Poem Parts

Asonnet

Poetry’s initial beauty withers

When Theory envelops it with norms:

Long, slow words that fight metaphors like worms.

Poetics amasses half the glitters.

To be or not to be turns suicide,

And Christ’s crucifixion, a genocide.

Short, slimy words imitate images.

Conformity cataracts lineages.

I feel it around me, sonneting me;

Demeaning, destroying, un-living me.

England 1770-1928

Before Wordsworth, Earth was a desert place

With little water for the thirsty mind.

The Master had a mindful friend whose trace

Still hides in the contemporary kind.

To Autumn, poor Keats, noble and fragile,

To Autumn bade he his beautiful soul.

Lady Jane, in a man’s greatly agile

World, stumbled on a tall, too homo wall.

Ms. Emily, so gracefully, composed

Loving birds, while Tennyson’s clarity

Created imagery. Browning proposed

To seize sanity, while Arnold’s pity

Was directed to the poetic rest.

Novel Dickens enkindled the bleak home,

While Eliot’s Middlemarch was to nest

Until the advent of the native comb,

Who swept the state under the name Hardy.

And rakish Wilde, in an earnest fashion,

Acted to the child within the body,

Taught it how to march with its compassion.

Poets Lost

Many poets have come and gone,

Some ingenious, others unknown.

Few are kept in our stony hearts,

Fewer inside our decried minds.

We do not feel for poets lost,

And remember but poem parts.

We rely on History’s finds,

And swallow what You studied most.

You have forgotten Tennywords,

Worthson, Colebrow, Ridgening and Eats,

But mostly, You have killed Karnold.

Given, handed, thrown to the birds,

All these poets had the right wits,

Yet, left in a poetic cold.

I Own a Book

I own a book

A thrilling hook

A little bit light

It shines at night

I own a dog

A running log

It barks all day

But it is gay

I own a cat

That is quite fat

It eats and rests

And then it nests

I own a mouse

Holes in my house

It is so small

I am too tall

I own a germ

You know the term

Doctors believe

It will not leave

When I am dead

Upon my bed

My pets will come

And find me numb

The Anthology of English Literature

The Anthology of English Lit.’s usages

are worthier than those of the Yellow Pages.

Modernism

Modernism was a literary beast with many sharp labels;

sometimes up to ten. Fortunately, I only know of eight of them:

T.S. difficulty, Dos rupture, Henry self-reflective, reDos

subjective time, e.e. rejection/acceptance of modernity,

William destruction of narrative, reHenry lack of passion, and Djuna

doubt. It was terribly, terribly modern; dreadfully so; you know.

Modernism is dying, is losing its depth, is diminished by

postmodernism, is replaced by many new things, is almost dead.

Some of these old things are nameless, some are formless, some are meaningless,

and some are left out in the cold, carefree, steely atmosphere of our

humanity. Anything with a modern label lays down and dies.

And that is well.

À votre santé (To Your Health)

Unstable like your sanity

Unpredictable like the weather balloon

Uncaring, untimely, unless

Rigid like your first impression

Risk-free like sleeping under the bed

Riveting, refreshing, regardless

Circular like your diet plan

Serious like a lawyer with a conscience

Semi-insane, secular, since

Momentary like your stardom

Menacing like a hungry human

Manageable, managed, more

Diverse like your new acquired identity

Direct like a new policeperson

Diffused, dispatched, despite

Irresponsible like your government

Irrational like a religious scientist

Irregular, Iroquois, indeed

Lilliputian like your patience

Lingering like an old memory

Lifeless, lionlike, lively

À votre santé