The One and Only Spring

  

Spring left a note. It is not coming back.

Another spring, impostor, may be here,

May look and sound and smell like spring, sincere,

Display the right credentials, have the knack

Of daffodil and cuckoo, but it won’t

Be spring. Which left. Which took its green away

And said it loved us, but it could not stay.

They say they are forever, but they don’t

Make promises, the crocus and the leaf,

Or mean to. By Be patient, they mean Grief

Comes in a wicker basket, every day.

Dinner At The Dog 'n' Suds

The devil at the Dog 'n' Suds was hot,

But he was down with that, and he took long
Views, eternal darkness, and blah blah blah.
There wasn’t much imagination blessed
By Heaven. Here, though, he found beer and red
Hots, which helped the hopeless to feel at home.
Nor was it such a bad world, fallen grit
And unarticulated anger. Back
At home a pit for every sin and points
Deducted. Here the dry winds ate away
The names of everything and everyone;
And at the last were rock and gray and mud.
Why, then, would he mind dinner at the Dog
And acid reflux for his angel food?

A Muse Bouche

  

Least of all scruples, failure to remove

The restless ant by well-shod squashing, will

Refrain from formicide, grammatically.

So said the Muse pro Forma, who declined

Explaining further. Comme d'habitude, of course.

Bestowing roses, all the asters gone,

She smiled my way and spat, which must be something.

I sang her "Autumn Leaves," but I said "Auden,"

And she dissolved, bequeathing a hill of ants

Shaped like a castle, right there on the rug.

"Remember when we all were friends," I said;

But ants don't laugh or break into applause.

If they were singing, none of it would rhyme,

All of them buzzed by unison. They're not.

The Poet Protection Program

  

    This appeared in Angle.

No more dactyls, never a dactyl, they

advised me. You must change your life. If not,

if you let on you know whose torso that

was hacked from, you're a goner. If you must,

be missed, then be prepared: you are a dead

poet, a name, your rep, anthologies

of what you said; and what you might have done,

you won't. You may observe the beggared moon,

the way it fits, entangled in the trees

midwinter sends at midnight. But say nothing.

I can write a different verse, a prose

of fits and starts. Hot taps, cold showers.

I'll bet I can do the sinuously mellifluous

periods, the byzantine gravity-free

construction of those whose libraries, like

their concubines, are kept for show, not use.

Formal gardens. Plumy tilth. I can be a

magpie daedalian artificer of crackerjack

miniatures, a head-lamped Faberge who

mines the thesaurus for uncut stunners and bodies

forth a facet for every season. I can do shopping

lists. 1 lb honey-cured bacon. 2 pkgs green beans

(frozen). Magical fruits, limp leeks, the nectarines

sent Hank J Jr in dreams as he associated the terrible

accident and dread vastation. Bran Flakes.

I tried it. Gave rhyme up. Pared. Mute, made all

my meters feet and inches. Read the backs

of jelly jars and fabric softeners.

Touched no one, no how. Celebrated love

with my mouth shut, like everybody else.

And moved. And moved again. I didn't say

where I was going. But they knew, who sent

an agent over with his standard contract

to stare at martial shadows, which I think

hide broken spondees. Or an anapest.

I shall wait here. The air is full of strange

motions and apparitions, all the ghosts

of rooms I shall not write in. I shoot blanks,

buckshot, wad-cutters, dum-dums. I have thrown

books through the windows. Let the bright sky in.

The Girl In The Red Honda

Knights fell a lot.  And there they lay,

Lumps on the grass or in the mud,
Their armor like a suit of clay,
Rescuing maidens, giving blood.
The dragons chuckled, and the maidens
Planted cherries in their gardens.

Cherries ripe, but very wrong
For knights encased. Whenas they ride,
They sing, but every note of song
Is lost to echoes deep inside.
The ladies listen, if they can
Desist from planting pits for man.

We leave our dragons in their caves.
We watch the maidens drive away.
The knights are cool, but agile thieves
Thrive in the distance. Dawns the day,
And knights are bold and old and gone,
Cherries ripe in the subtle dawn.

Algernon Swinburne Dreams Of Going Out

 This appeared in Angle.

The king is dead. Oh, no, he's not. He's resting,

What with his busy week, dissolving monks

And roasting papists with a garlic clove

And celery stalk apiece. He raised the tax

On gingham. His monopoly on dust,

More valuable than mail, he auctioned off

to the new Chancellor of the Campanile.

The belles, the belles: they're gathering out front,

Leaning against portcullis rails, in wigs

As high as cotton candy and as pink.

Teased and tormented in the cages above

The gate, the entertainment, curled like shrimp,

Moans, and the would-be guests whistle and stomp.

The ball begins with Taffelmusik. Bits

Of quarter-note-shaped ice bob in the punch

Just long enough to clarify the king's

Intentions: he would dip the band in tar,

The perfect pitch a torch unto the blind,

And all be spared who buy a savings bond.

Not In The House

 

The galleries of art

Keep paintings far apart

From dining nook and bath.

Jupiter's splendid wrath,

The tart's décolletage,

The twilight of the Raj—

Too vain for your garage,

They loom there on the wall,

Silent gilt, grown small.