Administration Change
Inauguration:
My whole life, I never saw
So gross a tsimmis.
(1/18/09)
Israel in Gaza
No deal; no cease fire!
Screw you, dammit—we cease fire!
In that case, us too.
(1/18/09)
The most intense moment I’ve ever known
Was not primal sex, not my wedding day,
My first child’s birth; nor was I addled, blown
Away (though rapt) viewing my first ballet.
Students made me a favored prof—quite nice;
And, while the appearance of my first book
Puffed me up, nothing so struck, battered, iced
My heart, set that rapturous, nerve-barbed hook,
As the last furlong of a mile-long race.
An agitated crowd howls with held breath—
Air congeals, taut skin crawls while space
Shrinks—Earth slows, stops—engenders living death!
For what? A horse race—fickle Luck’s coquette,
Life’s sky-kissed pinnacle—a five buck bet.
(12/23/08)
That strangest Holy Book, Leviticus,
Shouts out the rules, break them at your peril—
Angry Levites stick moral shivs in us,
Stone us, burn us, keep the LORD’s world sterile.
Tough task! Abomination pervades, soils
The land! Defilers, perverts prey on god!
And worse, make offerings hopelessly roiled—
Peace, guilt, sin, burnt—oats, beef, cash, lamb, the odd
Goat, even turtle-dove—good grief, you need
Theology to keep them all apart
(Though Leviticus will do). Those fierce priests
Need to eat too—parts they flame (smoke for god’s
Nose)—the rest? Rich sustenance for smiters
Too busy glaring, pointing, stoning sin
Or burning it with fire (bestowed birthright!),
To plant, to reap, to feed their own damn skins!
Biblical economy! Want to know
Who made the rules? Simple. Ask: cui bono?
(12/16/08)
For D.B.
Join us! Why not? Frail lost friends might appear—
Emeriti are (though often hoary)
Not yet quite dead. And this chipped, gray, bleary
Flesh can rise up still, still yearn for glory!
But few stopped by—worse, even faculty
In short supply. Young lecturers evoke
The passion (ah youth), energy, occult
Spirit—they warm the room—challenge, provoke!
Happily, D.B. was there—fifty-one,
Still firm, radiant, though slightly swollen—
(Bruised, doubtless, both by aimed and unaimed blows:
Lilting life)—charm, aura, not yet stolen!
Temerity, age-ripened, prompted me:
I announced to her (distinguished poet!)
That I, too, write poems—she smiled, “Let me see
Some.” Dammit! Now I’m done for—risked my butt!
Oh well, let them serve—these thin awkward poems—
Requiem for drowned ego, powdered bones.
(12/15/08)
Grave business, blue-black!
Cut slack, print money, thrust back—
Way to skin a cat!
(12/08/08)
Rod Blagojevich
Restored our faith—corruption?
Nowhere near dead yet!
(12/08/08)
Here’s a funky sight:
Masters of the universe
Wallowing in stink.
(12/09/08)
Half a hundred years ago, I, half-assed,
Raw pedagogue, would sometimes muse on sin,
On moral themes before a drowsy class.
“Adultery, kept underneath the skin,”
I argued, “might not damage innocents.”
(It was a lit class after all.) “How, then,
Absent injury, can there be sin? Whence
The evil, gratifying harmless yens?”
Troubled by a brash TV ad, one day
I raged: America is doomed, consumed
By predatory marketing—folks swayed
To buy electric can-openers—ruined,
Skewered economy, sure to collapse.
Trade built of stupid stuff, frivolity—
Quicksand drowning substance, a baleful lapse
Of sense—diminishes rich industry!
Whereupon, one student, wide-eyed, observed
(With ample reason—though a bit unnerved):
“Professor K., you weave a chilling spell—
“Adultery is charming, even swell,
While powered gadgets hurl us all to Hell?”
(11/23/08)
