Bob Hope Is Not a Plan                    

What was I trying to get at?  Once posed in that condition,

the question seemed slightly insane, a septet of cardinals

lunching at the Rainforest Café.  The old skin issues

kept reasserting themselves, a wayward boomerang

lurching hither and yon, over hills and dales and hibernating

bears.  The investigating committee requested

that I stick more closely to the script, wipe the pie

from my eye, all the usual bullshit.  I complied.

Then I went for a five-mile hike.  In the clear cool of dawn,

or in the aimless atmosphere of noon, or maybe even

in twilight's hungry cloak, I came across

a set of golden steak knives next to a sign.  The sign read,

"These Are Not Your Father's Steak Knives."  But I knew

deep down it lied:  these knives were my father's, and his father's

before him, all the rueful way down to lizards and muck.

Lives of the Poets                             

No angel but goes into the ground.  I found myself

walking along the side of an enormous spaceship.

"I have heard that you combine the pride of lions

with a certain aversion to laundry," the lead man said.

What could I do but agree?  The sky flashed

a green ampersand.  Nothing is new.

I had a hankering for peanuts, for salt

solid in the mouth.  Somewhere underneath

a river carved out a course for future

subterranean trains. 

                                    Alice cannot understand

the language except by holding secret cards

close to the expanse of her oracular breast.

Alice doesn't see her death as tragic.

While she collapsed, I was auditioning

for the part of the Fool in a play I called

"The Fool."  There were two other characters:

Stepfool and the vicious Nightwalker.