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.