Love It or Leave It

The capital 
Argument recognizing de facto 
Climate change still holds 
No water in the “proper” channels— 

Thus any H2O wanting to pass 
Off as bottled effluent on its way 
Towards overflowing affluence 
Has to make like a zillion trees 

And piss off. 

Pilloried

. . .the poet— 
brats in the street fling shit at him. . .

--George Seferis, “Three Secret Poems” 


As a matter 
Of course he viewed 
His art as nothing 
To be jeered at, 

Yet whoever had 
Put together that 
Display of words 
And set it down 

Without even once 
Having thought 
Twice about how 
It would be received— 

Should not that hapless 
Spectacle of self be rewarded 
With poesy of like kind left 
To fend for itself like that? 

No Small Marvel

wondering how 

silence works 

Rising to the Occasion (2)

No matter how quickly 
They were set down, 
Poems ought always to be

Read slowly— 
Too many 
People have wasted 

Too much 
Of their breath 
Already. 

Lemons Are a Dime a Dozen

Lacking a flashy brand- 
New first line to start 
Their vehicles, most 
Poets traffic in selling you 

On the merits of waiting 
For a killer last, killing 
Time in the meanwhile 
By knocking off lots, 

Lots of lackluster gimcrack,
Secondhand cars. 

Alienating the Self

Admit it— 
hard not to 

believe, harder still 
to acknowledge 

a complete stranger. 

Waking the Dead

You don’t have to 
Sleep on it—not 

As hard as it sounds— 
Silence is the only sound 

They understand.