Obligatory Concrete Poem
Dis--
member--
ment.

Obligatory Dirty Poem
Hard pen.
Soft paper.
Wet ink.

Obligatory Zen Poem
In the house
Of the Master Plumber
The toilet runs.

Obligatory Squirrel Poem

In a wiry-from-winter stand of tall trees
Behind my house on a wet January morning
I looked up and caught sight of a grey squirrel
Flinging himself from branch to branch
For what looked like the sheer hell of it.


Probably all of that scurrying and leaping,
All of that from tree to tree launching and landing,
All of that Frost as a boy on birches bending,
Was just ordinary food-gathering or even
Just a bit of mate-attracting grandstanding.


I am no scholar, though, of animal behavior,
Not even my own, nor will I do research,
Content to have been allowed by an angel
To think that in the misty morning's silver blur
That swift fistful of fur, through the rippling air,
Leaped from limb to limb like a mountaineer
Merely because, like Everest, they were there.

Some Newer Pieces

Unintended Consequences
I.
Charles Goodyear, working with rubber,
Never guessed that it would come to pass
That his name would one day appear
On the side of a bag of gas.
II.
On that gushing day in Titusville
It did not occur to Colonel Drake
That in time the gasoline blower
Would replace the common rake.
III.
Thomas Edison, in his wildest
Imagination's flight
Never dreamed that baseball games
Would be played some day at night.


The Old Oyster...
Keeps sucking in sand.
Is he producing anything pearly?
Ah, no. Just stuff that rhymes with grit.
No wonder he's so goddamned surly.


Serenity Prayer
When I am troubled by the Mill of Life's daily grind--
The irritation of its low, annoying hum--
I softly bring the words of St. Francis to mind:
"Oh God, where is all this birdshit coming from?"

More Poets and Poetry Stuff

He Showed 'Em
When Eliot met his ancestors among the shades
They said, "Nice going, Tom. Not too shabby.
Who'd ever have thought a boy from Missouri
Could get himself a place in Westminster Abbey?"

Essay in Criticism
Alexander Pope, that bitch's puplet,
Sure could turn one mean couplet.

A Scene from The Lives of the Poets
Sylvia nursed a bird in a shoe box.
How from life did it pass?
Ted put in an unlit oven
And turned up high the gas.

After Reading Two Volumes
Back to Back by Contemporary
American Female Poets
In a sort of semi-prose
In the dirt they rubbed my nose.
"We alone can breed the seed--
Every month we weep and bleed."

Finished, I was filled with joy
Not to have been their Little Boy,
And, even more so, I was glad
Not to have been their Bad Old Dad.

I Know What I Like
After my museum visit
My knowledge of art is less dim:
Renoir liked his women fat;
Modigliani liked his slim.

But Picasso broke his women up,
Disassembling from head to toe,
And if those girls were plump or thin,
Only God Himself could know.

Foreboding
On my spirit's aching back
I carry a special monkey:
For others, Death on a Pale Horse.
For me, a small dark donkey.

Eheu Fugaces...
The older women come into the bar
In all sizes, forms, and shapes.
I sip my beer and sigh and think
All raisins once were grapes.

Doubleday at The Point
Doubleday, at The Point, learned Physics.
He knew that the world works so,
Which is why few runners can beat
A good third baseman's throw.

Oh Abner, I know your knowledge.
I learned it to my harm.
When I played at that position,
I had a lousy arm.

Benedixit
"He stopped at Niagara Falls...stood silently
for a while....He made to leave; then turned back
once more. In a characteristic gesture, Cardinal
Pacelli blessed the falls."
--John Cornwell, Hitler's Pope
Of blessings Eugenio Pacelli
Was a veritable fountain.
When in Switzerland,
He made the Sign of the Cross
Over every Alpine mountain.

At the Armory Show
You gotta love Teddy Roosevelt.
Though an aristocrat, he put on no airs.
Shown Duchamp's painting, he called it,
"Somebody naked going down the stairs."

Ask My Wife
When it comes to color
I am totally without hope,
Unable to distinguish between
Beige, ecru, and taupe.

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me...
Another sign that my senility
Is creeping ever near:
An inability to remember
If "The Hunting of the Snark"
Was by Carroll or by Lear.

Relative Uncertainty
When Albert Einstein bought a suit,
Its color was always black.
He didn't want to waste choice time
In front of his wardrobe's rack.

