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…

Midwest Opera The local mogul, tall, horse-jawed… machine-tool king, accompanied by his grim chic wife, strolls down the aisle,

The Lawyer to Mrs. Brown: “Did you have intimate relation wi… Mrs. Brown‘s reply: “Oh, yes, I must admit it’s true; He helped me frost my hair one tim…

Savage Customs Dakota Indians placed a seed insi… The mouths of those they buried, a… A small but sturdy seedling gratif… The tribe, new life ascending from…

Bank Caesar An angry man, conceived and birthed in cars, weaned on dumpsters, reared in shattered rooms

Graal Braun sooner or later plans to join the Lord or an acceptable facsimile on such and such a date. As a high school teacher he held a great variety of part-time jobs, most of wh...

Higher Powers From birth to death some others mu… You see, as infant, round-faced, g… Above the crib, to serve you, need… Precluded by efficacy of sobs.

Aroused by thee, I misbehave, afire with lust while thou art coo… and thou then seem a microwave and I a zap-ped molecule.

An Abomination* Ice-gleamed streets, sky an ebony… and a girl accordions her tiny car into the back of mine. She, carmine-streamed, head throug…

Postscript for the Statue of Libe… Oh, say, you huddled masses, when… My golden shores, you must at once… Remove your greasy ball cap, beat… From all your rags, and curb the “…

Just off a country road a balding… Reclines in spring upon a pinkish… Of dogwood, which on any better da… Supports, at least in poems, a “fe… Or, worse, that “lifts to God its…

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 we all will prize whe… We see his every need is now addre…

The Futility of Action Our lives are sprawled in a meanin… where aims benevolent or evil, sel… eventuate in tortured remnants of… where Christ’s counsel of love to…

Because far more than friendship,… Youg Willy craved the gleaming, w… That, sparkling on the dealer’s lo… Of slashing flights toward any dis… Whose neon gleam avoided grimy mil…

Kings once favored beheadings; and when it was their turn, so did angry peasants America chose a different tableau: Black hoods, elaborate nooses