Simon and Schuster assure me that I
Will be consumed by J. R. Ward’s new book
But I am neither steak nor apple pie
And probably would be difficult to cook

Today’s Special: *** Roast with Two Sides

                For W.K. Kortas, re his Wednesday Meatloaf

It’s an unusual *** roast, of course
Having only two dimensions, two sides
Incomplete on the space-time continuum
But free of fat, gristle, and growth horsemones

You can’t take a picture of it in 4-D
Because it appears only in 2-D
But how did you like the presentation
In a bed of herbivores all named Herb

It’s an unusual post roast discourse
In featuring only two sides of a horse

“Thy people shall be my people”

                                          -Ruth 1:16

Smoke rises here from foul Gehenna’s fires
Fires set by souls twisted like cold barbed wire
Sole argument of ideologies
Strung geometrically from hate to hate

Smoke rises here; soft ashes fall as death
Torah, Mishnah, and Gemera – and us
For without the Word and the People Israel
We are but wraiths, and darkly blown about

O Israel!

You are the broom tree in the wilderness
The Tree of Life who shelters all with love
You are the tent of Sarah and Abraham
And we are blessed who find refuge in you

In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, he could find nothing more interesting to think of than his own prestige.

                        -C. S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost

Just look into the mirror, and there you are
Could lose a little weight, but there you are
You comb your hair, you brush your teeth, and then
You should always remember to make a face

And laugh

For you are not a sloganed comrade-hat
Nor yet a shadow in a marching mob
A noise, a post, a bumper-stickered oaf
An obedient tool being pushed about

Because

You are not a tagged and labeled identity
But a true child of God: brave, loving, and free

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new” 1

On that cold night Sir Bedivere looked long
Into the dawnlight where three Queens gold-crowned 2
With Arthur passed at last into the West
And the sun rose, but not upon the King

Then in the silence of the raw new year
A masterless knight turned unto the hills
And after wanderings there took the cowl
And among new faces told the beads of worlds

For us – our old year too is someone’s new
With quiet grace and faith we pass from view


1 This line appears both in “The Coming of Arthur” and in “The Passing of Arthur” in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, framing the arcing narrative.

2 The three Queens, too, appear in “The Coming of Arthur” and in “The Passing of Arthur.”  They are perhaps symbols of faith, hope, and charity from 1 Corinthians.

It’s not marijuana in Newfoundland
In our fair Island we call it Product, b’ys
Son, have you been smokin’ Product again?
This is some **in’ great Producttttttttt, ohhhhh, mannnnnnn

Mr. Speaker, why is there a shortage
Of Product in the province, Mr. Speaker,
Not worried about the stocks of cod if we
Can get stocks of Product, Mr. Speaker

And if the shipment from the mainland stalls
They’ll beam us some Product from Muskrat Falls

So, like, like, so, like, so, you know, like, so,
Like, so, like, you know, it was like, you know,
Like, so, like, you know, like, so, like, like, so,
Like, so, you know, like, so, like, so, like, like,

You know, it was like, you know, like, so, like,
So, you know, like, so, like, like, so, like, so,
You know, like, so, like, so, like, like, you know,
It was like, you know, like, so, like, you know,

Like, so, like, like, so, like, so, you know,
So, like, so, like, like, you know, actually…

If you don’t believe in something you’ll fall
For anything – but what if that something
In which you believe was that anything
For which you fell in the first place?

And what if that anything for which you fell
Was the something you ought to have believed
Before you fell into the anything
That maybe wasn’t there at all?

If you don’t believe in something you’ll fall
So check out our site: www.thing.y’all

The garden out back needs mowing, but autumn bees
Good bees at work and play don’t see it that way
And spin about in the October breeze
Wind-spinning in the sun their bee ballet

The freshening winds have motivated them
To gather up and gather in the last
The last of summer goods from limb and stem -
Their easy harvests of spring have long since passed

They work, they know the winter winds will blow -
So I must find a different lawn to mow

On Monday I will wear my uniform -
A blazer from Goodwill, old khaki slacks -
Knot my made-in-China patriotic tie
And verify that my papers are in order

