Watermark Writ In Marble

So you think you are carving
Out a name for yourself—well,

Keats knew better than that,
And he wasn't a stonemason.

After Wittgenstein: Bellwether Logical Propositions

It may snow tomorrow 
Or it may not 

Happens to be at once both
An empty form and also
Absolutely accurate,
But does not tell us
Anything about what
The weather will be like
Tomorrow, that remains

The job of poets.

Anonymous: Lyric Mermaid On Lesbos*

Oh, how distant Aphrodite’s 
Lush, full-bodied labials are, 

While I, by loneliness wretched, 
Half-crazed and wasted, am fated 

To lie here—how long?—bemoaning 
My lot on this solitary, desolate shore. 

*from The Erotic Aegean: An Anthology Of Greek Love Poetry, Eressos, Mytilene, 1969, (trans. Saffilis Zaengmac).

Welcome To Bonehead Logic 096 At Ye Olde School Of Hard Knocks

where 
ante- 

diluvian 
hard 
core 
faculty’s 
faulty 

neo 
syllo- 
gisms 

be
come 
soft 

in 
the 
head 

mean 
old 
vulgar 
mind 
fucks 

You Asked For It So You Better Believe It

Sport, I told you straight out 
You were light years out 

Of your league when you insisted 
Your poetry had more polish 

And pizzaz than me and boy 
Have you ever got a whopper 

Of a shiner to show for it now, 
You see?