beyond the pies lost

in a triangle of midsummer scruples.

Ginger and spikenard.

A dram of no misgivings.

A drop of caution under Mars.

Rue [Book 3.53]

A ring of rue around the neck.

A chaplet of rue.

Rue the tears of a weeping queen.

Fill a house with rue to kill the fleas.

Rue of contradiction and incongruity.

Rue vehement and full of grace.

Rue broody and distilled.

Rue impassioned and brewed.

Rue the rue that repeats itself—

once more the vinegar of the aforesaid four thieves.

The rue that dodged contagion.

The rue that robbed with impunity.

Sea Lavender [Book 4.16]

On the lake lip.

By the abdominal swamp.

In the subcosmopolis bog.

Limnal leaves in tufts.

Marsh rosemary.

Wild marsh beet of red seed.

Ink root.

For ancient ulcers.

For current events and topical discharge.

A drink of wine-dark limonium and sea.

A glass of sea thrift and wine.

Sparganium [Book 4.21]

At the edge of the water body.

Throat-choked and husky.

Rough-surfaced, Burrr …

a lingual trill (bite your tongue!).

Reed-grass. Bur-reed. Branched

or simple-stem. With wine

ousts the venomous beast.

Brrr … Cold-blooded,

the vocal chords a thick

vibrating trellis, rattling

snake fang and spiny

spherical lyrics. That smarts!-R’s

renege the articulate,

breach the breath-contract.

With wine infuse both reed and root.

Compress and warm the wound.

Poppies Etc. [Book 4.64, 65, 66]

Superfluous poppies.

poppy pod back lane