Daniel Galef

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George Auriol to a Patron at Le Chat Noir

For it was Auriol who concocted the Chat Noir-Guide towards the end of 1887.
The Guide provides, for every objet d’art and knick-knack purportedly on display in the cabaret, fantastical tales of provenance.”
—From
Cabaret to Concert Hall, by Steve Moore Whiting

Come in, come in! Here, have a glass of beer:
The best in France—so says the Pope, you know.
I’ll seat you where he sits when he sups here,
beneath these poker-playing dogs (Van Gogh).
Don’t touch, the paint is fresh! I knew the model:
Lovely gal. Alsatian, I recall.
Her only vice, a weakness for the bottle;
poor dear! Not drink—the bottle, that was all.
These cups were looted from the sack of Troy
aboard the pirate Pinkbeard’s twelve-mast scow.
Our beer, which I can see you quite enjoy,
is brewed by tight-lipped monks who take a vow
to never speak a lie—I, as a boy
was in the order. (I have left it now.)

Ruthless Rhyme

(after Ruthless Rhymes)

Justice Ginsburg—nevermind,
politically, my wit is toothless.
I am, like Kennedy, resigned…
And so you see, this rhyme is Ruth-less

For the fall semester (if the fall semester happens (and if fall happens)), Daniel Galef is moving to Florida to accept a teaching assistantship and a spot in the MFA program at Florida State University for fiction writing. To learn more about the culture of his new home, he is watching Tiger King, that “Unwindulax” episode of 30 Rock, and the 1976 Burt Reynolds vehicle Gator. In addition, he plans to start getting a lot more personally offended at Gail White poems as he officially becomes Florida Man.