On a Phrase Of Randall Jarrell's--From His Introduction To The Selected Poems Of William Carlos Williams

“Nothing is more important than the way it looks” 

If we are to concur with Jarrell’s premise, 
We must take it one step further 
And admit that looks are everything, 

And if so, we must also ask ourselves
What’s to be said of nothing--
That it looks like nothing? 

The Quandary

Nesting inside 
A healthy beast 

Lies another less 
Healthy beast 

Inside another 
Less healthy one 

And so it goes— 
Somewhere therein 

Lies the key 
To the puzzle 

No healthy beast wants 
To solve. 

Fate of a Graphically Novel Nondescript Porno Poet

he knew all 
too well 
his fab femmes fatales 

musings would find him 
graphically broken 
at the end 

of one mushy anticlimactic 
line after another, 
and where 

nothing he laid down 
before them in vain- 
glorious color could stop them 

from coming 
sheathed in plain 
black-and-white 

fictions again and again. 

Murderous Mindset

That fleeting image you thought 
You’d captured and which
You were planning to use 
When next faced with another 

Downer dead end has just turned 
The corner and is now hurtling down 
That old familiar highway headed 
For the next mind-blowing bend—

Throttle it before it too goes off 
The deep end. 

Almost Ultimate Haiku

That image running 
Through your mind could be your last— 
Try to make it last.