But Heisenberg? Poor Heisenberg--
Oh, Werner was never sure
What colors might come leaping out
When he opened his closet door.

Aggiornamento
I urge you to consider how the Second Vatican Council
Changed Catholic life. By how much? By how far?

When was the last time you saw a St. Christopher statue
Through the windshield of a passing car?

Long Time No Verse Verse

The Wolf Lake Triolet
"I have never been east of Wolf Lake, Indiana..."
--Yvor Winters in a letter to Licoln Kirstein
Staying west of Wolf Lake, Indiana,
Winters criticized the immoral East.
He peeled down a poem like a ripe banana
Staying west of Wolf Lake, Indiana.
In corpore sano with a mens sana
He preached with the fire of a James Joyce priest.
Yes, staying west of Wolf Lake, Indiana,
Winters criticized the immoral East.

Siblings
The Ringling Brothers had a sister,
Ida Loraina was her name,
And Katharine was sister to the Wrights,
They of aviation fame--

Continuing this little verse,
Teetering on the edge of prose,
Sadie was sister to the Warners,
Know to all the world as Bros.

But the Smith boys whom you know as
Bearded Trade and Mark?
Knowledge of any sister they may have had
Remains forever in the dark.

On Writing Conventional Poems
To drive a vehicle
That can burst away
With a hotrod's rubbery squeal,
One is not required
Every night at the track
To re-invent the wheel.

Oenological
I tend my vineyard of verse
From dawn to the twilight hour,
But when it comes to harvest time
Every grape I pick is sour.

Like the Roman Roads
All Interstates and Autobahns
With their wide straightaways and inter-
Secting, overpassing loops

Were, let us never forget, originally
Designed by Wehrmacht and Pentagon
For moving quickly tanks and troops.

The Ballad of Bronco Bruce

The Ballad of Bronco Bruce
Oh, cowboys, they are strange indeed,
Every one of them weird and queer,
But when it comes to oddity,
Bronco Bruce, he had no peer

Now Bronco Bruce was a roving man--
A real rider of the range.
Sure, every cowpoke's a little off,
But Bruce was really strange.

He rode his mare, Vanilla Nell--
She was snow-white, of course--
Side-saddle, like an English Lady
Rides her favorite horse.

And when he drank his morning coffee
From his personal silver cup
Her made damn sure his pinkie finger
Was out and straight and up.

His bedroll, it was lined with silk
And smooth as any lily,
And what he wore for underwear
Was pink and lacy-frilly.

I suppose by now you're thinking
Bronco Bruce was a little queer,
The kind of man who acted like
A bull become a steer.

But you'd be wrong to think that way,
To call him a Nancy-Boy.
He could ride and rope with the best of us
And the whorehouse was his joy.

I recall the night we all rode in
To the town of Rattlesnake Bend.
It was a rough, tough frontier town,
Lawless from end to end.

Miss Kitty's was the best-run place,
A bar with East Coast class
Where a man could get his fill of rye
And a Grade-A piece of ass.

Well, in we rode, led by Bronco Bruce,
Directly to Kitty's place,
And pretty soon Bruce dazzled the crowd
With his elegance and grace.

He told tall tales and made quick jokes
Like Mark Twain at his best.
He sang and danced and did card tricks,
Pulling aces from his vest.

Now, back in a corner at a poker table
Mal Rooney sat with his gang,
A mean bunch like a pack of wolves,
Hairy and long of fang.

I could see Mal watching Bronco Bruce
With his walled and evil eyes--
Like a Kansas City undertaker
Measuring a coffin's size.

Well, the night wore on as all nights will
And the laughter it grew loud
Till suddenly a deep bass voice
Rose up and stilled the crowd.

"Hey, Sissy-Boy, I been watchin' you--"
The voice belonged to Mal,
"And I think that you oughta be known
From now on as Bronco Sal."

The men at Mal's table, to a man,
Laughed aloud at Mal's words.
I swear I heard them cackle like
A gaggle of carrion birds.

And how, you might ask, did Bronco
Respond to this nasty slur?
Well, like a gentleman, of course, he said,
"I beg your pardon, sir?"

Naturally his cultured tone of voice--
So mild, so softly spoken--
Enraged Mal Rooney like a mustang
In the midst of being broken.

