Beaux Bois, e.g.

 

The trains still run through small, eccentric towns,

Mostly at night, the children, brave in their beds,

Dreaming of sleeping somewhere else, so young

They think that Indiana is escape—

Trains still pass by the silos, which are not

Mere symbols of desire, and they pass

What used to be a station, but is now

A home for unwed orphans, and they pass

Fireflies making fun of locomotives.

And nobody jumps the train. If it slows down,

That’s so the engineer can take a leak

On Illinois, grateful for the attention.

The children who wake up—well, more or less—

Will check if they are now emancipate.

They’re not; but tracks still run both ways at once.

The Philosophy of Composition

 

What do you do with a broken priest?

Feed him to the populace,

Never enough for a perfect feast,

Never for surfeited success,

But the crowd is hungry. Meat is rare,

Entertainment is anywhere.

Deserves what he gets, the broken priest,

The chattering mute, the empty bag.

Nothing but scraps, down to the least

Disordered ort on the fleeing hag.

Tell it at night, and make it scan,

Delicate rhyme for a damaged man.

The Arc of History

 

Phoebus in his coat and tie

Caught the barista’s wandering eye,

And all was won, and love was done,

And love produced an errant son.

And all the world was hot and dry.

A shepherd in a foundered field

Found him a maid and made her yield.

A golden age, by golden rule,

Began its rain, and it was cool,

Its prior mystery concealed.

They called it fable, called it lore,

The days of rain, the age of ore.

And all of those who came behind

Said it been by love designed,

And they were what had been in store.

A Stock Response

 

You start with stocks, or pillories, I forget,

Celery, carrots, adultery, and shame.

Noodles, of course, and breasts or bits of thigh,

Steeped and simmered, exposed and ridiculed

And made to represent healthy choice and sin

And dreams of crepuscular orange and azure strolls.

Have another, you look so thin, you have

Tomato on your forehead—someone’s aim

Was pretty good after all. Have you been thinking

About what your father said? You have to speak

After it’s done, you know: what separates

Us from the lower beasts is chat. And veg,

Plucked from their beds at pleasurable peaks,

Simmered and skimmed and pricey past all pearls.