What the Whale Said

What the Whale Said

Ah Manhattan, with your condominiums
Taller than Tuscan hills and hilltop towns,
With your mighty columns, none in ruin!
I stood inside you with just boxers on
Battling words and silence; from the radiators,
Siphons let out steam superbly
Into the one’s and my one room.
She insisted on sincerity; I, on truth:
In the blast, blades were ultimately produced.
I left like a missile from Baikonur.
Judging from my feelings now and what I see,
Contemporary history begs more humour!
I shall retire to the Black Forest,
Do time amid the pine and books.


  1. “underpants”. 

  2. many older buildings in New York City have antiquated heating systems, with siphons to let out excess steam from the radiators. 

  3. colloquialism, “the wife’s”. 

  4. Soviet space-launching center in Kazakhstan. 

  5. the mountainous Schwarzwald in southwestern Germany.