Little ray of sunshine, how sweet your flitting ways!

Orange Butterfly

Isn’t it charming, cute and quaint

That a butterfly made up in bright orange paint

Can masquerade thus as a garden saint

And be seen as a ray of the dancing sun

And a light, fleeting dash of enticing fun,

When its finely-veined system in truth is run

On a fuel of venom cold with spite—

It would far rather sink a great poisonous bite

In your pulsing carotid some murderous night—

How pretty, how dainty, how full of cheer

The butterfly’s presence makes it here,

At least behind all that orange veneer

The Lady was a Tiger!

Delicious Deviation

A scurrilous, scandalous sinner

Invited him one night for dinner;

He learned that her wish

Was, he’d be the main dish,

Though before he knew that,

He was in her.

They were drawn to his charisma like, well, moths to a flame . . .

The Ballad of Professor Montague

Professor Montague, a moth (specifically, Cecropia),

was glamorously smooth and frothy, ruling that Utopia,

his professorship at Flares, where tender butterflies and moths,

with innocent and awestruck stares, had visions wild as Visigoths,

fixed on him, rapt, their compound eyes, absorbing, drinking deeply

(through curled probosces and their brains) this wisdom daily, weekly–

they soaked it up–he’d flit about, and with his brilliance all were thrilled,

until one day he was attracted to the classroom lamp . . . and killed.