Niggardly And Dutiful At All Costs

Precious the memories, so 
Dear in fact he keeps them 

Hoarded in a satchel given 
To him by a doting mother 

Who shilled him 
Into guarding it 

With his life till 
He’ll remember how 

Much he wasted of it. 

You Know Something's Not Right In Our Heads: The Syria Syndrome

When Uma Thurman’s Kill 
Bill’s car stunt crash that might 
Have decapitated her in 2003 
Gets more live coverage 
Than the twisted 

Lifeless 
Truncated 
Bodies 

Of kids blasted 
To pieces before 
Unbelieving eyes 

Every 
Living 
Day. 

Mean Times Iconoclastic

“What’s to be done or said in the meanwhile I don’t know, 
and what is the use of poets in a mean-spirited time?” 
—Friedrich Hölderlin, from “Bread and Wine” 


At such times, the true 
Believer’s mind believes

The eye can 
Take in only so much, 

And wonders if what 
It cannot see 

Otherwise is likewise as 
Unbelievably shattering, 

To say the least. 

One Scrambled Alter Ego Sandwich To Go

Y’know, dude, 
You don’t have to 
Put yourself out, 
Always asking 
What it is I want— 
It’s plain as the egg 
On your face— 
I want you to be 
A hard-boiled customer 
Who knows exactly what 
He wants—that’s your order— 
Try sinking your teeth into that.

King of the Mountain's Fantastic Leaps and Bounds

Trudging to grade 
School with their heads down, 

His two older sisters well ahead 
Of him, the boy spies 
The small beckoning

 
Hardened mound of sand 
At the abandoned building 
Site the girls have chosen 
To ignore, and which after 
Dashing at the speed of light

 
For all of twenty yards 
Yelling his head off, 
He now leaps from base 
Camp to the summit 
In one superhuman bound— 

 
Demonstrating once again, 
Esteemed ladies and gentlemen 
Of the Faculty of Cognitive 
Sciences, that learning by rote 
Was, is, and shall forever be 
Solely for the pedestrian 

Earthbound.