The Grim Reaper Leaves

An Optimistic Calling Card


Hi, Claude Hopper—

Sorry to hear you were out plowing
The poor-yielding lower forty when I called,

Better luck next year.

Dichotomies of a Lesser God

If it is not good that so much evil exists,
Is it not evil to think even less

Of the opposite?

Definitely Not Lemmings #21

A very warm welcome to Jim Murdoch for coming on board. Believe me, if you want to know the truth about lies, there's no better place to look than his blog!

Scenes of the Crime

ZICL (Zambaras Institute for the Corruption of Language aka Zambaras School of English). The perfect spot for executing what aspires to pass as passable composition, whether it be fiction, non-fiction or (egad!) piddling poesy masquerading as profundity.

The "Milk and Honey" House. The poet's chief hideout and inner sanctum. Witnesses are kindly requested to focus on the fireplace, the existence of which makes it child's play to destroy any incriminating evidence, i.e the stacks of earlier drafts of poetry which, if found by literary ghouls after the poet has departed the scene, will certainly be used against him when he is put on postmortem trial for debasing the currency.

Bukofsky Strikes Again

There is and there is not
A right way to write
A poem—

Which is like saying
Excuse me if I'm wrong but
Would it be all right

If I just say “Fuck it”?

Reunion

You seemed lovely then,
you with your shadow-breaking smile
and so much light beneath the skin,
beneath the sun that spun above us
and the wind.

There is no hiding it: This sun
is not the sun we knew,
or ever hope to know,
now that our coming near again
after our letting go, leads only
to shadows, dried-up landscapes,
last summer's cicadas stunned into silence.

(from Sentences, 1976)

Wanna Be a Poet?

Choose your words

Carefully if you must,
But never lose track of how

Many have been rejected.