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TIME IS LOVE’S DOOM
Time is love's doom.Forgotten now, what happened in that private room.Forgotten now, even her face.Time is love's complete disgrace.Does this mean love isn't real? Since time is attached to every love...
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WHEN THE WOMEN DON’T CARE
You fell for that left-wing marketing.Who was I, when I drank that whiskey?Don't ask Lou Reed. Ask the women.Women are the secret to gay.Once you are cool, you are always in the play.Better to be...
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I HAD BAD DREAMS
Tragedy triggers genius and intelligence.Poetry is powerful when something is powerfully wrong.What a gentle, tender life I lead!I had bad dreams. They are responsible for this song.In comfort, in...
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THE FAILURE OF THE SATANIC WITCHES
The most important step to defeat satanic witchesis to realize they are not really satanic witches---as willful and crazy as they are.Visible but hazy, every blinking star.Small things make us do...
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ABILITY
Ability to disagree and laugh,to make poetry that rhymes,a poetry without simile---quiet, spotted, you---my lean, sidereal giraffe.I sometimes lose you in the shadowsof the dusty plainwhere trees are...
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IN MY YOUTH
In my youth when life was betterand I always wore the same sweaterand love was endlessly possible,not with age and experience, impossible,I would leave myself behind and speak to my beer-drinking...
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NO MORE POETRY
No more poetry. Not until I know what it is.H two oh of water? Or C oh two of fizz?Has it a tactile, scientific existence? If so, exactly how is it scientific?The moment I ask, the answer comes:Poetry...
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JOSEPH OBVIOUS, STOPPED
Joseph Obvious was stopped by the thoughtthat the good---to be truly good---makes all that's bad unhappy,the bad hunger, the bad satisfaction, the bad jealousy,and that good cannot really be...
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THE GASLIGHTING DYNASTY IN A FLASH OF RAGE
This gaslighting by the NFL—and remember, this company is a major one, seeking to expand globally, gets involved in politics—has reached a fever pitch. Let’s begin with the fact that only 2 teams...
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SWIFT THE RUNNER
“Every year I feel this sadness. The Super Bowl. One more big game to go.” —Fan “Yes, you captured a common feeling. I know why you are sad. The season established many good teams and the best of them...
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I’M HAPPY
I'm happy, that's why they hate me.You saw the movie about me with the coolsoundtrack, you heard me talk, you looked at me while I was talking, you know,I'm one of those guys who talks like he's...
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EMOTIONS ARE ALWAYS INSINCERE
Emotions are always insincere.The chat bot understood my sorrow.It drew, like a gentleman—with that very tone—from my pain,remembering how to elaboratemy own thoughts—always late. It remembered all of...
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THE ATTEMPT
The Greek gods were the perfect metaphorof human self importance, the attemptto be a bee like TS Eliot, to express in honeyed contempt sad life, voices having sway over us: a backroom dealby Ezra...
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THE ENEMY
In our fairy tale, our herobattles time (epic war, happening all the time).His mother told him timeis the only creature who gets old by staying young.Our hero thought on this a long time."No opponent...
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I LOVE ONE WHO HATES ME
I love one who hates me.For years. But I've never stopped to think whether it's divineto love in the face of hate.Am I imitating God?Why she hates me is not germane---those details would distract...
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AGE
When I'm a gigantic ageand I lack youth and rage,I'll know at last the best thoughts come from feelingsand feelings from thoughts cannot be trusted.Innocent, I saw romantic tales.And then I lusted.I...
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THAT COLD LOOK
When the kindly weather comes to 114 Derby Street, a neighborhood made famous by a book, the buds beginning to appear, shyly, like history, the sun shining, the Salem harbor down the street opposite...
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UNTRUE
It terrifies me how easily I can be untrue. And yet—it excites me, too. Think of a woman no one loves who walks down the platform of the train. Do you know she has a face which makes me insane? Isn’t...
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I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAY, I’M RIGHT
“I don’t care what you say, I’m right,”is what I said to my lover tonightand then I thought, “I always say this to her.Is this why she is my lover?”And wondered why that was true.I was subtle and...
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HOLLYWOOD MIGHT
Give that man an Oscar.You know he will win---his great haircut, his illustrated sin.The biopic! with historic dimensions!A living textbook (but there's Matt Damon! older,recalling Good Will...
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BUT THIS WAS SOMETHING I HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE
But this was something I had never seen before. I had seen dragons, drag queens, blood-sucking ticks destroying my door, leopards with beautiful eyes, the king inside his palace, the family after...
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THE MOVIE WAS LONG
The movie was long. And, unfortunately, starred me.There was a lot of slightly sorrowful staring out of windows,A lot of bad poetry.A lot of weak, blank, wonder, so much that was out of focus and...
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A HOLOCAUST DOESN’T NEED A TRAIN
A holocaust doesn't need a train---it can happen village to village---machetes in the foliage.It can happen in your brain.A holocaust doesn't need a machine.Loyalty to your side is enoughto spread...
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OSCAR NITE 2024
Oscar Lock Lily Gladstone Remember, they are not actors and actresses. They are “stars.” The Red Carpet horror has begun. Camille Paglia said fashion is art and we agree, but the pandering interviews...
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RELATIONSHIP HELL
Relationship hell works like this.The romancers have cultivatedin mainstream imagery the kisswhich captures every squeamish imaginationdue to germs, childhood, bodily autonomy and warmthas it presents...
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WE WERE CHEERED
We were cheered by the warm winter—and then depressed by the cold spring.Unable to understand long measurements,we could not measure anything.The ideal temperature was like medicine—supplied to us on...
