• DEAR BLATTARIA

    It has never been fair, has it,you always reviled, harassed.It isn’t any wonder that you scurryfrom the light, one step aheadof certain holocaust, your kinddeemed the root of evil, a plague.We know that you were herelong before we arrived, will behere long after we have gone,after we have laid final wasteto our common home, and…


  • OUT FOR REVISION

    Someone, I cannot remember who, suggestedto me that I write the story of the world,not that the world needs another edition,but perhaps because it would occupy meand I’d stop sharing my poetry that so fewreally want to read and do so out of politeness.I thought about this and it is an intriguing project,for I would…


  • CRIME SCENE

    It was far and away the worstcrime scene he could rememberand he had been at it for many years.Over here were the bodiesof anapests and dactylsmotionless where they fell,oh how he wanted to pulla white sheet over themfor his sake if not for theirsfor they were beyond caring.By the wall he saw a trocheehalf draped…


  • STANDING AROUND

    They said they would take a stand. They meant to take a stand but they never quite got around to taking a stand. That was the problem with taking a stand, you had to act, you had to stand. So much time passed they forgot they had said they would take a stand. Then they…


  • BLEEDING EDGE

    Someone needs to tell old Murphyhe got it only half right.Sure things go wrongat the worst possible momentand that’s the half he got right.What he didn’t say, didn’t know,is that in our age of electronicsand planned obsolescencethings are perpetually going wrong,so of course some will do soat the worst possible momentand others will simply causebad…


  • SO, WHAT DID YOU THINK?

    In a few momentsgive or take, the story will end.If you haven’t been paying attentionthe ending will makeno more sense to youthan the rest of the story.You may be asked whyyou came to see it, whatyou thought of it and youwill offer some amorphous commentsif you go with the flowof the conversations around you.I will…


  • NOT THAT PICTURE

    Whoever first penned the adagethat picture is worth a thousand wordsand the multitude who haverepeated it ad nauseam in many languagesclearly never attended the partiesI once attended where, when the foodwas consumed, the guests adjournedto a den or living room wheresomeone wanted to form teams“for a spirited game of charades.”Then one poor, lost soul wouldstand…


  • ODE TO THE GODS

    You, who have walked herethrough the ages,who have watcheda million suns swallowedby untiring waves,what is it you expect?There is nothing here for youthe spirits of the old oneshave long since fledour sharpened blades,retreated with the starsinto the hillsthat rise from forest.The animals will cometo you no morefor we have served them upas a sacrifice to…


  • DISENG-AGING

    Christ, I have gotten old,and every day it hits home againin ways I wouldn’t have imagined.I mean M*A*S*H beganmore than half a century agoended 40 years ago, and the actorsI imagined as friends are mostly goneor are so old they are unrecognizable.And Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moonrecently turned 50 and it seemsonly yesterday…


  • PREP SCHOOLING

    They told me I didn’t belongnever would. It was just aboutthe only thing on which we agreed.But, I know, “you pays your money”and all of that, and my moneyhad been paid in fullso there I was and would remainuntil I could make an escape.Don’t get me wrong, despitethe Brooks Brothers uniformsit was only a social…