Republished with permission of "The Wall Street Journal," July 16, 1993
One moonless night in 1773 Americans, enflamed by British bu… Donned Indian face paint, boarded British ships, and gashed with hatchets
The Computer Cometh A shiny joint is rasped across the… And swiftly followed by a bulging… And other iridescent joints that h… Themselves across with creaks and…
Electrocutions show our love of ri… We give the favored one a kingly f… As well as pen and ink so he can w… The thoughts that we will prize wh… We see his needs are carefully add…
An Abomination* Ice-gleamed streets, sky an ebony… and a girl accordions her tiny car into the back of mine. She, carmine-streamed, head throug…
I will not wear shorts, wing-tip s… I will continue to be grateful tha… I will not listen to any salesman… I will quit telling people how I… I will not say, “I don’t know wha…
The role itself arouses smirks. I picture mine in a doorway, slightly stooped, worry-faced, hands wringing an apron, peering at the thing she hatched,
One day within our thirties bungal… tiny radios transformed to giant… that color-flooded modest living r… But later those constricted cells expanded into spacious chambers
They all seem old, with huge, bushy beards, their soiled rags incongruous in the sleek, polished chairs. Not allowed bundles
The Seven Virtues Six centuries ago a pope devised A list of sins he thought should b… But now we see the list must be re… For calling virtues sins will neve…
The Jacaranda in Spring (Near Rhyme) What discount art inspired this ta… Eleven months a year you’re quite… Too dark and gaunt, we thought, to…
The Domestic Life of the Elephan… Elephants, Lawrence wrote,** let love bloom slowly “in their vast shy hearts.” But Lawrence dreamed.
I am 88. I need much equipment: I need my walker so I can shuffle about, a lift chair to stuff me in the wa…
Aesop as Existentialist They’d suffered through a devasta… And many larvae died from lack of… The queen, as well, grew thin for… Thus forcing all the workers to co…
Autumn in Florida Smug live oaks drop a leaf or two, Acknowledging the time of year; Droll cypress take from this their… Turn rust as if their end is near.