"I said your name is Sally, Sissy-Boy.
You're nowhere near a man.
I suggest you waltz your fairy ass
Outa here as fast as you can."

"Ah," breathed Bruce with a sort of sigh,
"It's my manhood that you doubt?"
And before Mal could make a move
Bruce whipped his pistol out.

Now Bruce's piece was a giant .45,
The biggest Colt Arms could make,
And as fierce a man as Mal Rooney was,
I can say I saw him shake.

Then Bronco Bruce smiled and said softly,
After thinking matters through,
"I fear something must be settled, sir,
Between just me and you."

He gave his weapon a sideways waggle.
The crowd parted as crowds can.
"There are ladies present. We'll go outside
And settle things man to man."

And so Mal Rooney walked ahead,
Trying to look bold and brave.
Bronco Bruce followed him through the door,
Giving us all an airy wave.

A minute later the night was shattered
By the ka-pow! of one gun's roar.
Which one of the two was still alive,
Not a man in the bar was sure.

Then Bronco pushed open the swinging doors
And cried, "Resume the fun!"
Later he told me what had taken place:
"Kneel," he'd said, "and suck my gun."

He was joking, of course. He's only meant
To give the man a lesson or two.
He'd planned to teach some manners to Mal
Before the night was through.

But out from under Mal's flannel sleeve
There appeared a ten-inch knife.
"In self-defense, "Bruce said with a sigh,
"I took Mal Rooney's life."

Well, Bruce for all his carrying on
Had never killed before.
Mal's death began to eat at him
Like termites in a floor.

From that night on Bruce wasn't the same.
He hung his head and moped.
He went about his cowboy chores
Like a Chinaman opium-doped.

He became a pale ghost of himself,
Filled with remorse and pain.
It didn't surprise me that he quit
And took a New York train.

I lost track of him until one night
In a bar outside Tucson
I learned he'd opened at Fifth and Park
The Wild West Beauty Salon.

I hope clipping Society Dames
Makes Bronco rich as hell,
But I'm sure in his heart he misses
Currying Vanilla Nell.

Oh, cowboys, they are strange indeed,
Every one of them weird and queer,
But when it comes to oddity,
Bronco Bruce, he had no peer,

Kilmeresque
Oh, think how many Georgia pines
(Each felled by a strong pine-feller)
Must go into the pulping mill
To make just one best-seller.

Ah, Georgia trees that I drive past,
Rest easy in your piney selves:
No book that I will ever write
Will burden Border's shelves.

Yukontinence
Eskimo boys are hunting seals,
I am sure, this very night,
While Eskimo girls lie alone
By igloo firelight.

I'd like to rise up like a wraith
Before them on the floes
To tell them, "Leave the seals alone.
Go home and rub some nose."

But each Eskimo boy would laugh
And wave his hunting knife.
"You're up this late, writing us in verse?
Where's that leave your wife?"

So let me unwrite this Eskimo piece
And leave it in my head.
Good night, good night, my Arctic friends,
I think I'll go to bed.

Novus Ordo Seclorum
In the supermarket on the way
To where the beer's kept cold
I always pass the shining aisle
Where greeting cards are sold.

Monthly under fluorescent lamps
I can sense the seasons pass,
From New Year's Day to the one
Once known as Christ, His Mass.

I see Valentine's red martyred heart
Aflame with amorous fire,
Followed soon by Patrick's shamrock
Detached from emerald Eire.

Then Spring brings Easter's mixing of
Rabbits and Arising
(While stubborn Jews keep another feast,
Likewise of God's devising).

Then Mother's Day and Father's--
A long lull before the Fall
When witching Halloween arrives
And Thanksgiving stuffs us all.

Each year yields a new selection
Of sentiment and rhyme.
And me? I'll just keep on buying beer
And let Hallmark mark the time.

Some Hibernian Stuff

McCarthy's Grave
McCarthy had the misfortune
Of dying in wintertime.
The graveyard ground was frozen stiff
And covered with frost and rime.

But Father Flynn wanted to bury
McCarthy without delay,
So he called the Senior Commandant
Of the local IRA.

The local brigade was shocked to find
They were out of dynamite.
They sent Belfast a telegram
For a shipment overnight.

The Belfast boys, they worked real quick
And sent Matt Dugan down
With enough of the deadly substance
To blow up Dublin town.

