Republished with permission of "The Wall Street Journal," July 16, 1993
#HumorousQuatrain
On the podium the sternest of tyra… Yet a dead one’s manic puppet, Claiming now inspired compliance. His baton a thrashing rapier, Forcing eyes to see the fire
The Pathetic Fallacy Mitigated (An exercise in near-rhyme) To liken buying blue-chip stocks To squirrels hoarding nuts is bosh… As wrong as claiming dogs can blus…
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…
Subject Matter (A tribute to Louise Glueck) I know that vacant lots and junk w… You had for playground in this fet… Where you were often marked for l…
Anna Nicole Smith (I would have been happy to let he… Had I not heard a little girl on… Smith could have been happy in Te… serving burgers and bedding rednec…
He with pregnant wife, Sneaking out the back And down the broken stairs, To score some grass or crack. Threading through the alley,
Don’t shock me with your atheistic… God gave us all a book that proves… And serves us as a guide for all w… excepting parts that don’t make se… God serves us like a good psycholo…
Believing garbage cans are scandal… When battered, making us seem decl… My wife delivered firm commands, a… I threw away a garbage can today. And then a thrilling thought occur…
Polyphemus Hurt by Schtick (Apologies to Abbot and Costello) When Ulysses poked out Polyphemus… The giant ran to friends, who hear… “Nobody blinded me!” —but then he…
Verse now slain by latest dogma, down the cobbled street come mourn… trundling Verse’s coffin forward, charging all to note the corpus, garroted for disregarding
A Teacher to a Boy with a Center… While you turn red at my approach,… Your nails and shift your eyes abo… Attempting all the while a saving… I play the teacher’s role: I set…
The Afghan women, dreading stones… don sacks of baggy black, concealing them from crown to sole… excepting narrow Brink-truck slots through which the men folk let the…
Among the best are those who were the worst, whose lives mirrored nothing of th… nothing of their canvasses or lyre… Wagner’s cerulean notes
I know you mean the best for me, But why is there this urgency? If once you really had the time To praise my attributes in rhyme, I wonder if procrastination
A poem should be allowed to say something; good ones often have. It isn’t by necessity a fakir’s cabalistic drone