On Monday I will sortie through the candidates  -
I’m important to them on this one day -
Then work around their signs all slogan-trapped
And rush the doors through a hail of cliches’

And watched by comrades with their helmets blue
Vote for a Merovingian or two

As in an Agatha Christie mystery
A man - he ghosts into a consulate
As a flickering image upon a screen
The image, yes, but not the man is seen

          (A soft midnight splash in the Golden Horn)

As in an Eric Ambler mystery
Perhaps he is another Dimitrios
Another identity, and in the rain
Someone else slips aboard the Belgrade train

          (A soft midnight splash in the Golden Horn)

The inspectors inspect; the leaders lie:
We would not have it that Our subject should die

          (And softly flows the current through the Golden Horn)

Orderly rows of padded chairs among
Funeral home décor, fluorescent lights
HGTV eternally on TV
A really big and wide hi-def TV

On which attractive thirty-somethings yip
As they enter rooms: “OMYGOD! OMYGOD!”
What would they say if they encountered God –
OMYATTRACTIVELYFURNISHEDROOM!  
OMYATTRACTIVELYFURNISHEDROOM!

­And how many people with eye problems
Drive themselves to the ophthalmologist?

And did I spell “ophthalmologist” right?

The smoking gun is interesting enough
As is the ****** knife dripping with guts
And his ****-headed beheading of his child
But otherwise – who would be interested in him?

The cold is more poetic than the warm
A man coat-huddled against December’s winds
Evokes more sympathy in those dark days
Of stinging sleet and menacing blue clouds

The warm is less poetic than the cold
A man hat-shielded against September’s sun
Evokes no sympathy in those bright days
Of dripping sweat and dripping-too sun screen

And though McKuen sang “Listen to the warm”
There’s music in the cold while icicles form

Where can one shop for Christmas if not at Sears:
J. C. Higgins sporting goods, Craftsman tools
Kenmore sewing machines, wonderful toys
The greatest candy counter in the world

And, oh! the best of all:

The little electric trains behind glass panes
Travelling across a cotton-snow Christmas land
From one tiny plastic village to another -
The Santa Fe Railway on tinplate tracks

A little boy’s dear dream for Christmas day
(But after an hour his parents drag him away)


Good-bye, Sears; thanks for the childhood memories.

We would

Ask a receptionist for her autograph
Gather in thousands in awe of linemen
Practice the carpenter’s hammer at home
Invite a mechanic to the White House

We would

Order as a keepsake a plumber’s last pipe
Post pictures of teachers writing lesson plans
Make recordings of a wise plowman’s words
Publish biographies of waitresses

We would

Envy the garbageman aboard his yacht
And the workers’ lifestyle that we know not

-Drudge

What do you look for in an eyeball lab-grown
While maybe it is looking back at you
And if you are looking for an eyeball
What are you looking for an eyeball with?

Will we have eyeballs grown for occasions -
A lovely blue for a day at the beach
And a stunning black for the opera
And Harris-tweed brown for a country weekend

But maybe lab eyeballs are just a rumor
A corn-ea attempt at vitreous humor!

When Robert Frost visited President Kennedy
They spoke of poetry and power, of man
Of greatness and of God, of man’s swagger
Of poetry saving power from itself

When Robert Frost visited President Kennedy
They spoke of the poet’s responsibility
The duties of good men to other men
Of magnanimity and liberation

When Robert Frost visited President Kennedy
We lived a golden age in those few hours

A yawning dawning clinging to the coffee cup
Dishwasher safe for your happy little home
You press the button for the magic screen
And the in-box presents  - a toe fungus cure

Huh?

You opened the mail hoping for happiness
An existential why to the sleepless night
Matins and Lauds now electronical
And a note from a dear friend far away

But with your first sip of coffee, what did you see?
An ad for a toe fungus remedy!

De-Colonize This Space

Drum circle protests genderplop demands
Indigenous discount store camouflage
We demand persistent stereotypes
Solidarity initiative project

Take back the people’s cultural statues
Ethnographic curatorial practices
Red spray paint fire imperialism
Repatriate the Iphone Starbuck’s cups

And don’t forget the “Hey! Hey! **! **!’
Because we’re, like, artists and stuff, you know?

