Readership

Reposted from 2009.  Not much has changed.  FB has helped a bit because I can point people here --  ☞ This way to the Egress.    But if you look for comments, you still won't find them.  It remains true that most of my visitors are accidentals: they Googled "What is Dead Wabbit," and were offered this.

I: But people not named Epstein do too read here, at least occasionally.

Other: They don't, you know. Well, there are a couple regular nutters, I admit that, but only a very few, and they're all elderly shut-ins who talk  energetically to their cats and their hand-tinted portraits of the Queen Mum.

I: There are others, I'm almost certain. You can tell by looking at the map of the most recent "visitors."

Other: Oh, yes--you mean the folks who arrive here by Googling "poems about friction," "poems about recently deceased grandfather," "manifest destiny poem," "short blank verse poem," and "what does elegy in country churchyard mean." They are accidentals; they don't mean to be here, and they don't stay. Have you noticed that when Katy and Rebecca and Trish put up posts, they are pounded by replies? And where are your equivalents then?

I: But they're all...well, they aren't like me in some critical respects.

Other: You were going to say, "They're girls," weren't you?

I: No. Not me. Not ever. They're bright and talented and interesting writers.

Other: Oh, so that's how they differ from you.

I: Never mind. You win. I lose. It's all true. This is the blogging equivalent of vanity pressing your books, the Blogspot version of the Vantage Press. But it's a harmless outlet for my excess energies. Who knows what I might be doing, were it not for this.

Other: Spraying funereal distiches on the underpass, standing on the corner with a hand-lettered sign, "Villanelles for food. God Bless." That sort of thing?

I: No doubt. No doubt at all.

Other: And the last time you had any "excess energies," The Temptations and The Four Tops were in the Top 10.

I: Dayenu. I concede. Let me get back to being obscure.

Other: Who?

Safe

The first snowdrops are showing.
Carol loved them dearly,
Under all that snowing.
Carol marked them yearly,
Said when they'd appear,
"Through another season, safe another year."

Petronius Arbiter

A blackboard in his living room, a black
Thesaurus on a little, dirty rug,
And he asleep, a Laz-Y-Boy reclined,
Declined, perhaps, as so so many more--
Busts and the battered stragglers of the 10th
Battalion in the wood above Saint-Just,
Horns and the heads who used to wear them out,
Nuns and rabbinic doctors with a plague
Of middlesex intelligence: declined.
Baseball season upon him, though, he stirs,
Changes the channel, sits up straight, and prays
That umpires will be pure, dispassionate,
And equal to the call, the sons of men
Watched by their daughters, much less than they were.

Kindergarten In Hell

That's the mess. When the brass bell rings,
You find a seat. There's prayers and things,
And then you eat. It tastes like crap.
And then there's prayers. And then you nap.
And then comes story time. You hear
Isaac and Ishmael. The mere
Mention of Lucifer gets you spanked.
You do some chores, for which you're thanked
In homilies--Elisha's bears,
Perhaps. Confession. And then prayers.

Our Little Furry Monsters

Well, yes, there could be little furry monsters
In local garbage cans. They might be trying
Cumbersome alphabets with broken twigs.
They could be adding 1 plus none plus none.
Primary colors, cunning speech defects,
And shaggy. You would think that they would stink--
Eggshells and tea leaves, vacuum cleaner bags
Filled with hair, dust, grit, gravel, ash, and pebbles.
Leaves, butts, dead flowers, Kleenex wads, and shredded
Stuff. Stuff is the word, the bland adhesive
Which binds us bone to bone, passionate motes,
A minyan for a landfill. Where was I?
Ah, yes, the monster with its glass of milk
And cookie, with endearing mustache crumbs,
Though where the mustache ends and cheek begins
Is mere surmise. He has no bottom half.
Bones, hair, teeth, dolls, eyeglasses, wedding rings.
You wonder that there are so many monsters.
"Mingle," their mothers told them. "Go on, blend."
Monsters among us. Who'd have ever guessed.

Move along, please. No vampires here.

I hope "The Strain" is a massive failure, no matter how well done it is. I have no animus towards anyone involved, but I'd like to see the whole vampiric enterprise die for at least a generation. Obviously it plucks some sympathetic chord and endlessly fascinates millions; but between the Twilight utes and those walking dead chaps, I'm quite drained. Why are vampires so popular? Why now? It can't all be a metaphor for hedge fund managers.

Not Far Behind

Spring on the horizon, the nightbird says.
I’m here, you know, not going anywhere.
It’s in the offing, spring is. Blackwing says,
We’re here for the duration. Longtemps is
Our middle name. Now bring the car around.
We’ll soon fill it with primroses and peepers.
We feed when you’re asleep, the jetblack says,
And never seem to get enough to eat.

Well, I never

Something called Webwiki.com says of RHE poems, "The website doesn't contain questionable content. It can be used by kids and is safe for work." I gather that "safe for work" doesn't mean "won't cause industrial accidents," but something more like, "You won't get fired just for clicking on it." I don't know how it would be "used by kids," but I am quite sure that it does contain questionable content, else what's a poem for?

The School of Real Estate

My alma mater was crowing yesterday about its "School of Real Estate & Construction Management." (No, really.) For some reason that made me think of Cardinal Newman, who wrote in The Idea of a University, "There is a knowledge which is desirable, though nothing come of it, as being of itself a treasure, and a sufficient remuneration of years of labor" and "Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentlemen, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life." Is it fair of me to wonder whether the School of Real Estate will produce such graduates?

