*The Double-o Poem, or...*

*The Double-o Poem, or
All in a Woodpecker’s Afternoon*

Crooked doors, stools, brooms, a poor-looking roof,
a gloomy sloop, even its moorings, a cook’s boots,
a poodle’s pooper-scooper, a groom’s Zoot suit and
even the bloody root of his floozy’s toothache. Next,
the sooty books that the rookie hoodlums boosted from
school, and then, of course, their bedroom floorboards.
All this: our woodpecker’s booty. There was even proof

in their footballs and pool cues. But, just after our culprit
tooled and toodle-oo’d through all that stood aloof in the
cool, in roosts and in zoos, in loopholes and in hoodoos,
even in the spooky oomph a-the moon abloom with oodles
of moola and goodies and mood, yes, after goofing around
the woolgathering of this here boondoggle, this foolery, a
loose, smooth ooze of doodlebugs flooded in, boozing up

all the woodpecker’s grooves. Too
bad it flew away so soon.
-
Originally published in horse less review #5, and then in the book, Poemergency Room.