Donnius Caesar

To destroy his political rival Marc Antony, Octavius used Cleopatra.

I wonder if there were Roman senators—or anyone in Italy, for that matter—who screamed, “Improper!”

But was Augustus breaking the law—any more than our Donnius Trumpius did by going after Hunter Biden?

Some conduct is too unthinkably disgraceful to be illegal.

It sure seems more than just shabby, doesn’t it, to use state power for petty domestic political ends?

But Octavius accomplished three important goals: to destroy Marc Antony, to dominate Egypt,

and to crush the snake of matriarchy.

Jack Pot, the Burro

It’s as if I feel that what I want is forbidden.
Do I dare disturb the universe?
The proof is in the pudding.

I make plans to try to get it, but who am I kidding?
I always fear the worst.
But what do I want, and how is it forbidden?

The word that comes to mind is stallion.
A stallion is a male horse who’s got his testes. But the proof is in
the pudding: Do I want to be a stallion, or ride one?

Near Death Valley, I saw a herd of wild burros—
the stallion, named Jack Pot, and two mares.
Feeding them was forbidden

because their teeth and hooves damage the prairie
flora. Everyone feeds them anyway, of course—
they’ll eat the spotted dick right off your countertop. if you let ‘em.

One lady had to chase Jack Pot out of her panel truck.
So much of what a donkey wants
is forbidden!
Life is desire pudding.

Heart Wrack (Watching My Heart Beat)

Slept badly last night—

bed like a buzzing club—
and now a harsh quality of light

is dwelling on my hands and feet.
Heart wracked with love,
slept badly last night.

That’s two bad nights
in a row now, which explains
the harsh quality of light

that’s hammering my sight.
Ok, time to get in the tub—
I slept badly last night,

but I won’t give up the fight—
even though I feel like my cover’s
blown, and the harsh light

has finally found me out.
Lub dub, lub dub.
Slept badly last night.
There’s a harsh quality of light.

You Say It's Your Birthday, Happy Birthday to You!

It’s my birthday, and I’m so conflicted!

So many to whom I owe attention!
I’ll get a cenotaph erected.

My actual bones are in my apartment but I got evicted
from there. I have some apprehension,
on my birthday, of being so conflicted

and addle-pated
that all my pronouns are in the wrong declension.
YOU know how it is when you get a cenotaph erected

to make sure your absence will be unsuspected,
and you get all tied up in the use-mention
distinction—you’re so conflicted

that you wish all your light could be collected
into a hologram that will lisp your lover’s name
eternally—your cenotaph, your legacy

shining in the dark somewhere, just an ignited
spec of space dust, forever.
It’s my birthday, and I’m so conflicted!
Guess I won’t have a cenotaph erected.

Graveyard Dump Site

Putting a dump site
in a graveyard is disrespectful.
Does it count as spiritual striving or not?

Where else should I dump my shite?
Disturbing the dead is never tactful,
so if your graveyard dump site’s

noisy, I would ask that you be quiet
and think about a restful dump-site graveyard instead.
It would count as spiritual striving, would it not,

if you built a website
devoted to listing all the guest-full
graveyards built on dump sites.

The last will be our earth itself, you might
imagine if you waxed prophetic.
The graves yawn, do they not?

The dead arise and plant their feet
in the rag-and-bone-picking dump-site
graveyard of their striving,
do they not?

Thank You!

Folks must have wearied

of my villanelles

long since—written because I’m harried

from day to day by worries—

promptings that prick me in my blood,

so that I never weary

of drinking my formal-poem-aid—

rhymes that chime like an off-bell,

harrying

me into some new way

of attacking the puzzle 

of my life. Long past wearied

of waiting to hear one true word

spoken, though from the teeth of hell,

harrassed by words like harpies:

I beg pardon for anything I’ve said

that was ugly or hurtful,

and I thank from my soul

all whose blessed patience I’ve wearied!

Thank You! (Come Into My Kitchen)

1. Thank You!

Folks must have wearied 

of my villanelles

long since—written because I’m harried

from day to day by worries—

promptings that prick me in my blood,

so that I never weary

of drinking my formal-poem-aid—

rhymes that chime like an off-bell,

harrying

me into some new way

of attacking the puzzle 

of my life. Long past wearied

of waiting to hear one true word

spoken, though twere from the teeth of hell,

harrassed by words like harpies:

I beg pardon for anything I’ve said

that was ugly or hurtful,

and I thank from my soul

all whose blessed patience I’ve wearied!

2. Adding Stairs

Walking up and down the stairs

(the stair slats are soft birch),

trying to catch up with my cares.

