We dance across wet grass to Steely Dan.
We slip, back slide, and pirouette again
to the sounds of summer in a sultry town,
to rhythms lost to boogie-woogie blues.
Wet-grass Waltzing
4
Prep Notes for Teachers: Sample Test for Your ‘Poetry Appreciation’ Students
Back when you read this poem (or didn’t, it does not matter),
did its title take your thoughts that bit to Walden?
For extra credit, make a pun combining ‘scalding’
with solutions to any resemblance to a hatter
whom the poem’s protagonist cheated, and was it his balding
that sent him out for a duck? Was he a batter?
To do well on this test, write long and dense-
ly, taking care to let no phrase make sense.
Whither Cupid
Image
Specious Spectacles
Blue Mountains
Image
Shaded Statue
Dry tears
that no one sees
crack furrows, fragile lines
in cheeks that no one touches with
kind hands.
Published in The Armchair Aesthete, Autumn 1997 issue; part of ‘July Travels’ collection
Pack Rat
Drunk in a roadhouse and happy,
I dance to the beat of the band.
It heats Cuervo Gold margaritas
that fuse, in my brain pan, the sand
left over from mining for Maundy
in my tent on the outskirt of dreams
where she, still in love, still accompanies
my travels. I order Jim Beams.
Published in The Armchair Aesthete, June 1996
The Boundary of My Ignorance
The boundary of my ignorance is a point
upon an other wisely absent line
itself too straight to curve itself around
circumferences. My ignorance is unbound.
The more I learn, less brightly burns the light
illuminating spaces I can’t know.
This lets me think I’m winning wisdom while
in fact the gods in kindness make me blind.
Earth Tourist 