332 words
Reflections
The ruffles of a cloud are like a rose
Recalling past romance; the flaming pyre
Of setting sun recalls a warm wood fire.
Old bark-stripped wood reflects a dryad’s pose.
Rain mimics the faint rattle of parades;
Bright, brassy sounds recall a marigold.
354 words
Last Christmas
I’d rushed there through the afternoon
In someone else’s borrowed car
Where you, distressed I’d come too soon,
Were giving samples in a jar.
The last I ever spoke with you
Was in that long, cold, darkened ward.
Snow washed outside like waves, and you
Were slipping slowly overboard. (more…)
Pere Borrell del Caso, Escaping Criticism, 1874
351 words
The Opening
A round of foolish crowding where
Some fools conflate to praise the worst,
And pretense forms an iron square
From which you dare not be the first
To step aside from what this crowd
Of curators has deemed the best
Or speak your thoughts a bit too loud,
Then place them counter to the rest.
Christian Schloe, Metamorphoses
379 words
A Neighborhood
My heart’s a stranger now to what
Is left, the peeling paint, each rut
Where once was order, color, life,
But now seems filled with futile strife.
Small streets within an angled space
Where roofs pushed down on us at night,
For all was waiting to ignite.
Lace tracery of leaves through light
Inspired thoughts so sharp and tight,
I often wish we could repeat
436 words
Momentary Still Life
Angles of patterned cloth,
Dried summer blooms against the wall
Echo the mounting call
Of migrant birds. A fragile moth
Holds to its wavering way,
Threads through the clambering stems. A vase
(more…)
Slippery performance artist Matthew Barney
578 words
Vaseline at the Guggenheim
On reading “Oleo Olio” from
THE NEW CRITERION,
Vol. No. 7, March 2003
Oh, where’s the likes of Oscar Wilde
To denigrate that evil child
Who climbs about? He doesn’t spare us
When greasing up his open areas.
Of all things I might choose to see
It’s not his anus — it’s not he!
(more…)
250 words
An Update
Inspired by W. H. Auden’s “Doggerel by a Senior Citizen”
Our lives are electronic now,
Obsequiously we scrape and bow
To every gimmick passing by
And never stop to question why.
What craze is this to get a nook
That does not look like any book?
Nor does it angle as it might
Atop the stair, beneath a light. (more…)
281 words
Cobbling Poems
On Fridays I line up before the thrift shop
Much like the squirrel, I’m building up a store.
Some wild exotics that would make your eyes pop
Grab baskets, and we rush the open door.
I search for some commodities and trinkets
To decorate the structure of my life,
Give it more meaning, make it work. I think it’s
Like painting landscape with a palette knife —
191 words
Reveries
With apologies to Joyce Kilmer
I think there’s nothing quite so dumb
As humped up shoulder, callused thumb
Made stiff and sore from twittering
Amid misspellings, skittering
Across a screen. Oh, what a sight
(more…)