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.