Friday 25 November 2011

#5: Chekhov's Pun

It hangs on the wall like the ominous leer
of Billy Big Bass, like the dead head of a deer,
some ostentatiously antlered caribou
that, shotgun held low like a gift, you
stalked through a snow-crusted Finnish wood
for three days, your Gortex hood
freezing about your ears in stiff clefts
like a conch shell; a shift left
into a clearing, you took your shot

and though it seemed like triumph, now you've got
it mounted on a plaque with name, year,
when you step back, take stock - it looks like reindeer.

1 comment:

  1. I had a list of puns to use,
    a way of writing poems to abuse
    the English language, but before I'd begun
    you had to use that one, the reindeer one,
    the one I'll have to take a pencil and Chekhov.

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