Employers need outwitting;
and so, instead of quitting—
costing them, understand,
forty or fifty grand,

I managed to get fired,
I call myself "retired,"
but, friends, I am a fiery
and passionate retiree.

Leaving the hurly-burly
of life and labor early,
crazier by the minute,
I gaze at those still in it

and feel a warm sensation:
my final conflagration.
Now busily and gaily
I ignite in verse daily

and flame out in my toil
like shining from shook foil
(who cares if I sound odd
and echo Hopkins' God?)

then shrivel to a cinder
among my toten Kinder.
Belinda, good and just,
watches me in disgust

light-shedding, brightly orbed,
and says I'm "self-absorbed."
Unperked, unpaid—yea, pelfless—
I think I'm downright selfless,

dancing about and glowing
while the north wind is blowing.
Soon, mixing with that weather,
I'll vanish altogether.

FOR A FEMINIST

She would outceaser Ceaser—
I say in verse to tease her—
eliminate such sillies
as Homer and Achilles,
dress Milton in skirts, panties,
correct each sin of Dante's,
and, ready now to cast
ruin on all at last,
calls for the termination
of the whole spermy nation.