Technique on the Firing Line

The target shudders in the layered heat,

And every aim is hazard. Schooled or not,

Secure and dry, or slick with its own sweat,

The hand alone cannot perfect the shot.

Distance and windage, or the quirks of use,

The sights will compensate. Will they restore,

Where each concentric circle grows diffuse,

An aim whose center can be seen no more?

MARCHEN

Southwest Africa

We contemplate, Fräulein, a land so dry

This water in itself is Lorelei,

And put your comb to whatsoever use,

It is the tank and windmill that seduce.

Divided skirt, bush jacket, boots. Though sex

Expire in local color, yet will heks

Be Hexe still; be challenge, be response,

Of myth to drouth, of song to Afrikaans.

Undress and with that water merge. Resist,

And I am nakedly a Narzissist.