(1994)
Republished by permission from "Lyric," Vol. 74, No. 3
#DescriptiveHumorousQuatrain
Anthropomorphism Two pigs copulate above The legend “Makin’ Bacon”; A lobster sports a chef’s cap, beckons with big red claw;
Kings once favored beheadings; and when it was their turn, so did angry peasants America chose a different tableau: Black hoods, elaborate nooses
Graal Braun sooner or later plans to join the Lord or an acceptable facsimile on such and such a date. As a high school teacher he held a great variety of part-time jobs, most of wh...
Florida, 2000 A.D. A panting tongue of a tiring natio… lapping a tawdry cornucopia poured like broken baubles down th… through the northern end of Southe…
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,
Poesy’s Progress My rhymes are gone, at least quite… my lines are stop– ped just anywhere. The meter is, no doubt, unconscion…
My myths have talking ducks and dogs mice making Roman arches in the baseboa… burglars
Constructing a Cathedral: St. Etienne, France, 1350 A.D. Arms and legs a jumble of moving s… the workers swarm like flies aroun… hardly heeding screams of those wh…
Vocations Envy those conjoined to function: ballerinas shopping in fifth posit… humming coroners ladling brains silent Harpo honking his horn
Old novels have their faults, but… I’m sure we’d all rush out to buy… If on the jacket lovely Hester tr… To show us all a little cleavage a… New credit cards could quickly sto…
Above the stores medieval grimness… stones coffin-sized in high gray w… exuding dampness of tombs, lichene… towering inward, threatening Gothi… across the twisting cart-wide lane…
Rectilinearity While in a seaside bistro, tired a… I gazed into an icy gin and tried With what appeared to be a tiny sw… To spear an olive slyly gone aside…
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…
I am a horse, a patient, plodding hack harnessed behind a chromed cart — a cart I push when told to go and stop when told to whoa.
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…