2. De-Colonize This Space Too

Guns and cholesterol made America great
Fat white boys in discount store camouflage
Duct-tape the Bible and the border wall
We won our freedom with our Kalashnikovs

Fake news back-stabber not a war hero
SecondAmendmentSecondAmendment
Lock her up get ‘em outta here yuge deal
You RINO losers can grab my MAGA

You snowflakes are sissies, you millennials too
But ouch! my heel spurs hurt, oh boo-hoo-hoo!

In stately conclave met 1, each in his chair
The board of school trustees arrange their notes
And after an approved, appropriate prayer
They nod in their wisdom, then “aye” their votes

Entrusted with the dear, sweet children’s learning
With attendance down and the taxes up
The trustees feel a deep and mystical yearning
To make your child p*ss in a plastic cup

History, literature – what need of these?
(Make sure the valedictorian pees)

1 Chesterton

Oh, foolish Catullus – have you not heard?
Your lover Lesbia gave you the bird!

Father Why’s Glob

              And whan he rood, men myghte his brydel here
                    Gynglen in a whistlynge wynd als cleere
                    And eek as loude as dooth the chapel belle

                                                        -­Chaucer

A famous priest takes pictures of his meals
Writes detailed notes on how they were prepared
As he airplanes around the world attending meetings
To talk about people he doesn’t like

A famous priest takes pictures of more meals
Almost cellular closeups of bits of meat
While he is flying holy in first class
And praising his cabernet sauvignon

A famous priest promises prayers (and cookery tips)
If you will send him money for his many trips

Awake at four, he rises, lights the fire
And puts the kettle on for a cup of tea
Pulls on the work-stained overalls he shed
Only a few exhausted hours before

Working a shutdown stretch of twelves and sevens
Maybe he’ll make enough for Christmas this year:
Wonderful gifts for his family still asleep
He slips out silently through the back door

His wife and children are disappointed in him
Because he doesn’t do enough for them

Studio UFA has faded away
MosFilm has blended into something new
Cinecitta filmed in Il Duce’s day

But

Kent State University adds their own “We, too!”

For they’re now using race to cast a play
Kent State obeys the old gauleiter’s cue:
Sure, you can act, but what’s your DNA?
They only hire Authentics as cast and crew

You have to be correct to play a part –
And we are expected to call it art

To be submerged in world and Word, in Word
That is the world, in words that are the Word
Written in holy fire, the eternal Song
In which and through Whom the world is breathed into being

The Torah scroll unrolls the years of creation
The pages of the Talmud frame the law
As in the statute-structure of the ark
Or as a tabernacle of the soul

To read the words, to chant the Word, to sing -
To be the yad in the great Hand of God

Your Grace, you cannot be a common man
There are no common men - but there are men
And in their service, wearily, alone
You now must bear their mitre and their ring

Your Grace, please do not dine with the regime
They’re only using you, laughing at you
Nor with the blessed poor – you’ll slurp your soup
And they deserve better company anyway

Your Grace, you must completely humble yourself
Submitting even to being addressed as “Your Grace”

-Ecclesiastes 1:2-11

That which is said to come already is
And was, and so will be again – the sun
Will rise tomorrow, perhaps not upon me
But still the sun will rise again tomorrow

And warm the waters in a little stream
That laughing play with fallen autumn leaves
And all of them swim past a rotting pier
Where little boys with their cane poles once fished

The river currents flow, and so do we
To find our sunlit dreams upon that sea

-Houston Chronicle, 10.1.2018

A robot wandered the mean streets alone
While lighting up and smoking his last transistor
Remembering an IBM long gone
“Buy me a WD-40, mister?”

A ****** thermostat took him to Radio Shack
And talked about some Texas Instruments she knew
A Compaq sent them to a room out back -
“Do ya wanna undo my phillips *****?”

He paid the thermostat some gigabytes

And then…

He was mugged by a relay who put out his lights

A merry dachshund yaps, and leaps for leaves
Wind-blown across the still-green summer grass
As autumn visits briefly, and looks around
To plan his festive moonlit frosts when next
Diana dances ‘cross November’s skies.

