Poems 1
French teachers taught us
Beauty
Age
Goodness
Size.
But what if we think beauty’s goodness, or, au contraire,
Think goodness simply ordinaire—
How would such prestidigitation
Conjure different conjugations?
Better all the world to burn
Than a jest spake out of turn.
Rather matter over mind
Than mind over matter
For what's on the mind
Is what is the matter.
In what relation
Stands creator to creation
Or the patient to patience, lest you forget
And in relation stand
To time unspent.
I know why the caged bird moans
He had to read your shitty poems.
Sticking his neck out,
Falling on his sword,
The man was hoist
By his own petard.
New York is an island bereft of loch
But the Scotchmen don’t have Battery Park.
I hate my dog
I hope it dies
It ate my hot dog and my fries.
I love my dog
We worked it out
It ate up all my Brussels sprouts!
I do not agree with the current convention
That trepanning the skull will relieve sinus tension.
Aunt Frieda and Aunt Ned
Both have holes in their head
While I have my pride, and congestion.
Environmental protection
Repels circumspection,
The placards they post
Are ubiquitous.
The dogs are all curbed
And the grass undisturbed
But the signs, for their part, remain hideous.
Answer the question they mean, not the question they ask,
Or you’ll look like a stupid, pedantic ass.
From morning til dusk
And dusk til morn,
All that’s been shod
Must always be shorn.
Every language learner knows
The more you drink,
The better it goes.
If he were a true tyrant be
He’d lord over nobler than we.
What trimmings trim these walls
That no chimney brings to surface?
What, having amassed at last
A lifetime’s morass, will
You contrive to circumscribe
A cadence to extinction
As thoughts contrive to hide inside
What drives them to distinction—
Suggestive of motion—
Still, but
La fille, ses cheveux blonds
Veut déménager, mais quand?
Regardera-t-elle la Rio Grande
Avant que la terre fait sa ronde?
Le garçon, ses bouts de sein noirs
Et lui, qu’est-ce qu’il y a qu’il veut voir?
Plein ayant mangé sa tête hier soir
Il a reçu le vide comme pourboire.
My name is Poe.
Poe Taster.
Composer of doggerel.
Spanish for
El Dog—
Grrrrr!
Living in our living room,
Sitting in the sitting—
Kitsch is in the kitchen room,
Crockery’s in the dining—
In a cabinet, so heaven-sent,
A cabaret, our little home!
Have courage—
When you face down the morning’s porridge
This martini tastes good.
Ah, that’s why—
I forgot to order it dry.
I haven’t got a way with words, I looked as if to say
And she understood me clearly, or at least it looked that way.
The calloused cellist’s paws
Glossed malice—mellifluous malice
Parity with where the strings traced
The instrument’s maw,
The maw of the man as he cried and he screamed
And he drinks—
It’s only right that a dog lifts his leg up to pee
But why God, why, did he do it on me?
Fresh-faced, in the morning, she greets me—
Fresh-faced, wanders off
Where does she go to fresh-faced during that time at which, for excess of heat, the palmers scoff?
I aver
The impressionists erred
In making their paintings plein-air—
Better to shape landscapes that aren't there.
The sonatas he wrote
As if in smoke—
Every thought
That I forgot
Conspired to keep me breathing.
The will triumphs all,
But the compass it triumphs is actually quite small.
Thanks to a change in the terms and conditions
The once victimless crime
Claims now a victim.
From toddle to dodder,
Tot to totter—
Nought that's sought is fit for fodder.
I have a snapping turtle named Fred—
Don’t pat his head!
I don’t believe in rainy days
In clouds of brown
In silver haze—
When winter turns the elm trees birch
I’m like the starling on his perch—
To leave my calling in the lurch
And never care
For weather fair
But stay to take the turning air—
Some people say it’s the breast—
Some people say it’s the dark meat—
But I say the best part of the chicken
Is the feet.
I heave at the net,
And the fishes are breath,
But escaped through the sieve,
Like a mighty oak,
Is a widower minnow,
Elusive as smoke...
The rest of my day
Will get spent in this way:
Trying to align
My punishment to the crime
Trying to find
Amongst all the sea
The one truant breath…