With dynamite Matt Dugan was
One of the superstars,
But this was his first graveyard--
He usually worked with cars.

He piled the stuff upon the clay.
He heaped it higher and higher,
And allowed himself six hundred feet
Of detonating wire.

The Funeral Mass was over and
Father Flynn, he changed his stole.
The sexton nudged The Dugan's rib:
"We need a bloody hole."

Matt Dugan took a final drink
And heaved a mighty sigh.
He pushed the plunger down and Boom!
The earth became the sky.

They heard the noise in London,
It made so loud a sound,
And bits of bones and coffins
Came raining to the ground.

The next day on the BBC
A long report was read
Of how the IRA attacked
Victims already dead.

Now Father Flynn's parishioners
Are making money by the pot:
Mc Carthy's Crater has become
An Irish Tourist Spot.



The Ballad of Sean and Tim
You know all about the IRA.
They're in the papers every day
But what, I wonder, can you say
About the IRN?
You fix on me a big blank stare
That tells me you are unaware
Of the part played in The Great Affair
By nautical Irish men.

While DeValera trained his army ranks,
Down by the Liffey's littered banks
By garbage scows and Gas House tanks
Two heroes worked away:
Tim Leary and old Sean McBean
Painted a dozen rowboats green,
Readying well a force marine
For The Rising Day.

McBean and Leary were two A.B.'s
Who had sailed together on the seas
From Queenstown to the Celebes,
Now finally retired.
What hair they had had turned to white
But like younger men with a yen to fight
For Eire's freedom from Britain's might
They were both inspired.

Their rowboats ready, trim and neat,
Oarlocks oiled for the cox'n's beat,
They smiled at their Hibernian fleet
And went to seek a crew.
From pub to pub they sought recruits,
Offering men Irish sailor suits,
But all they heard were jeering hoots,
Mockery through and through.

Dejected, they sat on some Liffey rocks
And stared at the big black wooden box
They'd got from shipmates at the docks
Filled with TNT.
Sean sighed, "Face it, Tim. Our plan is dead.
Let's give it to the IRA instead."
But Leary replied with a shake of his head,
"I'm taking it to sea."

He shoved a green boat water-ward
And put the wooden box on board
(And carefully a jug of Powers stored
For a later drink).
A pair of oars he gave McBean
And cried aloud with a banshee's keen,
"Let's show that what we say we mean!
Let's find a ship to sink."

So just before the break of day
They floated down to Dublin Bay
Nipping at the whiskey all the way,
Trying to make it last.
Just past the Ringsend Ferry's pier
As the morning fog lifted clear
They saw a gunboat steaming near,
The HMS Belfast.

Tim lit a fuse, made the box a mine,
Then raised a shamrock flag for sign
And called, "Avast, ye blasted British swine!
We plan to sink your craft!"
The gunboat's Captain, Tim could see,
Came out of his cabin, sipping tea,
And told his helmsman, "Hard a-lee."
Tim and Sean both laughed.

For square in the path of the dynamite
The gunboat steered by turning right.
A sudden BOOM!, a flash of light!
Up went the Belfast's men.
Clear of the blast but knocked overside
Were Sean and Tim who also died--
Bodies bobbing in the ebbing tide--
So ended the IRN --

Which is why when Rebel tales are told
Of Rebel heroes brave and bold
Or ignorant history books get sold,
Not a word of Sean or Tim.
Like a brick dropped in a toilet tank
Or pirates walking a wooden plank
The Irish Republican Navy sank,
Since neither man could swim.

The Ballad of Tim McHale
I'll tell you now the curious tale
Of the world's most unusual Gael:
An Irishman named Timmy McHale--
Strange lad, he would not drink.
I don't mean water and tea, of course,
But liquids with a bit more force,
Having distillation as their source--
You know what I mean I think.

His friends took Tim to Donovan's Pub
Where they ordered alcohol by the tub
While Tim just watched them--there's the rub--
And never took a sip.
They'd buy straight malt like neat John Powers
Or fancy drinks like whiskey sours,
But Tim would sit and stare for hours
And nothing crossed his lip.

They plied him with vodka, rum, and gin
Like the Serpent tempting Eve to sin.
Not a drop at all did Tim take in
Through his sober face.
Tim bothered them. to say the least.
Year by year their concern increased
Till they brought the problem to a priest
Who agreed to take the case.