“I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm.”

-Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man for all Seasons

And yet how schadenfreude to imagine
The purported Melvin from Mumbai
Tipping the executioner for good service
(To Melvin a concept previously unknown):

          “Be not I understand afraid of your office I need your major    
            credit card and your date of birth you but send me I
            understand to that Limited Offer 30G in the Sky I
            understand.”

Or the executives of ISPs
Their eyes blindfolded with their own insolence
Standing before a new Customer Care Team
Drawn from a list of eager volunteers

Now look upon each techno-high-flyer

And

“Customer Care Team – Ready! Aim! Fire!”

A corporal on his embarkation leave
Encounters a girl: “Tell me, what’s your name?”
She smiles and replies on that summer eve
“Tell me no lies and I’ll tell you the same.”

          The congressman’s son is on the rowing team

They stroll along a San Diego pier
Where the old museum ships lie in repose
She has a coffee; he orders a beer
From a vendor he buys her a pretty rose

          The President’s son is a UPenn man

They flirt over an order of burgers and fries
A soldier-boy so handsome and so young -
The women of the plains will gouge out his eyes
The lads from the hills will cut out his tongue

          And the senator’s boy is a Harvard man

(A class for correctional officers
at the local community college)

Thirty-six-thousand a year to begin
No education or experience required
The recruiting posters are pretty, though:
Handsome young people uniformed in grey

But the poor sergeant can’t control his class
His students have their cell ‘phones and their ‘tudes -
“Tell Momma to pick me up like I said!” –
Slouched in their seats or wandering the halls

While dozing over her own telescreen
A fat corporal yawns by the soda machine

I can’t remember my color, can you?
One side is the bad side; the other is good -
Am I a red, or am I then a blue?
What’s the true color for my neighborhood?

It’s all confusing for this old fellow
They tell me I’m white, but I’m somewhat pink
(When I had the jaundice I was rather yellow)
What color is good – oh, what do you think?

Identification with color – says who?
I think I’ll just stick with the red, white, and blue

The National Security Advisor
In all his frumpery and trumpery
Waves his combat moustache menacingly
Backed up by each nuclear incisor

He threatens Iran with his “hell to pay”
Word missiles through his bristles - “We will come after you!”
Omitting to say (through his ****** hairdo)
His child will not go, but yours will – hooray!

For his own combat record is no joke:
He bravely fought the Cong around Fort Polk

To all officers: 504 ERROR
Two German couriers DIAGNOSED WITH AFIB
THIS HAND LOTION IS carrying official documents
murdered on train from LIKE US FOLLOW US

Screen freeze: restart

Oran. AN ERROR OCCURRED IN THE SCRIPT
Murderer ELIMINATES LAUNDRY ODORS
and possible JAW DROPPING accomplices
headed for NOT RESPONDING Casablanca.

Screen freeze: restart

WE’VE GOT AN UPGRADE FOR YOU round up all
suspicious characters TRY IT YOURSELF

Screen freeze: restart

Thanks to:
https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=casablanca
for access to the script of Casablanca.

O how beautiful is Our Lady Queen!
Queen of our hearts and hopes, and of the May
Sweet Empress over forest, down, and dene,      
And happy Sunrise over the pilgrim’s way

O let us crown Our Queen with leaf and flower
Gathered this morning in the dawnlit dew
For we in this Island are Her true dower
Pledging our faith with thorn and rose and yew

She gives us Her feast day, cool and quiet and green -
O how beautiful is Our Lady Queen!

iobey #meweak #isubmit #mefollow
#idon’tthink #pleasedon’tdisapproveofme
#itoo #allin #mecomrade #iobedient
#idesperate # mecabbage #Ilabelled

#ilicensedmerchandise #meclothingtag
#willyoubemyfriend? #mehatewhatyouhate
#idoasiamtold #mehavenocharacter
#ichantanddanceandwave#mesacrifice

          ­They’ll hate you, you know, if you walk away,
          Think for yourself, and refuse to obey



(The first line should begin with the little ******* of our time; this machine does not agree, and so has omitted it.  Perhaps as a brave machine it refuses to obey me! )

