Republished with permission of "The Wall Street Journal," July 16, 1993
#HumorousQuatrain
Intellectual Insecurity When I must read reports I really don’t feel too slick If I can’t see what’s wrong When I encounter a [sic].
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…
A Funeral Cortege Verse now slain by latest dogma, down the cobbled street come mourn… trundling Verse’s coffin forward, charging all to note the corpus,
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…
Higher Powers From birth to death some others mu… You see, as infant, round-faced, g… Above the crib, to serve you, need… Precluded by efficacy of sobs.
Give Me More Light Give me more light I’m getting desperate here, you kn… show me what you’ve got is Ann Landers still around?
I Defy the Cosmos This cosmic clutter wins no beauty… As ob-jet d’art it’s mostly gaudy… Like those on Christmas trees, ex… And kitchy rings at which the tast…
Our voices hushed, we slip into the narrow, gloomy room, a taper on the back-wall bar the only source of light. Lou leads us to the wooden chairs,
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…
Get meat, a gobbet red and rank, something gamy from a back-street… ring with bits of pork and lots of… with herbs for accents eastern; and finally steep in a fishy stock
1951: Ice-varnished streets, the s… as a young woman accordions her an… into the back of my treasured blac… She, head through glass, carmine-s… while the cops look over the two c…
Once within his grinding life He’d had a chance at distant deeds That had no hint of daily strife, Of sticking doors, tenacious weeds… Of time cards, office drudgery,
Anthropomorphism Two pigs copulate above The legend “Makin’ Bacon”; A lobster sports a chef’s cap, beckons with big red claw;
A big brown dog, gray around the muzzle, lay in the front yard of an old h… between his front paws a tennis ba… As we walked by,
. . . and after they had torn and… The earth, and passed the tons of… Through frightening fires until it… And then unloaded it upon the shor… Of Black Detroit, where it was fi…