Published with permission of "Light," Autumn, 1999
#HumorousQuatrain
No, birds are not lizards; birds a… I’ve seen a grackle rush from here… for no apparent reason. I’ve seen a lover-loser stab the earth with tiny beak,
Concealed, disguised, deceptively… These mists are slowly cleared by… Across a playground, thrilling tru… Or theorized through older sibling… Of differences beneath the corduro…
She believes in doing things right… She would do anything for anyone i… it helped a person be closer to he… She would never eat a lamb chop wi… just as pork hocks must accompany…
,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,
Bank Caesar An angry man, conceived and birthed in cars, weaned on dumpsters, reared in shattered rooms
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…
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…
The Golden Yoke On this, our fiftieth, we find We’re Siamese twins conjoined by… To share all things of heart and m… Like blessings, curses, smiles and…
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.
The corpse returned from war in parts, so six soldiers now appeared, jaws like fronts of trucks, determined to portray their faith in things they thought they ought to think were just. ...
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
High Mindedness Our hunters, armed with guns and b… Go forth to thin the numerous deer… So none will starve, we’re to supp… Though that lie causes me to sneer…
His Hobby Our Mr. Hughes, retired, was exce… At working wood, and every Yule h… A creche —cut plywood forms to rep… The cast, especially Jesus, whom…
Domesticity The jelly cleaned off the worn lin… the laundry folded and put away, three children washed and bedded, Thelma kicks off her floppies,