You can bet your last Yankee dollar
Above that cleric's Roman collar
Worked the mind of a first-rate scholar
Determined to find out why--
Why Tim was acting oh-so-odd
In the sight of Irish men and God,
Behaving like a salted cod,
Staying stiffly bone-cold dry.

This clever man, Monsignor Wright,
In response to poor Tim's plight,
Striving to find some guiding light,
Burned long the midnight oil.
He read Augustine and Plato, too.
He searched the Summa through and through
Until by chance his fingers flew
To The Works of Conan Doyle.

Next day in true Sherlockian style
He checked the local hospital's file
And came out wearing a big broad smile:
The mystery had come clear--
For a youthful Mormon mission band
Had come to Erin's gentle land
And a boy was born who was unplanned
In Tim McHale's birth year.

You know your G & S by heart:
Sure enough, on some nurse's part
A mix-up happened at the start--
The infants were confused,
Which is why in faroff Utah's state
Some Mormon parents cursed their fate
Having a son in the constant state
Of staying semi-boozed.

And did the lads change their places?
They did, by God's most holy graces.
Each picked up genetic traces,
Reclaiming his birthright.
Tim dwells in Utah near Salt Lake
And still not a single drop he'll take
While the Mormon boy (whose name is Jake)
Shuts Donovan's down each night.

from The Lives of the Poets

At the Derry NH General Store
Ayah, let's see naow.
Yuh got yuh basic
Apple Pickin' Laddah,
Yuh Handy-Dandy
Wall Mendah,
Yuh Ajax Patented
Birch Bendah,
One gallon of "Snowy Evenin'"
With a wood stoppah,
All propahly mahked up
Only a little ovah cost.
What else can I sell yuh
Today, Mistah Frost?

Imaginis Factor
Though California born
Robert Frost was no fool.
He kept the engine of his old
4-Wheel Drive New England Persona
Tuned, turning-over, and ticking.

Despite all those winters
That he spent near Miami
In the tropical Florida sun,
He never published a single poem
Called "After Papaya Picking."


E.A. Robinson Entertains
a Boy from Bread Loaf
He didn't see me following him,
But I was right behind him when
He came to where those two roads met.

I watched him while he stood and dithered
And carefully noted what was the way
Off on which he finally set.

He didn't take the right road, kid.
He just went and said he did.

And all that stuff about the mite
That he let live upon his page,
That so-called considerable speck?
Don't believe it, boy. Don't be dumb.
He mashed it with his big fat farmer's thumb.

And those woods, lovely, deep, and dark?
Listen, son, he didn't park.
He blew right past.
Little horse? He was in his Ford
And driving fast.

And believe me, kid,
This I know past all knowing:
The night in question--
You can look it up--it wasn't snowing.


On the Way to Ben Bulben
After he paused and cast a cold eye,
The horeseman, admonished, passed by--
And where the steed stood,
As Yeats knew that they would,
Firm and golden the road-apples lie.

Dr. Gogarty Remembers
John Butler Yeats had two daughters
Nicknamed Lily and Lolly.
Early one morn I met them together
While riding a Dublin trolley.

Tipping my hat to them both I said,
"Good morning, Miss Lolly, Miss Lily.
How are those painters, John and Jack,
And your brother, the poet Willie?"

"Thanks be to God, all well," said Lolly,
Nodding the tiniest of nods,
But Lily slyed with a Sligo smile,
"Or in William's case, the gods."

At my stop I alighted and thought
As I walked down Sackville Street:
"Strange family--the men bitterly mad
And the women sweetly sweet."

By Wire from Innisfree
Allergic reaction bee sting stop
Forty-five days unending rain stop
Wattle roof collapsed beans rotted stop
Crickets linnet song driving insane stop
Returning London streets soonest stop
Arrive Paddington eight pm train stop
Love Willie stop

Night School
Ah, off they went to Boston U,
Following Poetry's path--
Yes, off they went to Boston U,
Starbuck and Sexton and Plath.

And who taught them there at Boston U,
Great Poetry all their goal?
Ah, there in that bright seminar room
The teacher was Robert Lowell.

Week after week they attended class.
They drank Lowell's wisdom in,
And then repaired to The Parker House
For Martinis made with gin.

Oh, think how much Poetic Talent
Gathered once in that small zone--
Almost as much as nightly appeared
When Emily wrote alone.