Poetry

Hesitate? The wide long river’s Extravagance Decrees the boundaries of my insouciance, confides how Little, how hourly less, it cares For the parallel blunders of its Parallel banks, twin antinomies, Wind-wrinkled water’s edgy lapping, Mammered quibbles among pebbles, Clishmaclaver, quaggy and wearisome Thoughts of no stature, Windlestraw, zilch-billows, death- Blusters. Lord lift me above my…

Tuned for the big spenders. Hardly an unbroken bone in your body. Now you know why your mama wanted to give you just one kind scar in the right place. You're in these snapshots dancing the cha-cha, doing the dog with a sailor from Chattanooga. The good life poured from a green bottle, a cigar…

More than the rich white meat or the feathers Grandma might use to make a hat, there was some thrill in killing a gorgeous thing, even in simply slamming to a halt the car and all our desultory attention — then the shot, and burnt trace of it, smell that tastes of blood in your…

Strict eyes only for the naked sheet I’ll whip and goad to disloyalty Then soothe to loyalty again Before its day is out; lax eyes for all Atoms else; no eyes for the unmeasured Anatomy of the scrutinizing, male past. *     *      * My odds-sniffing, instinctively hesitant Odd friend Hamlet, my poor skeptical hamster, First loved…

A funny thing happened last night, Betty-Lou. We were out celebrating Willie's promotion at the plant, having a grand old time. Candlelight, champagne, roses, a hundred-dollar dinner at The Palace. You won't believe how fast it came over him. A finger snap. A cornered look on his face when a Vietnamese waitress walked over to…

It was a way to toy with the warning against playing in the woods at evening, the winner being the one whose bike glided in farthest, riderless, before crashing. They all would coast down the three-block hill with their legs tucked under and feet on the seats, then leap where the road ends abruptly at…

Too soon she is the grandmother, able to live only for others, when what she wants is to be left alone. This one, Tuesday's child, it's not that she wants to die, nor does she live on memories. For her, the past exists no more than the future. She waits and watches the body decay,…

Blue animal in a blue affluence, silver-blue ocean mammal pointing in a green-blue sea towards a thin sparkle, the far surf in the sun. You're one with an intimate language: the possible loneliness of no-one-to-talk-to. Swimming out, somersaulting in the salt, your destination: lone dolphin, X, meet fellow speaker, Y.

I would walk The snowy miles To your house, Not quite as far As presidents In legends walk To go to school; Nonetheless, Something was School-marmish About you Who had never heard The names of certain Sports figures, Television actors, Popular singers, Famous race horses. And I was not surprised To learn that as a…