Sunday, January 9, 2011

Huuklyeand Cinquor on the Unamused Muse

Don’t you read me loud and clear,
You foot-dragging, lifeless
Klutzes cluttering up my rear?
I said it’s deadline time!

Okay.

Now, take one final step forward,
Put your lives on the line and please,
Please don’t make me repeat myself,
Do I make myself clear?

Moderator’s comments: I don’t know about you but I find Cinquor’s tirade against deadbeat poets totally uncalled-for because it oversteps the bounds of poetic decency; after all, where would our muse be if it weren’t for that long illustrious line of bootlickers waiting their turn to grovel at her feet—or should I say feat?

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Unlikely Figures of Speech


They wanted
The inconceivable—

A world

Where each word
Would be human

Enough to be
Like you and me.


Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Increasing Your Odds for Survival in the Animal Kingdom

My three-year-old niece
Wants me to draw her favorite

Animal—a wolf—so I draw a wolf;
That’s nice, she says, and then asks me

To draw a boy and a girl,
So I draw a boy and a girl.

Looking at the pair and pursing her lips
In thought, she then asks me if I could please

Draw them holding swords, just in case
Her favorite is thinking

Nasty thoughts.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City

No lyric poetry here, just pure Ionian tragedy:


By Marjorie Housepian Dobkin, Newmark Press, N.Y., 1998 (Second reprint of Faber edition, London, 1972).

After reading the introduction and the closing chapter here, get the book and see for yourself how little has changed in the world of diplomacy.


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