A calendar knows little of a day,
Of any day; its arbitrary squares
Mark seasons as they amble on their way
From holy Advent ‘til the harvest fairs

When summer’s crops, all red and gold and blue
Along with piglets, ducks, some well-fed hens
Are carted squeaking, squealing, creaking to
Saint Michael’s fields in the Anglian fens

Old Father William lifts a pint (no less!)
With farmers selling cows and chicks and corn
For he is merry too, and quick to bless
The laboring marsh-folk on this autumn morn

Earth, sky, and air mark seasons as they fall,
And soon comes Martinmas, joyfully, for all

Sometimes they are all Up the Down Staircase:
Please use the computer we never gave you
Respond to the directive we never sent
And send again the grades you sent last month

You have thirty students in your night class
The adjunct next to you has only six
Well, no, you don’t get any more pay than him
          I mean “than he”
We’re miffed that you even asked about that

Your roof is leaking only because it’s raining
And you’re overdue for your pervert training

Like vultures hovering over the faithful dead
The rank red rags of base repression hung
Upon the blast-breeched walls of captive Rome;
The smoke of conquest fouled the ancient streets
While mocking conquerors marched their betters
At the point of enlightened bayonets
To the scientific future, murdering those
Who bore themselves with quiet dignity

False, sinister Savoy sneered in disdain
At ancient truths, this costumed reprobate
Who played at soldier once the firing ceased
And claimed Saint Peter’s patrimony on
The corpses of the merely useful who
With this day’s slogans fresh upon their lips
At dawn advanced upon the remnant walls
So thinly held by so the last faithful few

And thus befeathered fat Vittorio
Was given his victory by better men
On both sides there, their corpses looted by
The pallid inheritors of Progress
The son of a Sardinian spurred his horse
Along the streets of now obedient Rome
And to the Quirinal by a passage broad
And finally to the Ardeatine Caves

I mean, like, veg, you couldn’t expect me to eat
A fellow vegetable, a kindred soul
One in spirit with me, with woody cells
Made in the image of the Great Carrot

The animals don’t feel pain like we do
They have no sense of being, they have no soul
And humans need to be farm-raised in pens
And really, veg, they’re happier that way

I’m studied in all such matters agrarian
And, yum! I love me a tasty vegetarian!

For security and training purposes
this call may be monitored to access
your account by card number press 1
to access your account by social press 2
to access your balance press 1 to report
a lost or stolen card press 2 beep beep
buzz buzz this is tiffany how may I
help you today I understand what is
the number on the back of the card I
understand what is your social what is
your bank what is your date of birth you’re not
at home I understand what is your home
number for verification where can
we send emergency cash oh you don’t
need emergency cash but you are not
at home I understand what is your date
of birth what is your social is this your
current address what is your bank press 2
when was your last transaction on this card
a lost or stolen card press 2 beep beep
buzz buzz this is tiffany how may I
help you today I understand what is
the number on the back of the card I
understand what is your social what is
your bank what is your date of birth you’re not
at home I understand what is your home
number for verification where can
we send emergency cash oh you don’t
need emergency cash but you are not
at home I understand what is your date
of birth what is your social is this your
current address what is your bank press 2
what is the number on the back of your card
a lost or stolen card press 2 beep beep
buzz buzz this is tiffany how may I
help you today I understand what is
the number on the back of the card I
understand what is your social what is
your bank what is your date of birth you’re not
at home I understand what is your home
number for verification where can
we send emergency cash oh you don’t
need emergency cash but you are not
at home I understand what is your date
of birth what is your social is this your
current address what is your bank press 2
you should receive your new card in seven
to ten days how can I help you further today?

