A Poem for the Girls Writing All Those Poems

  

So you picture yourself

in a cream satin t-shirt

writing a poem about

you writing a poem about

your cream satin t-shirt,

how when he breaks in

on you writing a poem about

writing a poem about

your cream satin t-shirt,

he’ll be so excited

about you so excited

about writing a poem

about him so excited,

he’ll shred the damn t-shirt,

sweep you and your poem

right off your futon

and someone will publish

your poem because it is

true as a t-shirt,

besides which, the paper

is cream, like the t-shirt.

And, smooth as it is,

the poem you’re writing

about writing a poem,

who needs the boy?

Or if he shows up,

while you’re still in your t-shirt,

all cream and all satin,

who needs the poem?

What If The Evil Twin

  

What if the evil twin prevails?

What if the Count of Darkness jails

The better half? And pulls his testes?

What if the loyal troupe, his besties,

Good and fidele as earth and salt,

Are swatted away? Then, oy gewalt,

There is the end of fairy tales.

The kingdom falls. The black barge sails.

Maybe a thousand years of briers,

Of root decay and stagnant fires,

A new-fledged bird will take the air

And chirp because there's no one there.

Homer Was Not

  

    Long, long ago, while humankind was still emerging from the Dark Ages, this appeared in the Denver Quarterly.

Homer was not Homer,

but a Homer whom

we, by mis-misnomer,

call a name the other's.

Histories assume

economy of mothers.

Fungible poets sink

into LaBrean bogs.

Editors may think

editees alive;

cockroaches and frogs

generically survive.

Word Problems

 

Let's say you had 2 monkeys and a fox 

7 bananas, and an ATV,
Or maybe a rowboat, and a ski chalet.
How many trips before you fall asleep,
Dreaming of Mr Dinkum’s science test
And the atomic weight of Super String?
Give up? One monkey’s grey, the other locked
In Booneville, where he learned the iron rule.
The fox clears out the tikihut and leaves
Scat on the rec room floor in thorns and thetas.
Then you remembered Mr D was dead,
Shot by his wife in 1983
For messing around in Chem Club Lab. The fox
Is wily, and you never stood a chance.