Scum Bag

Not having anything wholesome

To offer the hoi polloi,

I’ll just give them

The benefit of the doubt

And give myself

Wholly away.

First Time at Bat: Advice to the Slugger

Son, you just

keep your eye

on the ball

and stay away

from slimebags

as you touch

all three bases

on your way

back home.

Definitely Not Lemmings #35

A warm welcome to N. G. Lykomitros who joins us from Athens, Greece. Nikos studied English Language and Literature and did graduate work in translation at the University of Athens; his first book of poems was published by Gavriilidis Editions ( Athens 2010) and translated into Spanish by a mutual friend, the Spanish poet and translator Mario Domínguez Parra.

For the Last Time, I'm Telling You All I Know

Say it was translated

Into intelligible speech,

This poet’s sibyllic

Song would still sound

Like no song ever

Heard before.

In Terrorem

Remember:

in

ter

min

able,

un

flinch

ing

err

or

un

er

ring

ly

true,

e

pluribus

unum

skull

and

bones,

red

white,

blue.

On Second Thoughts

This rock is so set

In its ways, it refuses

To budge an inch,

Even if you

Give it a mile.

Poet Milking Sacred Cow

Victual Reality, Or How American Poets Are Turning

The Poem Into Tripe

Merle’s

hag-

gard

old

sagging

cow

belly’s

gone

to

pot.

The photograph late April 1975, half-way through a coast-to-coast motoring trip from Seattle to Boston; the poem twenty-some years later—maybe our titillating poet should have thought twice before regurgitating it.