What I Assume

And Chris Lott thought the villanelle was hard; the ghazal, done according to the rules, is hellish! I was doing alright until stanza 3, but I soldiered on; I even referenced my name in the last sher. In the morning my fascination with this form will probably renew, but right now I’m just pleased to hit publish and be done with it.

Each Night, Till I Drop Off

Shear ambition and invention! Show all her clothes drop off!
Let my logic and my conscience, perched like drunken crows drop off.

So like coalescing bonds we cling and cull our love.
We pull our hips, our bellies press until our lusty throes drop off.

For her I've planted tulips, weeded bushes, battled aphids.
But she's let stags eat at the bulbs as petals of her rose drop off.

My passion grows; each day I yearn to have her more and more.
Yet more and more each time I do I hear her clamored Os drop off.

Summer love, once a volcano, burned our curious fingers.
Now it's lava's icy glass. I'll walk its path till toes drop off.

Now I breathe out opium, and absinthe slips me sleep.
I dream I'm dancing roof to roof as cuckolds and their woes drop off.

I dreamed that pirates claimed her ship, and made her watch the plank.
I memorized her wailing tones as all the men she knows drop off.

Alone I've passed these many years, but drugs have stoned my heart.
Those memories pass out with me, as dogs inclined to doze drop off.

I’d worked out several additional stanzas, but I couldn’t let them make the cut. Here are a couple of them, for my own record:

We had a circus full of joy, with I, the lion tamer.
Now I've let slip the acrobat while tightrope act bozos drop off.

My secretary shoots at me the eye that failed on you.
I pretend it's you instead as skirt and blouse and hose drop off.

The first was too silly; the second a bit to bawdy (but not incriminating, just so you know).