Flailing

Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can . . . 

WB Yeats, “The Circus Animals’ Desertion”

In the not so good ol’ days of yore,

            the heyday 

in my blood 

            untamed,

I’d tap out trite love poems 

            on a typewriter. 

Frustrated, I might snatch the paper from the machine, 

            ball up the

the aborted Petrarchan 

            bellyaching,

and fling it across the room –

            as if I were a protagonist in a film,

not a melodramatic nobody 

            all hepped up on hormones

sitting at a desk 

                                    flailing.