I solemnly propose thirty seconds,
As it isn’t at all a search for diamonds
And hasn’t been delivering stronger, bonds:
Only pleasure-soaked “Ohs” and excited diphthongs
Almost always depleting a womanizer’s funds,
Wherefore intercourse should be a little longer than a cock’s
Or the time it normally consumes to put on ones socks...
Perhaps the time it takes a grenadier
To dive for cover after a throw
Or for the grudging handshake between a lack lustre brigadier
And a junior officer of more decorations and glow!
Preferably, the time it takes a cock
To perform its roles of a professional time announcer
Or the uninvited, not hard like a rock,
To be forcibly shown the door by a bouncer.
C7
No bigger than a drop of blood on a finger
pricked by a thorn, it marches along
the stem of a rosebush; a Grenadier guard
in its crimson uniform, with seven spots exactly
splashed across its coat. Not a random
flick of a paintbrush, but like a soldier’s
chevron; its rank, its classification.
It rises ready to do battle with the greenfly
that hide amongst soft petals until
confronted with my outstretched fingers
onto which it clambers. I hold it aloft
and blow a soft breath across its tiny body.
Its wings fan open and like a fire-rescue helicopter,
it flies away home.
Scars, that's what endear
to a grenadier.
Volodymyr Knyr
2014
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