Life Studies

I wonder what Robert Lowell would have said about this foraging self-sufficient hunchback female dwarf?

The Causal Connection

That

Someone casually discovered
The missing link

Had always been missing, now
That was something

Everyone had cause
To miss.

Saying Goodbye to Good Old Terra Firma

Mind set

on fanciful flight,
how on earth

were you expected
to venture

out in the dead of night
to stare

stupefied

at quivering firmament,
dumb feet planted firmly

there.

The Mind Shop

--for David Miller

mind’s crafty
fault lies

in finding
fault less.

Raking the Rock Garden

you’re thinking
it’s time

to water
the mind

scape.

Gesture

voices

of the few we've loved so
far

from us, nothing
matters but this

touch.

(from Sentences, 1976)

Blood Sucks, Brothers

I know it
Sounds bad,

But where

Would we be without
Dracula?

The Cur, the Bitch, and the Doggerel Writing Son of a Bitch

All you rabid fans of shoddy, shaggy dog poems—are you foaming at the mouth for lack of sustenance? Dig no further, I say, for the end of your suffering is just a mouse click away. Sic 'em!

The Bookie

Someone desperate says This is a stickup,
Your money or your life. Given
The choice, which would you

Choose? What a stupid question
I can hear you saying,
My life, of course. I say

Five will get you ten, friend,
Your life’s not worth
A plugged nickel.

White House Memento

Mnemonic

Memo almost forgotten
Whispers on

Tip

Of the page’s
Tongue.

What's up, Doc?

sounds
in

sane
but

to
stay

at
tuned
to
life

and
death

loony
as
a
loon.

In Transit

some continue

to miss
the mystery

others have lost and found.

Swinery

Pigs wallow in

Filth because it makes them
Feel clean

And good, we feel good
And clean only when

We throw it.

New Found Joy

How inexplicable is that

Feeling that

You’ve never felt before.

Early Evening Reality Show

At nightfall
The owl

Perches on
The television

Aerial

And waits until
It can give

Last night’s lucky
Survivor the reception

It needs.

Epidemic

Stopped

In their tracks,
Imagine

Everyone catching
Poetry’s magic

As if it were simply
Another case of common

Affliction.

Alexander-Alexandra Meets Diogenes the Cur

What is this scruffy old dog asking this Nordic-looking goddess? You'll have to go here to find out.

Like a Mermaid in Air

When asked if she knew how

To swim, that naked
Six-year-old sylph surprised us

By showing her breast-
Stroke as she glided

The light fantastic
Over grandma’s

Blue-tiled kitchen floor.