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
Luck
Statistics distinguishes three sorts of luck, circumstantial, resultant, and constitutive: (a) being in the right/wrong place at the...
Roots
“All this has been driven largely by the sinking of roots.”—Thomas Halliday, Otherlands A rhizosphere, or “world of roots,”* underlies...
No, no, Nunette!
Nun raises the sun out of Huh, primordial chaos, creating the world Chorus: No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, Nanette.— No, No, Nanette ...
Future Tense
Chaïm Soutine, Le poulet plumé / Plucked Chicken (1925), Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris A hundred years from now, if anything human...
Osage
With a Nod to Old Possum In Amolosh’s book of impractical cats Osage deserves a special page! He’s ginger, large, and murderous of...
Moviegoing
Hiroshima mon amour was released in 1959. I was just twenty at the time And only saw it—at the Academy Cinema on Oxford Street—in...
Death of an Illusion
The fabric of the universe
is not a medieval curse
Sailing to Pissantium
With apologies to W. B. Yeats (1865–1939) This is no timeshare for cold fish! An agèd poet's but a meager dish, a folder of poor...
Against Perfection
"He has observ'd the Golden Rule Till he's become the Golden Fool." —Blake If, once in the sequence of our life, the instinct soul starts...
Tutti-frutti
The brain is layered like a tutti-frutti cake, So science tells us in a recent take. I sometimes wonder what that news is worth Given...
Sarabande
Hope's fugacious, hard to resist
French Made Simple
Le français c'est pas compliqué ! Un gars: c'est un jeune homme Une garce: c'est une pute Un courtisan: c'est un proche du roi Une...
Goggas
Insect Study by Jan Brueghel the Younger (mid 1600s) "Let the damned ride their earwigs to Hell, but let me not join them." —Herbert...
Crime Scene
What was their crime, these pictured trees', fenced in without so much as an "If you please . . ."? Drawing on forensic science's...
Whereabouts
The red dot marks the spot where I am.
Ultima Thule, or, How to Talk to the Dead
How should I put it? Look for a karmic spark.
Cave adsum
Alexander the Great in the Battle of Issus Mosaic In memoriam Peter Morris Green, novelist, classicist, historian (December 22,...
Caterwauling
The Chicago Manual of Style
Should all their cares beguile.
Speaking in Tongues
“A watched pot never boils, and if it boiled would sing.”
List
Cross. Nails. Hammer Savior. Some assembly required.
Manducation + 4
Kerry James Marshall, A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self (1980) Manducation , noun Chewing. Eating....
An Analeptic Swig
A bit of what you fancy does you good!
Memory's Trash
It'll be there when you're old and gray!
Dominance
Shall we blame him? Why not!
Precedence
They'd think it most impertinent
For folk to ask how far they went.
The Topologist's Song
All those who are not wise are nuts .
Anfractuosity
« Ah—tchi: ou Rhume de cerveau » An intricate path or process, as of the mind. — Merriam-Webster Sneezing, one's heart may skip,...
Weeding by Lamplight A Petrarchan Sonnet
The purpose of a poem is obscure.
For it should puzzle, if it's any good.
Election Fever
In the muddle of this year, this life.
The Screaming Meemies, 2
"Els catalans de les pedres en fan pans."—Catalan saying* When I have thoughts that life may cease to spark, That love has lost its...
Sonnet 13: The Screaming Meemies
Console yourself, you almost got it right
Shaka
"You go too far, you have gone far enough."
What Can't Be Told
Joseph-Benoît Suvée, portrait of the poet André Chénier (1762–94). Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne. Clouds will separate us — the...
Llareggub, or, Just Desserts
One might attribute this to some great man— or woman—feasting in the fuscous past. (The adjective means "brownish gray," dulling senses...
Ice Water
“Fresh tears are running down my naked mind!”—Delmore Schwartz, Genesis: Book One “People in hell want ice water.”—Rip Torn in Don...
Lo, from the muff of . . . sleep
Infinities unkind, the cruelest cuts
A Chance Meeting
Cool's always in style!
Hail Pythagoras!
Beastly death is just a hill of beans,
Poetry and life not being what they seems.
Rowse, His Cat
My cat and I grow old together
The Progress of Poetry
Poetry does not progress
but rests eternal, old and new . . .
L'addition: A Modest Proposal
Wouldn't want to put you in a false position!
Strambotti
Life's not a meal in which dessert's a dish.
Terence, Schmerence: Τραμπ στη συνέντευξη με τον Μασκ
Roman theatre scene with flute player and actors in goat-skin costumes. Mosaic from the House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii. Museo...
From America with Love
Theatrical release poster for the 2017 film Legend of the Demon Cat , in which the poet Bai Juyi is one of the main characters For...
Eros
Lucas Cranach the Elder, Amor beklagt sich bei Venus / Cupid Complaining to Venus . Ca. 1525. National Gallery, London. Reality...
Merdrigaux
I'd likely think of myself as Black if I were brown. A century ago Morgan Forster chose “pinko-grey.” Who'd want to be as pale as...
The Pier Glass
Se penche pour capter son image sérénissime dans une glace à trumeau. / He leans over to check out his Most Serene image in a pier...
Gleet
"It ain't pretty—and it don't smell sweet."
Hell's Toddlers
Goya, Duendecitos (Hobgoblins), plate 49 from "Los Caprichos." Museo del Prado, Madrid. Toddlers are taking over. O ver! —John Berryman,...
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