It Takes a Villeinage

      This appeared in Plainsongs.

In high dudgeon, as horsehair crests exude
Manliness and confidence and ye olde
Tyme-iness, the warriors produce speeches,
Spontaneous and metrical and crammed
With tropes, the bridge across Antiquity
To Meriwether Lewis Junior High.
It doesn't span it, quite. Into the cleft
Fall sleeping children, doomed to curse and rail
Like Thersites and feofor-princes. Better
To be a live shoe salesman in the Loop
Than eloquent in school libraries, pent
On clammy shelves in dusty inglenooks
Where Edie strips and Bobby Millstone waits.

When It Was New

 

This house when it was new

was mine. Now we have aged

past midpoint. When I grew

that elm, I kept it caged

a year or so. It soars

and crowds the house beside,

as if the out of doors

were one great neighbor wide.

I guess we haven’t altered

because I went away,

nor would these roots have faltered

if I had chanced to stay;

and yet it seems it bided

until I turned my face,

like someone then decided

to let it have the place.

Bedtime Stories

 

Watch out for the ogre, guys. I can hear him

climbing the stone stairs, trailing his nailed club

as he limps up and up. At the wrong door

you all kept vigil. He has got behind you.

He's closer now. His boots scuffle and slide.

The upshot always is, "He's going to get you."

They gasp, if the timing's right, and are content.

Those stupid bears. Those damn fool pigs. Wolves. Mice.

Bears and oatmeal? Perfect. Talking chickens?

Fairies and trolls? Let's have a story called

The Wicked Jogger or Three Billy Goats

and Their Tax Auditor. "Forget it, Dad."

Stick to what's unseen. What never could be

Plunks them the deepest; pulses thrill to beanstalks;

the house of twigs still stands, as green as summer.

Mom's gone. She was enlightened by a genie

who's granted her three wishes and red shoes.

"No, Dad. Come on." Well, then, there was this frog

who kissed this princess who wore golden slippers

and never met a prince she didn't like.

The Gentle Scansion

 This appeared in Poetry Ink quite a long time ago.

Of all places for me to be, I am

driving into West Virginia. Suddenly

the smell of pickles is everywhere,

ignoring the rolled up windows, pouring

through the twang of heartbreak and divorce

on the AM station, which is all I have.

It's a paper plant, I think. Or chemicals,

maybe. They are about the same,

paper and ink or clot-dissolving solvents.

Somehow the pickle smell of West Virginia

opens the way, foreruns the gentle scansion,

lyrics that tell, pastel, how much I wanted

to open that pale Magdalene's long legs.

The Last of the Elephant Jokes

 

This appeared in Freefall.

I packed the family trunk--and, no, it’s not
Elephantine, it’s mine. Beneath the lid
I hid my tattered grey epistlery,
So I would not forget. (All right, it is.)
A ruff of many colors for the pit,
In case I met my masters, and the hat
They gave me for becoming Little Man.
I’m bigger now. I packed a razor, tunes,
A toy piano, and my ivory bowl.
(It sings when stroked.) I can go anywhere.
By early light I sway, but what I want
Is the imagined graveyard of my kind--
In Tuscaloosa or the floral Keys,
In Agincourt or Lower Slaughter, last
Pacific places, where no one will look.
I am almost extinct, but I have room.
You’ll know me by my footprints in the Jell-O.

October Roses

 

It’s cold at night, or didn’t you know
This isn’t when the roses grow?
Under the hawthorns, in the shade,
The birds have gone, but you have stayed,
Underdesigned for taking flight.
Color cannot put all things right.
And now it snows, at which the frost
Declares that delicacy is lost.
And still you bloom, and for today
Keep ice and emptiness away.
So Keats, who failed, and failed in youth,
Let Beauty claim that it was Truth.

Big Day In A Small Town

 

Later the rhino slept on the main street,

And all the cars drove scrupulously around,

Even though no one knew its christian name

Or where it had grown up or gone to school

Or went to church or who its people were.

"Please let me sleep," the sign beside it said,

Which seemed little enough for one so big.

The children liked it best, of course, and made

A kudzu hat with daisies for a brim

To keep its gentle dermis safe and sweet.

Somebody said that we should call the cops,

So we threw rocks at him until he left.

The next day it was gone and took the sign.

A shonda it was, or so the elders said.