In Lieu of an Introduction
. . . he recommended to all those who might be impressed with a sense of their importance to bury a copy or copies of each work properly...
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Idyssey
A Desk-Drawer Anthology
Peter Richard Dreyer
The Red Maple
Oh, tell me those things are all done!
Oh, tell me those things are all done! Snacks temptingly set out on tables. Guests welcomed and served up a drink. Old Nastiness...
Meeting with a Viper on the Banks of the Brakrivier
I met a fine fat viper one Sunday
Diving Deep in Sydney on Vaal
You wished us into being then;
one wonders what on earth you'd wish for, when . . .
Boating with God on the Wannsee
“God is the oldest work of art. He is quite poorly preserved, and many portions have been haphazardly restored at a later date. But of...
The Ring of the Welkin
It won’t be that bad; in fact, it won't be anything . . .
Riffing with Rilke (Duino Elegy No. 2)
Hey! What’s happening?
All angels are scary, but don't I know you?
In the Tangled Wood
Through Norway maples, burning bush, and unnamed shrubbery, See, from a rear window in our homespun HOA, The great embankment of the...
Dans le Salon de 1767
Diderot rapporte ou invente que, se trouvant dans un bordel avec Buffon [. . . ] cet homme* qui n'était « pas plus grand qu'un...
Mimesis: Rilke's Duino Elegy No. 1
Duino Castle, near Trieste (Italy), where Rainer Maria Rilke wrote his First Duino Elegy, loosely got up here: Woah! Among the Guardian...
Parthian Tears
John Philip Simpson, The Captive Slave (1827) For King Charles III at his coronation . . . wound, like Parthians, while you fly, And...
Concupiscence
Marcel Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even / La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même. Oil, varnish, foil,...
Port with Lemon
“I think that poetry is fundamentally frivolity. I do it because I like it."
—W. H. Auden, March 19, 1947
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Greek box mirror, fourth century BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Is Eudo, tricked by the Devil, “left no good deed unpunished,...
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
Why couldn’t life be more like a Hollywood movie!
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