Published with permission of "Light," Autumn, 1999
#HumorousQuatrain
Give Me That Old-Time Religion As one New Yorker said, the guy w… You in New York, your wallet as h… At least has goals, unlike the oth… Who kill and maim and have no aim…
Levels of Innuendo The cosmos may contain a constella… That holds a jealous planet, one t… To hurt some stars with black insi… And smudge with covert smears thei…
Leda Lays an Egg One morning Leda, sitting on the… Saw Zeus appear transmogrified to… She heard too late the honks and w… And so with godly force he conquer…
The Bumblebee A tubby, grumbling matron, Concerned alone with duty, Fusses among the roses, Oblivious to beauty.
The plank is narrow, more narrow than when he started; he could slip off at any time. The wood is slick, too, threatening again a premature plun…
American Ethics An ancient joke tells how a kid wh… his parents out of rage or just fo… Then cons the judge by citing all… He’ll surely suffer as a lonely or…
Poets are, to most, myopic geeks, Effeminates with scarves and inch-… writing schmaltz with feathered qu… There are, it’s true, purveyors of… of teddy bears and valentines,
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…
The Star See that star that now appears To glisten in the sky? It took perhaps a million years For it to reach your eye.
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
,The Honky-Poet Blues (With apologies to Bessie Smith) I’m sittin’ at my keyboard almos’… I say, I’m sittin’ at my keyboard… The wife want rent money,
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…
Bank Caesar An angry man, conceived and birthed in cars, weaned on dumpsters, reared in shattered rooms
To men an infant’s mostly irritati… But his libido often seems impress… By females features favoring procr… The pelvis flared, the heavy sway… And thus, some women, knowing what…