Notorious Days

" Notorious Days "

by Suzán Jiván

Notorious days
of wit and concision
with sly, hangdog brilliance
stepping nimbly passed
an unexamined schematic
stacked anachronistically
with the garrulous disparities
of rancorous romance

From gravity to good humor
fast-moving and emphatic
challenged by circumstance
and a starchy hierarchy
with the contradictions
of class as nasty vestiges
of malevolence
played rather stagily

Reinforced decorum
in old-fashioned stories
told as tales of fair-mindedness
while plotting storylines with irony
and outlining the undermining
of an original design
like contrived denial...