Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Dead Grandpa Chats Up Hosea's Wife in Heaven

Sabbath in Heaven. Again. Unlike Old Nick,
Grandpa may not walk up and down the earth,
smelling a harvest ergot has betrayed
or breathing the salt spray off an inland street.
He look for Hosea's wife for old time's sake.

"'Harlot,' I hate. King James's idea. A strumpet
Is what I was. You'd never know it now,
all sackcloth bustier and Eau d'Ash. No, I wasn't
no Pen-e-lope, stuck in the Spindle room,
fending off suitors for a minor profit."

Under the Tree of Life Old Nick unwinds,
his coils gone drab by sinful repetition.
Vice palls, as Virtue, novelty the need
of fallen natures. God says, "Nihilo,"
when asked, "What's new?" He took you back, says Gramps.

Hosea's wife is sure that she was wronged,
round heels in a square bed. It isn't fair.
"I know," she says. "I'd show you what I know,
but will has been redeemed and cannot form
the wish to sell you half-and-half." "I wish,"
says Grandpa. Old Nick, thinking fruit, recalls
how badly people do theology.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Where has all the prose gone?

 I used to post the occasional prose commentary here.  I don't seem to be doing that any more, perhaps because FB and Twitter have usurped that function.  After all, though I am chockful of poesie, I am only occasionally prosaic.  If you miss it, I can refer you to the appropriate venues.  Or you could read Macaulay's History of England instead.

Riding the Interstate

At night, half in a daze, I drive this plain,
And here the highway lunges through the town
Where you lie sleeping in your husband's bed.
Love and anathema rest on your head.

Friday, October 06, 2017

Lonesome Dove

The Lord of Hosts, less likely than he was,
Has trouble transubstantiating. Age
Diminishes the organs, ties a knot
Where ichor should run freely. There is smoke,
As much as censers will allow, but lungs
Plead less than full capacity. He wants
To walk with Abraham through burnished fields
And play at 4-square in a grove of figs.

When he told Zeus, Get out of town by dark,
This cosmos isn’t big enough for both
Us top dogs, when the 3:10 came on time
And brought the new girls in from Port Royal,
He wore his star with flair, the streets kept clean,
The inns full up, the livery swept free
Of dead wood, and the drinks were on the house
Each holiday. What if Apollo now

Came back with Clantons, Saracens, and Popes?
Boot Hill is full enough. Each rock has served
The faithful for a pillow. Though he knows
The sleep number of every broken back,
He must draw faster if he is to keep
Trying the souls as numberless as stars.
His feet hurt, and his beard is patchier.
He’ll make more girls tonight, perhaps at Belle’s.

Sunday, October 01, 2017

Googling Myself


I am perhaps the 27th most
Famous Richard Epstein and only the 3rd
Best-known poet with that salubrious
Nom de poesie.  How disheartening, I
Clear on their cantos, they born with a goose
As close at hand as pablum, porpentines
And crows prêt-à-porter.  And some splice genes,
Those better RHEs, the clones with Sir
And MBE and Friend of Man, the rich
And many-Googled.  Some are just mistakes:
Confounded with RHEtoric syllables,
They pass for Baudelaire and silver swans
And anadiplosis—anadiplosis for
The bogus Epsteins, hidden in the stacks
Of South Dakota junior colleges.

Somebody found me yesterday who meant
Me and no other me: he wanted my
Personal appearance at his most grave
Conclusion.  I was one of 49
CCd, but I was all the RHE.
This John Smith will be carried to his last
By 6 John Smiths, strong men on either side,
And none a pasta critic for The Mail
But he: he gets a plot all to himself.
The squirrels will celebrate: see, they will say,
We never needed any special name.