THE PLEASURE I’D TAKE IN THE ANY-AGE DEATH OF ONE WHO REMAINS UNNAMED

a truncated trenta-sei

by Jacquelyn Shah

Spoofing that poetic form of John Ciardi 

used for his “A Trenta-Sei of the Pleasure We Take in 

the Early Death of Keats”

“Still Life With Skull, Leeks, and Pitcher, March 14, 1945” by Pablo Picasso

I will not pretend to be sad
thinking about his death. A treat
it would be—(the species-truth? We are glad
to have a death to munch on.)
to wake some morning soon to a Tweet
reporting his demise. Why, oh why
am I so moved to pray he will die?

Thinking about his death is a treat

I allow myself. To be spared the bother of hearing,

day after day, his merely bitter, never sweet,

falsehoods, fabrications; watch his sneering

and his huff and puff, huff and puff

would constitute, for me, a quite-enough.

Re: Ciardi’s “species-truth”—yes, we are glad

to have a death to munch on. But truth to tell,

I’d forgo the munching; is snarfing up too-too very bad?

When it comes to lying, this unnamed guy does it well,

and his performances, so brash, his smear and jeer

deserve no curtain calls, despite the fools who stand and cheer.

To wake some morning soon to a Tweet 

reporting death, underscoring had he lived, my own remaining time

could be not merely dull but dreadful… how Sweet!

O beautiful, the death of one whose power-grubbing lifetime’s

gone. And gone would be, ungenerosity, extravagance, and full-

blown pretense, double-crossing, treachery, cock-and-bull!

Jacquelyn “Jacsun” Shah, nonbinary iconoclast holds A.B. & M.A. English and M.F.A. & Ph.D. English/creative writing–poetry. Her publications: chapbook, small fry; full-length book, What to Do with Red; individual poems in various journals. Literal Latté’s 2018 Food Verse Contest winner, she has now won a non-fiction book award contest and her memoir-essay collection will be published this summer. 

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