Thoreauvian
Contrariwise, contrariwise
Is how you should lead your life:
Told to march to a different drum,
Listen for a fife.

Alternate History
How different things would be
On this sorrowful globe
If Mother Eve had been
An ophidiophobe.

A Metaphor for Irony

A metaphor for irony?

Nothing simpler, nothing neater:

Having diabetes makes

One's ice cream all the sweeter.

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.