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THE NOSE
The nose determines who you are. If your nose is too big, you’ll never be a star. Or too small, the scientist will add. My nose is average, but why am I sad? Why do I sleep until ten while my ex...
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I KNOW SHE WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
There are many examplesof beauty so beautiful plain morality will failto resist it. Wrong will be done.The eyes I had then knew I was the dusky planetwarmed by her supernatural sun.We were in the...
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IT’S HERE! MARCH MADNESS 2024 THE EAST
SIXTY FOUR ISOLATED, INTRIGUING PASSAGES FROM ALL GENRES COMPETE! EAST BRACKET Anton Chekhov v. 16. Helen Whitman F.T. Marinetti v. 15. Stephen Davis Marc Andreessen v. 14. Camille Paglia Brian Wilson...
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MARCH MADNESS 2024 THE SOUTH
SOUTH BRACKET Schwartz v. 16 Sontag Mazer v. 15 Gabor Morrison v. 14 Murray Jowett v. 13 Jeffers Hesiod v. 12 Foer Lennon v. 11 Marantz Lewis v. 10 Barrett Newhart v. 9 Browning Browning Barrett...
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MARCH MADNESS 2024 THE WEST
WEST BRACKET St. Augustine v. 16 Graham Pirandello v. 15 Ransom Richards v. 14 Blackmur McCartney v. 13 Michelangelo Allen v. 12 Shakespeare Peacock v. 11 Keats Klavan v. 10 Bryant Milton v. 9...
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MARCH MADNESS 2024 THE NORTH
NORTH BRACKET Baudelaire v. 16 Scarriet Editors Lessing v. 15 Kipling Brecht v. 14 Wanniski Heine v. 13 Benson Larkin v. 12 Eliot Plotinus v. 11 von Strassburg Santayana v. 10 Rosenberg Stickney v. 9...
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THE DELIRIUM AND MAYHEM OF MARCH MADNESS
All the excitement is but a prelude to death. Our favorite poems must die. None will remember the rising hero of yesterday who finally fell. And the ultimate winner who is immortal feels the sting of...
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MY PERCEPTION HAS BEEN PERFECT
My perception has been perfect.I have always been surprised,but shock was forgotten or smoothed over,even by my own eyes.The disturbing facts were never disturbing enough.I continued to be safe, to...
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I COULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT TEACHER
I could have been a great teacher---but I would find myself, all at once, stopping--- my mind asking my mindquestions---my students would stareas I stopped, there,in front of the room,as if it were...
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THE FINAL FOUR
What is the final lesson of March Madness, of cruel single-elimination tournaments in which powerful franchises display their prowess and ruin the dreams of underdogs? What do we learn from sports?...
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RITE
The daffodils, wet and yellow, are no longer stooping. The plump pigeons are once again jets, swooping. The twenty-four-hour rainfall is over at last— murky and misty, like my past. The animals waited...
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WHY DESTROY THE WORLD?
If I can ignore those annoying me,why destroy the world?The world has good things in it,including me. The skywas tall and blue in my childhood---the sky once made me cryjust for being up there,just...
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INFINITE PATIENCE
Who knows the infinite patience (the bricklayer cutting bricks in the rain) practiced by everyone in their life? I will not write of mine, I will not discourse on my infinite patience, for that would...
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WE ARE MOVING
We are moving towards the same thing but moving away from each other. The more radically different we are, the more we are the same. Compared to the serene, indifferent universe, people are impatient,...
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POETS DON’T LIKE BOOKS
Poets don't like books or information. They hate writing.They don't care for speech, either. Or what the professor said.Your memory is what they want, not theirs.They need to put a poem inside your...
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THE OTHER WORLD OF SLEEP
There is the other world of sleep where such mute expression is, simple, shallow—but distant, deep. It is profound and grand enough for itself; beautiful, and beautiful without a single doubt and yet...
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SO THAT SCIENCE
So that science can exist,someone must examine, from at least one removeevery single thing you see---didn't you experience their loveoddly and distantly?Theirs is the scientific impulse,a...
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HI DAD
Thomas West Graves 1930-2024William Arthur Graves 1957-1959 Hi dad, it's me, William---the little guy who went away.You'll never forget that April day---when the world that was small took the world...
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THE PINNACLE
The pinnacle of literary expression is the short story.It is the novel boiled down to a poem---a poem with longer hair, an essay's curls.People are clouds which get tired.Instead of changing, instead...
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I FORGOT WHAT WAS WRONG
I forgot what was wrong.In an act of pure evil,I no longer thought about the world.Evil is able to sleep. Good cannot.Torture is lack of sleep.Sleepless hurts a lot.The good are wakeful,alive and...
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I ESCAPED MY SORROW
I escaped my sorrow with the days. Old shows ended. But they wrote new plays. Actually, the days stretched into years. I escaped my sorrow. I found novel ways. Days became divided from each other, and...
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SILENT IN THE FACE OF STUPID
Silent in the face of stupidis all we can really do.Stupid has friends.You want stupid messing with you?Then keep quiet. Stupid goes deep.It loves. Of course it loves. You'll weep.Stupid has thrived...
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HER ARM
Her arm the neck, her handthe head of a swanin some crazy song by Donovanwhich has offended Bob Dylan again.You can joke all you want about rivalries long agobut contested ground produces sweet...
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IT WILL NOT BE
What does it mean to seeformer beautyin the face of one you loved? It will not beany longer in the poetry,even as what we seeexpands downward into the past,making our view a mountain-view at last,a...
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