Hardly
This little what
called big
These squeaks
that think they are rules
The drips that imagine themselves
storming
These less than nothing headlines
or empty spotlights
This barely hardly
that struts so special
Are what I call
a pile of sawed-off logs
stacked below that tree
Hiram Larew‘s poems have appeared most recently in Honest Ulsterman, Amsterdam Quarterly, Contemporary American Voices and Iowa Review. His most recent collection, Mud Ajar, was published by Atmosphere Press in 2021. He lives in Maryland, USA. www.HiramLarewPoetry.com