Living on my railroad shares—

the train gives a lurch

in the night as I stumble downstairs;

trying not to have airs

(feeling YOUR presence like a prayer in church),

I try to catch up with my cares

by always adding flights of stairs

(a determined wave-leaping fish),

swimming up and down stairs

in my bathrobe—an exhibitionist, but no one stares

as I pursue my biological research—

walking up and down the stairs,

trying to catch up with my cares.

3. The Habitat of the Poem

I want to write about the habitat of the poem,

but I’m annoyed by the word “poem” in the first place.

The rhymes are all already known.

I can’t evade the connection like a blown

fuse why I don’t like to say the poem face to face

in open mics.—Because the habitat of the poem

is far removed from a noisy room

in which people get up and read on stage.

There are two pure rhymes for “poem”—“Jeroboam,”

servant of Solomon, and “low hum”—

the poem might be just a deep bass,

a nearly-inaudible drone in the habitat,

the house in which I go and come,

where my last

will and testament is filed separately from my poems.

To perform, I’d need a drag costume—

slip hugging my thighs, taps on my shoes

that could rhythm the habitat of the poem into the room—

rhymes already known.

The Habitat of the Poem

I want to write about the habitat of the poem,
but I’m annoyed by the word “poem” in the first place.
The rhymes are all already known.

I can’t evade the connection like a blown
fuse why I don’t like to say the poem face to face
in open mics.—Because the habitat of the poem

is far removed from a noisy room
in which people get up and read on stage.
There are two pure rhymes for “poem”—“Jeroboam,”

servant of Solomon, and “low hum.”
The poem might be just a deep bass,
a nearly-inaudible drone in the habitat,

the house in which I go and come,
where my last
will and testament is filed separately from my poems.

To perform, I’d need a drag costume—
slip hugging my thighs, taps on my shoes
that could rhythm the habitat of the poem into the room—
rhymes already known.

You Decide

Is Fate on board?

(Are they pouring the wine?)
You decide

to be the bride
of Frankenstein
for a day—on board

with Fate, your lover, who’ll
barge in and make a row.
But just you decide

to duck and hide,
and you can draw the line
exactly where Fate is

standing to thumb a ride
on anybody’s motorboat
but yours—I hope you’ll decide

to simply pass Fate by
without letting him on.
Fate is the word.
You decide!

Sawing on a Rusty Fiddle

We’re kidnapping the royal baby.

(Don’t worry, we’ll give him back.)
Don’t leave your love in savings!

I’ll have to hide the shavings
if I try to whittle my way out of this shack.
Kidnapping the royal baby

will be easy by comparison
to making a living with my truck.
I left my love in savings

and drove down to Tallahassee
with a load of fruit and a stash of smack,
planning to kidnap the royal baby,

who was lying low in a stroller near the Trading
Post. (What’s life but the ravings
of a lunatic who left their love in savings?)

OK, you have the meat, I’ll take the gravy,
but we’ll have to forfeit everything worth having
after we kidnap the royal baby.
We can’t deposit him in savings!

Fecklessness for Breakfast (Bambi After the Fire)

Life is a shipwreck.

The disaster is the need to grow.
If we were more feckless

and could just wait in the shallows,
we’d be more
likely to escape the shipwreck,

or even resist the big check
from fate we’re on the brink of, Bro.
If we were feckless,

we could refuse to fuck
with stuff that has it’s own good flow.
Our wrecked lives,

we could practically remake,
not in the image of a buck but of a doe.
We’d be feckless,

but we could still appear in public,
even if we mostly just lay low.
Life is a shipwreck.
Let’s all be feckless!

Walpurgisnacht

Is America turning her back
on the Enlightenment beliefs she was founded upon?—
on the eve of Walpurgisnacht.

We’re already putting sacks
over our heads so we won’t have to gaze upon
the corpse of America, who turned her back

on everyone who isn’t rich and white.
Does America know that the season
of the witch is drawing nigh—Walpurgisnacht.

in spades? That’s the night when all the black cats
walk under ladders and the grid is blown,
America lying on her back

in the middle of a murderous pillow fight.
We’ve all got one shoe off and one shoe on
in this dire dance of death, this Walpurgisnacht.

But let me declare, the Druids did all right
trying to hold their own against the Saxons.
America must get away
from being white!

Owning Up

Important not to take total personal responsibility

for things that are only partially your fault.
Everyone knows your proclivity

to believe you inhabit the City
of Bliss and Felicity,
so it’s natural for you to take total personal responsibility

when all ends in grief and tragedy.
But you went all in (you know) to a debacle!
You've got a clear proclivity

for attracting unflattering publicity—
I’ll say no more. You’ll have to call a halt
to the investigation, or you’ll get full responsibility

as the disgraced sports celebrity
whose shows were cancelled after their expensive gear and tackle
got spilled in the lake.  A proclivity

for bad luck is what you’ve got, McGlinty!
You drilled down to the bar-gold but got locked in the vault.
Don’t try to evade responsibility
for your dread proclivities!

