The Codling Moth

白浜 鴎, Shirahama Kamome, variant cover, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, no. 6

On the bleakness of my poem "Knowledge"*

Our ancestors believed in Jesus' wrath,

The apple maggot, and the codling moth.

Later, they learned of Lenin's love—

Black as snow, the Russian saying went.

That was the wisdom of their time.

Though it was wrong, too few there were to shout,

"Fine! Be that way!" Wilde and Chekhov spent

Who'd once told hoi polloi, "Toss defunct knowledge out!

"On other worlds, the snow is white—it's Gaia's womb!

There, Squirrel Girl and Monkey Joe

Beat Iron Man and Doctor Doom."

What we believe, that, too, will pass.

Our trees are merely leaves of grass.

Scampering squirrel suitors know!

Alex Ross, Doctor Doom, variant cover, Guardians of the Galaxy 6, no. 1

*In Raritan Quarterly 44, no. 2

Sunday, January 26, 2025

Juggernaut, or, Paris à contrecœur

King Nebuchadnezzar looks at the city of Babylon. akg / North Wind Picture Archive

The Lord said unto Moses,

“Come Forth!”

But he came fifth and was shat on from a dizzy height.

—1950s schoolboy witticism (South Africa)

I asked my neighbor on the plane

What had changed since he was last in Paris. Nothing, he said. Rien du tout.

La tour Eiffel n’avait pas encore de feuilles.

Pinching that line from Paul Morand.

“A sentence is born into this world neither good nor bad.

To establish its character is a question

Of the subtlest possible adjustments,

A process of intuition to which

Exaggeration and force are fatal.”

—a thought nabbed from Rachel Cusk

(for all I know, though,

she may have borrowed it from someone else).

Exaggeration’s a potent word.

It makes me think of “Juggernaut.”

Saturday, January 25, 2025

Star Signs in a Parallel Universe

So near and yet so far!

Not talking ’bout the nearest star,

But of the closest parallel universe,

Where things run in reverse.

Astrology there's upside-down:

Your sign's not set at birth

But kicks in when you pop your clogs.

Forlorn,

Like ours, a parallel Jesus died

on April 3rd in AD 33,

An Aries. And in a recent century,

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini

cling together in late April 1945—

They’re both Taurus, Mao’s a Virgo,

And Stalin and Volodya Putin "thrive,"

It's said, in Pisces.

There you go!

Though backwards, perhaps it works:

Your karma’s set from death to being born,

Avoiding much confusing life.

Time there will place the present quirks.

DT was born a Gemini, and a quarter century on,

In Jacaranda City, came his Cancer twin—

Two scheduled presently to relocate to old oblivion.

Not Mars.

But of the topsy-turvy stars'

returns, conversely, don't forget:

A parallel Leo, Elvis fiddles Schubert in the Amadeus String Quartet!

Jacaranda trees in Pretoria, Tshwane, South Africa

Thursday, January 23, 2025