Well, I could do with a new brain, ha, ha

But Tiffany from Mumbai does not laugh

The typewriter misses one of its keys
Every word is an orphan, and the lines
Wither away in an unfurnished room
Above a garage infested with ghosts

          Life is an unreliable narrator

The phone that isn’t connected doesn’t ring
While past-due notices fight among themselves
And on the hot plate macaroni boils
Sometimes you can see islands in the steam

          Life is an unreliable narrator

You’ve got a gift; that’s what everyone said

But

Your worn-thin sleeping bag is still your bed

          Life is an unreliable narrator

Changing the channels in the middle of the night
Mixing old plots into a new program
Ugatti sells tickets to an illegal fight
Another quarter for the juke box, Sam

Patrick McGoohan strides angrily into Rick’s
But finds that he has lost his credit card
Vultures, vultures everywhere, Number Six
Ilsa falls for Major Strasser quite hard

Rick’s Place is purchased by Raymond Massey
And Leonard Cohen in his famous blue coat
Emails of transit from Kate Beckinsale, so classy -
‘Tis she who leaves poor Rick that rain-stained note

And Captain Reynaud?

He ends his days pushing each shopping cart
In from the parking lot down at Wal-Mart

The Poetry of John Keats is not Safe


You may find there “a cave of young earth dragons”
Or with a “sea-born goddess” fall in love
You might not escape “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
Or finish reading all your “high-piled books”

Yet “tender is the night” when sings the nightingale
And you are shown that all “Beauty is truth”
Through your soul, “The wanderer by moonlight”
And there “like pious incense” the hours pass

Though in that “season of mists” one’s life must end
“Go not to Lethe,” but sail on with the wind

1 “Ben Nevis”
2 “Endymion”
3 “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
4 “When I Have Fears that I may Cease to Be”
5 “Ode to a Nightingale”
6 “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
7 “I Stood Tip-Toe Upon a Little Hill”
8 “The Eve of Saint Agnes”
9 “To Autumn”
10 “Ode on Melancholy”

World leaders thunder denunciations

          But my dachshund puppy annoys the cats

Bombing planes fly in nuclear drills

          But my dachshund puppy just ate a moth

Religious leaders are shredding their files

          But my dachshund puppy barfed up that moth

I don’t know if I’ll lose my job next year

          But my dachshund puppy got spanked by Queen Cat

The fat boys on the radio yell a lot

          But my dachshund puppy is barking mindlessly

My senator says he stands up for the flag

          But my dachshund puppy is stealing the cat food

My president seems to play golf for the flag

          But my dachshund puppy is napping in the sun

          And the cats are quite happy about that

I.

Few of us seek for any of those keys
Of which graduation orators speak
Nor would most bother with the battery
In that old lamp of which they’ve never heard

They do not push against a golden door
They expect all doors to be opened for them
They read no books, they do not read, they feel
They only feel, they do not write, they stare

So emptily away, then back again
An empty stare into, within the self
The empty chatter of the ceaseless self
Each self in pain from arrogant self-pity

Each centers himself in a universe
His universe of the eternal now
His universe of the eternal me
And thinks not of beyond himself at all

But, still –

II.

There are those few who seek for eternal Truth
Not for some shabby metaphorical keys;
They light the lamp, they lift the lamp, and look
Not at themselves but at the light, the Light

They shyly, slowly open the wardrobe door
They peek inside, they look, they see, they see
A world beyond their own; they step into
And through, and so they are given themselves

They seek for something else, and find themselves
A world of words and music and magic and light
And the Light is not them but upon them
The Light is the center, and gives them light

They give away themselves and so gain crowns
Unasked and so more happily received
They read and write and sing the happiness
Unasked and thus given, among the stars

III.

Forever

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

The Tempest III.ii.129-130


Be not
Afraid
Iambs
Are just
The way
We speak
They are
Our natch
Ural
Rhythm

Or:

Be not afraid; iambs are just the way
We speak; they are our natural rhythm 1

Sometimes they must be squashed a bit, and then
(Hear “natural” as two syllables, a pair

Othertimes “natural” is read as three) –
Be a skilled artist in your poetry!

1 “Rhythm” is a trochee, not an iamb
   But let it stay, that poor, little lost lamb

The merry banter of the waitress flirting
With her old men the negotiations
For a coffee refill the rattle of flatware
And the clatter-clat of the breakfast plates

The buzz of conversation and over there
A Bible verse and a head bowed in thanks
“Then Grandpa shot Billy” and too the hum
Of how’s-the-weather going to be later on

The usual beginning to another work day…
But wait…but what…what did that old man say?