Remembering the End

I want to anticipate my life's end well
enough before the fact
that I can afford the hotel.

Not looking forward to being my own only
friend, and I doubt I’ll have the tact
to anticipate my end well

enough not to be a dreadful
burden to everyone. So, I’ll pack
and move my sorrows to a sad hotel—

everything I am and everything I own perishable
as a periwinkle gliding on a wreck.
But if I could anticipate the past well

enough, I’d remember when wedding bells
rang for us, after we were discovered in the act
of love in quite a nice hotel—

so maybe I won’t die by myself.
It can’t be that my life was a mistake.
I want to forget my life’s end well
enough to have a ball!

Sleeping More

Sleeping more after I wake up
gives the whole day a tinge of unreality.
It’s a hiccup

in time, a pencil click on an empty cup.
The day gains or loses elasticity
when I sleep more after I wake up,

and a whole troop of faery sheep
enters the vicinity,
cloven hooves a-tapping like hiccups

a-knocking on my stoop.
I find I have a proclivity
to sleep even more after I wake up,

expecting that the awakening may be abrupt—
head blown off the dimity
by a trump-hiccup.

Well, I’ll herd them sheep’s asses into my pickup
truck and feed the girls on candy—
sleeping ever more after I wake up.
Waking’s just a hiccup.

I Thought I'd Never Leave!

Alone with myself at last!

But I won’t stop talking!
If I do, we’ll have a blast.

Giving myself some sass
for my street-walking.
Alone with myself at last!

Now, who would be so crass
as to suggest I’m faking?
If I do, we’ll have a blast

in spite of my dismal past
and all my belly-aching.
Alone with myself at last;

but I have to put myself on fast-
forward—the crows are flocking.
When they’re done, we’ll have a blast,

knowing I’ll be outclassed
when they finally start cawing.
Alone with myself at last!—
When I am, we’ll have a blast!

Old Bony-Legs Bailey

Remember old Bony-Legs Bailey?

Whatever happened to that guy,
who used to step so gaily

and flash their socks demurely?
Don’t tell me the sky
has received old Bony-Legs Bailey!

Remember ‘em on Friday
cutting goat capers and lettin' shit fly,
stepping so gaily the while?

And wasn't it amazing
how aptly they’d reply
when you asked old Bony-Legs Bailey

for their read on our daily
plight. (But we should probably say,
old Bony-Legs Bailey'd pronounce palely

whether you asked ‘em to or not.)
But don’t forget how bashful and shy
old Bony-Legs Bailey
was, though they stepped so gaily!

Adam and Eve in the Garden

The church teaches our body is sinful.

Sin is shameful dirtiness;
the templed mind

is never stained
unless the unguarded eye pollutes it.
The sinful eye's to blame 

for ogling the skin

rather than the soul beneath it—

the substantial, immortal mind

dazzled, mistaking bane

for sweetness. Our parents learned
their bodies were sinful

when they got moral knowledge
and left the garden.
Thenceforth, the archon, Mind,

would lock the body in a cage of sin—
Mind, the whipped horse’s pious rider.
     But Jesus made the resurrected body          
     the same as the templed mind.

Refuse to Be a Drunkard's Booze

A narcissist

gaslights you about your cruelty
when you try to cut them off.

But don’t ever kiss
and make up.
The narcissist

has a dip-switch
that converts them to injured royalty.
You'll have to cut them off

or they’ll pet you with their fist
again—as if you were a junior member of the English faculty,
in the narcissist’s

web, as it were, pricking their itch
to bite a pretty little fly—
in sexy cutoffs

no less. How rich
he’s struck it! Fly away now, fly away, pretty fly!
A narcissist
must be cut off.

Honor

Why do I feel the whole world will turn against me?

Isn’t that paranoia?
Will there be no one left to defend me?

Nurses will have to attend to me
someday, if it goes that far—
I mean, if the whole world turns against me.

It could be, resentment is spreading.
I have my own brand of honor.
Who’d care or dare to defend me?

It’ll be just as I’m dreading:
all my mistakes will sit in my adversary’s
corner, aiming my own gun at me.

Times in life I’ve had to defend my
own solitary honor
when there was no one else to defend me.

Just a silly
paranoid guy worrying—
no reason for the world to turn against me.
My good looks will defend me.

