Republished with permission of Midwest Poetry Review, 1997
Our hunters, armed with guns and b… Go forth to thin the numerous deer… So none will starve, we’re to supp… Though that lie causes me to sneer… To jocks karate isn‘t play;
Verse now slain by latest dogma, down the cobbled street come mourn… trundling Verse’s coffin forward, charging all to note the corpus, garroted for disregarding
I hate the callow ones who think t… And have therefore the right to cr… I hate the ones who charge me twen… So I can try to win a ten-buck pr… I hate the ones whom you will irri…
Electrocutions show our love of ri… We give the favored one a kingly f… As well as pen and ink so he can w… The thoughts that we will prize wh… We see his needs are carefully add…
Once within his grinding life He’d had a chance at distant deeds That had no hint of daily strife, Of sticking doors, tenacious weeds… Of time cards, office drudgery,
Sports News from Mudville (Thanks to “Casey at the Bat”) The outlook’s great for all you fo… Linebacker Doakes was just picked… Then football’s finest running bac…
He could not paint a world that g… For his shimmered softly. His cliffs, cathedrals, seas appe… congenial things of liquid light; and even locomotives seem
I see the merit in Hemingway’s ch… the sudden casting of oneself upo… but I would like to go more slowly… from different categories: first p… then, one after another, lower bac…
Hilarious Slants on Being Told You Have Prostate Cancer Can you empathize with Wile E. C… at that moment when he freezes in the air,
A Teacher to a Boy with a Center… While you turn red at my approach,… Your nails and shift your eyes abo… Attempting all the while a saving… I play the teacher’s role: I set…
Lambs are lovely, but mutton’s a m… Colts are cute, but calves just ve… Dogs are loved, but pigs delicious… I hope that God’s not this capric…
American Ethics An ancient joke tells how a kid wh… his parents out of rage or just fo… Then cons the judge by citing all… He’ll surely suffer as a lonely or…
Believing garbage cans are scandal… When battered, making us seem decl… My wife delivered firm commands, a… I threw away a garbage can today. And then a thrilling thought occur…
Ask Not Whom the Toll Bails A Grecian corpse’s mouth containe… Placed there by kin who thought he… To pay the toll required to cross… (A job that Charon got through po…
Coffee Table Books A coffee table book’s not there to… it’s there to stupefy your curious… who read the titles surreptitiousl… to sneer in secret at your shallow…