Just 3 Hours

Just 3 hours till our barbecue,
the sun defers to the hot coals,
the clouds muster in force, degrees fall
like dry leaves in Vallombrosa.
Phone. "Are you cancelling?" Why, no. Phone.
"Are you cancelling?" No. No. Phone.
Yes, maybe I am cancelling. Phone.
Do what you want. The brew's cold now,
and a first skunked neighbor staggers by.
"Death rides a paper cock," he says,
"and he demands a beer, your firstborn beer."
On the shade the crows glide, watching.

The Point of the Entire Universe

This appeared in Fox Cry.

The most important thing is, get a job,
my uncle said. But since my aunt was talking,
only I heard, and I was not about
to get a anything. I was still reading
whatever could be found on any subject,
hermit of bathrooms, anchorite of closets,
convinced that authors knew, and printers printed,
the point of the entire universe.
My uncle was still talking. He extinguished
his Dutch Master smack in his mashed potatoes,
which proved, since that was never done in books,
the important thing was not to get a job.

Life is What You Make It, Innit?

With names like Entropy and Bouillabaisse,
What did you hope of them? They hit the books
Until they bruised their knuckles; they despaired
Of willow, horsehide, pigskin, ping; and pong
Trailed after them like clouds of midges. Good
Boys, strong boys--maybe not Peregrine Fred--
Like freckled trout in dappled streams. They fell
Off the backs of lorries, whence they were rescued
And made to peel graffiti from the wall.
"What do it mean?" they asked each other. "Man
Is born in chains and everywhere tattooed."
No one would tell them, so they pinched the wall
And flogged it for a couple tabs of Spax.
"What do it mean?" they asked about the blue
Atomic cloud, languid above their heads,
Ate each an egg for breakfast, went home, died,
And rose next morning to be done again.

Mannering

Rain penetrates. You wouldn’t think
a solid shell would fail its past.
Back when they built a house to last,
the generations, link by link,

seasoned the walls with soot and steel.
The rats have come. Thick as a brick,
the door performed its only trick.
Now there is nothing left to feel,

no ambience but topless stairs.
The leaves pile up. Sir Morris Grouse,
beneath a stuffed and fraying mouse,
forgets the lineage he shares

with Puddleman and Bundderlice.
Mildew has come. Port circulates,
sinister towards the broken plates—
blood pudding, kidneys, sheepshead twice

baked. There once was a chandelier.
The rooftree sings. A missing pane,
inscribed in diamond, brags in vain,
The Men Who May inhabit here.

2 great losses

Dear Readers, if there are any,

Go read a couple novels by Elmore Leonard and some poems by John Hollander. 2 great losses.

Where Am I? Or Better, Where Am I At?

After reviewing the information Blogger shows me about who reads here and how they find their way, I have concluded that most visitors come here by accident, thinking it's somewhere else, or because they clicked on Next Blog, or because they're robots seeking ... what? World domination? A lubricating experience? Exploitation of the commercial potential of those who read unpublished poems by obscure poets?

The Girl in Blue Leathers

O great, God, promise more, deliver less.
Sunrise, cool. Snow on the car-snarled commute,
gnarly. But the death of soi-distant stars
rippling the love affairs of unmade species?
Non-phat. The power of a lightning zot,
scrambling the synapses of nuts and gel,
raising the dead a dollar, and then calling
the bluff the fish made, walking home for tea,
what kind of dude does that? I heard a wife,
flipping her hair as though she were unwed,
telling her husband he did best when he
did as instructed. He was praising Jesus
for having built the girl in the blue leathers,
knocking back Stolis, smoking Kools, and swaying.

Best way somebody got here today

By searching for "a poem for my mom about a fern." And by the way, one of the largest sources of traffic for this blog is something called "filmhill." What is that?

The Melting Pit

The population colors history.
I have to know so much to know them all--
The blight rights, the Ugh & How, the 3-ball-
And-guilt-trip chain. Uhuru on the bridge,
Open as sin her hailing frequency.
The nuts who fire dumdums from the ridge.

A man told me all skeletons were white.
He whispered it, tequila-style. It proved
That God uncolored whom He truly loved.
His Son, he said, was white down to the bone.
All coal, I said, is black and only white
Dead. Pure, he murmured. All alone, alone.

God gave Noah the rainbow sign. For Sale
By Owner, said the sign. His light was frail.

The Poet's Biography

Q: What is a poet's biography for?

A: It motivates the poet.

Q: No, I mean for readers. Why do they read poets' biographies?

A: To satisfy their prurient curiosity.

Q: But you read them.

A: I also eat Chili Cheese Fritos. I know they're not good for me, but I do it anyway.

Q: Dr Johnson said that the biographical part of literature was the part he loved most.

A: Then he burned his letters and his autobiographical account of his early life.
"Biographies of writers are always superfluous and usually in bad taste," said Auden, who read and reviewed them with gusto. It may surprise you to hear this, but people are complicated and not always consistent.

Q: So how do you feel about the prospect of your own biography?

A: I fear it to about the same degree as I fear hitting my head on the rim while dunking a basketball. I'm more worried about next month's utility bill. That's going to arrive, irrespective of my opinions.

And a Happy New Year to You, Too

The year sheds skin and time and cash.
The firedrake burns down to ash
His habitation. The road is clear
All the way home to Happy Year,

Coming soon. With the proper friends,
Nobody notices when it ends,
This derelict calendar. The few,
The consequent, have naught to do

But watch the helicopters tow
The End behind them as they go
West, of course, and into the spring,
Where next year’s lark prepares to sing.