Gardening With a Camera

Little cooperative garden—

my shoes are planted here.
I’ll dub it the Forest of Arden.

My blue boot-bottoms
I’ll remove and wade in a puddle
in this little cooperative garden

where all my delectation
grows—cockle shells contrary—
somebody’s Forest of Arden—

the melancholy fit falling
when I see a fallow doe
roaming free in the garden—

I’ll dub her Rosalind,
disguised as the same boy
whose Mom was surnamed Arden—

these woods that call like home
to me, no matter what my gender
is, in this little cooperative garden,
my Forest of Arden.

Venus Inferred

My muse is merciless but they’re kind.
(My muse may have a penis.)
I’m inclined

to say, my muse has a sleek behind—
we’ve got so much between us!
My muse is merciless and kind,

but are we sure it’s love we’ve found?
A lot of people won’t select us,
but I’m inclined

to say they’re gnawing a hard rind
rather than bedding where the sweetness
lies, when love has been so kind

as to take us home with them
and treat us to the finest
kisses we’ll ever be inclined

to try to return in kind.
No safe word for a tumescent Venus!
My muse is merciless, but they’re as kind
as I’m inclined. 

Come All You Bold Semen

Language exploding around me
like burgeoning life forms.
The only way

to make it stop is to try
to count the pavement
cracks, with the traffic purring around me. . .

OK, I’ll try to be a ship at sea.
There was a call to arms,
and the only way

to avoid the draft was to join the Navy.
I was sent
to Egypt where Nelson’s doughty

cannon balls went whizzing by.
Everyone was speaking French,
a language that sounds like firecrackers to me—

Napoleon’s DNA
encoded in every stinging
swarm of bees that leaves the hive,
sure of their way.

Cannabis

I remember a spicy, jungle-y smell.

Lots of associations by now.
Do tell!

I heard the recess bell
ring before I woke on the commode.
The nurse applied smelling

salts to my nose. My blood pressure fell
because the madelaine made my head implode.
So I’ll tell

about when my tooth received the drill.
I was as cooperative as a cow
because of a sleepy nitrous smell,

and I bore the pain quite well,
my get-along transposed into a different mode.
I’ll tell

about a gorgeous French girl
who married me and took me on the road.
Only a remembered spicy, jungle-y smell
remains to tell.

Blocking the Sunlight

Taking pictures of my day:
nothing could be easier.
You are just in your way,

the sparrows say,
your songs couldn’t be drowsier,
ditties of your day.

What we need’s a fair
breeze to make our departure hastier.
If you make us bow and pray

all day, we won’t be on our way
in time (though we’ve never had tastier
worms in all our days).

Tracing sparrow-silhouettes in rays
of light: what could be priestlier?
You're just in your own way,

but the sun shines right
through you. A mere morsel of
need, but you take pictures of your day.
They're OK in their way.

Return to the Source

Is there one spirit inside me—
I mean, my SOUL?
It’s my cake that I can eat

and have inside me
too. My sole
outlet to the sea, tis

said—that sea
out of which I rolled
and to which I can return when I finally eat

my poison-hemlock treat.
Socrates thought his sole
reward for a life well spent

might be awaiting him, or else oblivion, which he’d
have preferred if dying was all.
Carrying my soul inside me—

my soul, my deepest self that bides me;
because time’s not real and the whole
sea’s welled up inside me
in a funny soft-bread lozenge that I can eat.

Getting a Grip on the Morning

First thing to my eye this morning,
twelve white-throated apostle sparrows—
now vanished without warning.

Just wakened from my dreaming—
REMs still singing Lilliburlero,
song of the Protestant boyos.

It felt as astounding
as successfully navigating Scylla and Charybdis.
First thing to my mind this morning

some messaged plans that died aborning,
leaving me with unspent care. Oh,
I give myself fair warning,

my day ain’t gonna be lying yawning—
gotta bring in all the plants, stow the wheelbarrow,
even mow the lawn. But I’m noticing,

the leaves on the trees are green and still not falling.
Guess we’ll have to wait till late October.
Goodbye, my little gospel sparrows.
You may be back some morning.

An Old Flame

The antennae feel the antennae,

says Rilke.
In these latter days,

I remember the times we 
met at Sencha 
Tea Bar. My antennae felt your antennae

plenty—the attraction was tremendous.
It still tickles
my psyche in these latter days—

ever more amazed
how eagerly I await
new signals from your antennae

to mine. Each day I say
my prayers, do my calisthenics,
and thank fate for lucky days

you help me get down and sashay
around the town,
feeling our pedial antennae,
in these latter days.

