(1994)
Republished by permission from "Lyric," Vol. 74, No. 3
Old novels have their faults, but… I’m sure we’d all rush out to buy… If on the jacket lovely Hester tr… To show us all a little cleavage a… New credit cards could quickly sto…
Kinds of Dignity 1. A Parade: Once in his life the veteran had a chance to do a t… remote from termites, drains and f…
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…
Poesy’s Progress My rhymes are gone, at least quite… my lines are stop– ped just anywhere. The meter is, no doubt, unconscion…
Polyphemus Hurt by Schtick (Apologies to Abbot and Costello) When Ulysses poked out Polyphemus… The giant ran to friends, who hear… “Nobody blinded me!” —but then he…
The meter of this poem will be like ticks of a clock — no, I mean, ticks of clocks. On contemplation of my navel I see only what appears to be
What discount art inspired this ta… Eleven months a year you’re quite… Too dark and gaunt, we thought, to… By breaking out in garments so biz… But just when nature tries to be a…
The Billionaire’s Apologia I pass this wretch sprawled agains… and idly but with studied bonhomie drop into his cap a dollar bill, while wondering at the deep dispar…
Kings once favored beheadings; and when it was their turn, so did angry peasants America chose a different tableau: Black hoods, elaborate nooses
(George Meredith advised Thomas Hardy to fill his novels with bizarre and exciting people and events. Subsequently, Hardy in an early novel had a person following a person following a ...
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…
On the podium the sternest of tyra… Yet a dead one’s manic puppet, Claiming now inspired compliance. His baton a thrashing rapier, Forcing eyes to see the fire
My friend, your tender ego giant-s… Makes you condemn the past and yet… Find caveman lust your love now ca… Antiquely unaware how you’ll debas… Your brain is raisin-like with wri…
Anthropomorphism Two pigs copulate above The legend “Makin’ Bacon”; A lobster sports a chef’s cap, beckons with big red claw;
M. The Old Widower’s Effluvium His cachet evolves from subtleties… as he is groomed for an ever small… He doesn’t sweat for he cannot toi… so baths now seem superfluous,
