Little "Shaver" (Paper Boy), August, 1905

(photograph by Lewis W. Hine)

Barefoot, leaning 
Back against gigantic candy- 
Striped barber pole, 

Says he’s six years old, all of 
Forty-one inches high, the paper he’s holding 
That takes up half his frame holds 

All the news you’d want to know. 

Eonian Mode

Though the wind laments in fits 
And starts betwixt silences, 

Still its song remains one 
Long—nay—endless 

Sigh. 

Looking Backward

Of course you know one foot goes 
Before the other but what if 

You say it led you the other way? 

Telltale

All told 

The townsfolk sometimes tell time 
By the toll of the town clock bell; 

All save one tell one’s time’s up 
By the church bell’s telling 

Toll, toll, toll. 

After the Fall

Where the remains of the stock had come 
To rest, there no longer gathered a congress

Of crickets whose sole lot in life was 
To sing while stripping it  

Unceremoniously bare. 

Loopholes

Quick, quick, tie those loose ends up— 
You don’t want them to know who 

Those dangling legs belong to. . . . . . .

Timely Disclosure

Behind the motionless foliage of the pepper tree, 
A thin, half-hidden crescent will soon reveal itself fully— 

But wait—what folly thinking I’ll begin to see 
What yesterday evening was hidden from me. 

Poetic Vessel

Before you find yourself haplessly
Maneuvering between the two 
Black Clashing Rocks 

On the way to your next port of call, 
Stop over at one called Ithaca and stay long 
Enough to find out what it means— 

It’s either that or it’s time 
To give up the ship.

Eye Opener: Letter to Philip Larkin

Dear Mr. Larkin, 

I just finished reading your poem “This Be the Verse” 
For Mr. Throckmorton A. Thrasher’s English class, 
And as he wants us all to write you 
Our impressions of it or else, I just want to say 
I don’t remember my folks fucking me up one bit— 
Come to think of it, I don’t recall them fucking at all; 
From the looks of it, I guess yours did it 
In plain view of everybody, including you. 

Sincerely yours, 

Thomas LeVoyeur III, 
R. Clement Caning School of Interdisciplinary 
Inquisitional Studies, 13 Hard Knox Lane, 
Sully Hull, England 

Malala

No tears. Her name’s all 
Song and it’s all 

Ready a rallying cry.

Rash

Looking back 

In your great haste, that moonlit snail 
Trail you rashly took for inspiration, now 

Having barely scratched the surface, the soiled 
Spectacle of lunatic ants over the moon 

In your underpants, dejection.

That Last Chapter, Just Like That

“I think as I age, I’m becoming more historical.” 
—Sylvia Plath, from a 1962 interview 


Not what you might think at first but simply that 
She was beginning to read more history, 
Nothing more than that.

 . 


2012 and now looking at a photograph of her, 
Young and looking so vivacious 
Some fifty years back, it’s hard to imagine 
How that lovely head could have 
Put an end to it all—

.


(So terrible a timeworn phrase, 
To be avoided at all costs)

 . 


Yet the longer and harder you look, 
You cannot help but see 

Her eyes are trying hard 
To focus on whatever it was 

That made it all so easy.

Study

On clear days, always 
Above my PC screen, 
The small square 

Window composed of dark
Green cypress boughs before 
A backdrop of cloudless sky-blue— 

On moonless starry nights,
Introspection shining through. 

Artiste

With greatest of ease 
Before high 

White sidewall, grey 
Brown sparrow 

Flittering on be 
Spattered pied 

Scaffolding. 

William Carlos Williams' Amulet

--for the children of Gaza, amongst so many others
 

Of the innocent 

image of the grand 
child who entered 
the new world naked, 

now sleeping in 
its grandmother’s frail 
arms, the good doctor 

would have made medicine 
strong enough to ward off evil 
unseeable and still have us 

keep an eye on it.