from the mailbag

Dear "u stink":

Yes, I get to decide whether your "comment" shows up here or not. I'm sorry you feel offended and excluded, but not all that sorry.

I can summarize your unposted comment for you; maybe that will salve your lacerated sensibilities. You don't like me; you don't like my poems; you suspect I dress funny; I was spawned by Satan; I am personally responsible for Israeli foreign policy and, apparently, Venezuela's, too; and you are convinced I was raised by evil nuns in evening gowns, who tempted me with illicit decolletage while flogging me for not having memorized Lesbia Brandon.

Actually, I made that last part up. You didn't say anything nearly that interesting. And there's an o in "people," not a double e.

P.S. Yes, I see that have only 1 "follower," though "pariah" [note spelling; it rhymes with "Mariah," as in Carey or they call the wind] seems a bit harsh. I'm sure you're correct in saying many bloggers have more--hordes, throngs, multitudes fed with loaves and anapests. All of them should be watching parking meters.

Say it ain't so

Is it true that orange rhymes with Blorenge, a hill in Wales?

from the mailbag

RHE you know nobody reads this don't you? I read it enough to know that nobody reads it, so I guess I wasn't right when I said nobody reads it. Maybe I should of said something like Almost nobody reads this blog and nobody but you cares about it. Don't you have anything better to do?

Dear Sir or Madam:

No.

Your poems all sound a lot alike to me, same voice every time. Maybe it's time for some variety.

I can't say you're wrong, but the explanation--which is that I wrote them all--suggests how little I can do about it. I have the same reaction when I read through a collected Hardy or Yeats or Frost or Housman. Superior voices, maybe, but they give one the same feeling of surfeit. The answer probably is something like, Lyric poems by the same poet shouldn't be read in bulk. A few poems at a time, from a volume dipped into at random, may be a better way to go.

You are an energizer bunny. Don't you ever get discouraged?

Thank you. Yes.

Are the bagels any good in Denver?

Not as good as they are elsewhere. The locals blame the altitude. I think it's global warming. Or maybe the Illuminati. To be fair, the rellenos can be very good indeed.

RHE