A Pen Always Comes in Handy

Out on my back porch chair again.
It’s fall and cold.
I had to find a new pen

because one was dry and the point
of another wouldn’t roll
properly. So here I am in my back porch chair again

with a slim, gray caliber® ballpoint
pen, thinking:
my whole life’s been an effort to find a different pen—

I don’t like those fountain
pens that come with a bottle of ink
that I’d surely spill in my back porch chair, where I’m sitting again,

scratching words like a clucking hen.
And I have to say, I think I’ve found a vein
of gold in this snug wood-hard pen

like a linked joint in the long chain
of speech, intoned from of old,
out on my back porch chair again
with my capable new pen.

Pooh-Bear Bard

Hard to write because the kitty’s on me.

Yesterday, I needed a photo of a poet reading,
so I made an effigy

using a big orange Pooh-bear
with a mic slung up to his reading
mouth. I tried different dark glasses on him,

a black sock for a beret. It was an elegy
for the whole ursid race he was reading.
He was the effigy

of seriousness itself, entelechy
realized in the charismatic act of reading
(with just a whiff of beatnic ennui).

I marvelled at how free
he was of the usual defects of reading:
words flying from his page like a kitty jumping off me,

he seized and owned that basement space completely,
even though he was just reading
from a book—only an effigy
in a poem that I wrote with a kitty on me.

An Hour of Loud Silence

Poetry is more overbearing

in a coffee shop than music is,
because you have to be completely quiet.

Before long, you’re wearing
out your welcome. I’d be remiss
not to remind all you overbearing

poets that the pairing
of poetry with pasta can taste obnoxious
because the chewing must remain so quiet.

You’re on a champagne diet
but all the fizz
has gone out of your overbearing

bubbly. You start a riot
by asking if your shoes are hers or his.
Better be quiet—

trade your rants for pickled herring.
Your innuendos are stinking up the place. Let’s
face it, poetry is overbearing.
Only the fish are completely quiet.

A Paean for Those in Pai-en (to Be Read With a Minnesota Accent)

Let me now begin a paean 

for all who’ve somehow overcome
their sorrows and their pai-en—

sleeping in the rai-en,
not noticing their feet grow numb.
Let me begin a righteous paean

to Abel and to Cai-en.
Cai-en raised a vineyard, while Abel husbanded dumb
beasts. The sorrows and the pai-en

of the sheep were pleasing
to Gad, so Abel succumbed
to the stone paean

flung by Cai-en that began our ba-ene—
Gad’s supper club that only butchers may attend,
So let me now complete a paean

that’s on the hoof, as it were, in its pasture ho-eme,
where savory smoke ascends to Gad’s
voracious nostrils, sniffing for a paean
for all our sorrows and for all our pai-en.

Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee

White-throated sparrows do a happy
dance to scratch back the leaves.
Instead of going tweet, they go dee dee dee dee dee dee.

Robin points them out there hopping near the clay
fish. If binoculars didn’t hurt my eyes, I could see
them better—white-throated sparrows doing their happy dance.

There are more birds perching over on the fence,
but those are just finches,
who peeve us by eating all the bird seed, only saying tweet.

You’d think they’d have enough to eat,
but can they preserve their assets against thieves,
like the chipmunks who regularly dance on the feeders,

spilling the bird seed
on the ground. How we grieve
at the havoc they wreak, while the birds say tweet!

But the white-throated sparrows are so cute!
Maybe they’ll stay the winter; if not, at least they’ll leave
us their happy
dance, dee dee dee dee dee dee dee.

Am I OK?

No matter what seems to be going wrong with me, 

I come back to my body
and I’m OK.

Whenever I must depart upon my journey

I bring my body with me
and I’m OK.

Always enjoy the stunning scenery,
but never quite sure when or where I’ll sleep—
am I OK?

So, I’m a stray cat—who'll feed me
and provide shelter for my furry body?
Considering all the want in the world, is it OK

to be nothing but this needy body
searching for some bless'd relief?
So, no kind voice says I'm OK,

but I’m on my way—
even after they wind me
in a clean winding sheet, the worm will find me
and I’ll be OK

The King Asked the Queen and the Queen Asked the Dairymaid

            sunlight buttered on the grass
            James Schuyler, Morning of the Poem

Why does the bread of poetry
need so much butter on it?
Ask the Alderney!

Heavy calories?
Better to put jelly on it,
the crusty bread of poetry?

Call me fussy,
but (pox upon it!)
please check with the Alderney

one last time, OK?
I need butter for my sonnet.
You ask why poetry

needs butter, eh?
Well (deary me!),
when an Alderney

mooes plaintively, all she can see
in the meadow is sunlight
buttered on the grass of poetry.
So says the Alderney!