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
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,...
Merdrigal
Paul Klee, Revolution des Viadukts / Revolution of the Viaducts (1937). Hamburger Kunsthalle. In our country there are two parties, the...
Stultiloquium
These are some things the poet knows.
On Republican Politics
. . . [This] will knit and break religions, bless th’ accursed, Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves And give them title, knee, an...
The Horrors of the Half-Known Life
What we don't know we surely couldn't bear!
The Past of the Past
We wore a cap; it fit.
Zoology
What fate awaits, we anxiously demand?
¡Turistas!
Never miss a good opportunity to shut up.—Will Rogers
Ubu Père et Fils
And in the spring hillbillies bud
Let's Pretend
We cross our hearts and die
Zustimmingsdiktatur
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Figures in the Forum
Here is the rose, here dance.
Salt Mine Canary
He was only a bird in a comfy cage
The Grimoire
We'll escape the mire by pulling on our pigtails.
The Hadedah: An Azanian Parable
One’s peck must needs
exceed one’s beak—or what’s a metaphor!
Four Poets in the Second World War
“No remedy, my retrospective friend, We’ve found no remedy . . . for our split mind,” wrote Drummond Allison. “No room for mourning,”...
The Fourth of July
Have a great and safe holiday!
Vivant sequentes
And so must we pray in our turn, unafraid
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