Posts

My Wife's Villanelle to Me (Scorpio)

I warned you that I could not be contained, You asked if I could play the tambourine, I only play the git-tar I explained. You asked me if I thought your band half-brained, I told you there were worse ones I had seen, I warned you that I could not be contained. I ripped my chords with forearms deeply veined, If you had tried you would have torn your spleen, My fingers are a firebox I explained. I could have blown you up but I refrained, I showed my mastery on every screen, I warned you that I could not be contained. You asked if my regard for you remained, If partnership for us was evergreen, I said we'll never die as I've explained. Clear memories of our meeting I've retained, You'd just turned thirty I was still a teen,  I'm not Miss Tambourine Girl I explained, I warned you that I could not be contained.
Post a Comment
Read more

The Left is Right (Gemini)

I have never said that the left is right, I have said it's where my commitment lies, It's where I can bring my bad faith to light, Engage fakeries that dance in men's eyes. I'm not indifferent to truth. not at all, I'm fascinated by its etiquette, Likewise ethics, my daily rise and fall, The moral waltz to which truth's predicate. I'm not sure I've given beauty its due, Compared to most law professors, I try      to break the frame.  I will look for the true              beast in the jungle until I die. The left's not right, it's where I can do good, If my gift were godly, I'd wear priest's hood.
Post a Comment
Read more

Updike, Cheever, and Roth (Leo)

I'm Updike.  I found my fluency young. I could out-b.s. all my profs at Yale, He outwrote his peers, his paint daubs were dung, As were my stories.  We soared past a fail. I reread "California" recently, It's not too bad, but it's too schematic, It updates the magi's gift decently, It's too New Yorker deadpan dramatic. I'm Cheever.  Swimming in a marsh at night, That once was mine but is not anymore, To a decrepit dock with a red light. The site of a Wapshot-like family war. I'm Portnoy.  I think I could have waxed Roth, Been a Waspy master of seacoast froth.
Post a Comment
Read more

A Toast to My Daughter and to Paul (Libra)

Does marry rhyme with a name or a mood? Neither.  I think that it rhymes with starry, It's a path that's both heavenly and lewd, To love, to make mistakes is to marry. Why is it matri- not patri- mony? Paul, here's a point relevant to you, The maternal root--it is not phony, To marry is to be a mother, too. Why do t's and d's often sound alike? We risk when we have betted or bedded, When we ride to our jobs on train or bike, To marry is to have desires whetted. To marry is to turn off one's damn brain, To embrace true joy instead of sham pain.
Post a Comment
Read more

To Our Future

To Our Future Sinead, I'm sorry that I wasn't there! I wanted to hear all about your move, Russell, I was hoping that I could share, The deets on my niece's library groove. We had a surprise party in Scotch Plains, The plan was to go from there to Philly, The storm was coming, there were cancelled trains, To stick to our plan seemed to us silly. So is it the end of the four of us? Are we a foursome that will never be? Should I delete these lines, not make a fuss? From our potentialities be free? I say no!  We might all have a future, My words are stitching, a hopeful suture.
Post a Comment
Read more

My Appreciation (to Peter Gabel) (Cancer)

A movement is a kind of arena, It's a non-violent venue for struggle, You tussle like Spiderman and Sheena, You have to be both wizard and muggle. The grumpy people, they criticize you, "Your permanent leadership is unfair!" Confuting them's hard.  What they say's part true, You're a hierarch with a burden to bear. I was grumpy with you, and I was wrong, I've benefited greatly from your works, From your conjoining a school with art's song, From your fusing thinking with friendship's perks. Peter, you are a true benefactor, You are the best kind of social actor.
Post a Comment
Read more

Tristan (Darcy Introspects)

ABCDEF FAEBDC CFDABE ECFABD DEACFB BDFECA ECA I Others embellish, I tell the truth. I will relate the facts of the affair, Of the trip to Ireland, of the comet's flash, Of the captive princess escorted by the knight,  Of the misdrunk potion that made  drank their fates twinned, And led them after many mishaps to a shared vine-entwined grave.
Post a Comment
Read more