Joe Dolce: Two Poems

An Interesting Little Girl

An interesting little girl ... The Argus read.

Further down,

… hearing she was seriously ill,

I volunteered to ride to Melbourne …

At a schoolhouse, gathering, May 18th 1851,

… a full congregation of settlers heard the service …

… but the Reverend P. Gunn had to leave for another engagement …

An urgent need for somewhere to put her,

became Kangaroo Ground Cemetery,

… as her mother put it,

“she caught a chill from resting on wet grass” …

Five-year old Judith Furphy was dearly loved,

youngest sister of John,

wheelwright, inventor

of the Furphy Water Cart, (at Gallipoli),

and Joseph,

father of the Australian novel,

who, in 1903, under penname, wrote,

Such is Life.

Joe Dolce

Rubik’s Paradelle

Picasso made people jig saw puzzles.

Picasso made people jig saw puzzles.

Doctor Frankenstein stitched body parts together.

Doctor Frankenstein stitched body parts together.

Doctor Picasso stitched jig people parts.

Frankenstein saw body puzzles made together.

Butchers chop animal apart in pieces.

Butchers chop animal apart in pieces.

Rubik’s Cube has six painted faces.

Rubik’s Cube has six painted faces.

Painted butchers Cube has animal faces

in six Rubik’s chop apart pieces.

Three hidden personalities of Eve.

Three hidden personalities of Eve.

Tricky dating some psycho bitch.

Tricky dating some psycho bitch.

Dating bitch Psycho Eve,

some three personalities of hidden tricky.

Saw doctor has six Frankenstein faces.

Tricky Picasso hidden psycho personalities.

Butcher bitch made dating people puzzles,

three body pieces chop apart,

Rubik’s animal jig some of Eve,

stitched together in painted Cube parts.

Joe Dolce

Note: The paradelle is a demanding fixed-form poem invented by Billy Collins. It consists of four six-line stanzas in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and four lines, of the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines of each stanza must use all the words from the first and third lines of the stanza, and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from lines 1, 3, 7, 9, 13 and 15, of the preceding stanzas and only those words.