RAR.

*****

*****

To Ninety-second Street and Broadway I have come.

Outside the windows is New York.

I came here from St. Louis in a covered wagon overland

Behind the matchless prancing pair of Eliot and Ezra Pound.

And countless moist oases took me in along the way, and some

I still remember when I lift my knife and fork.

The Earth keeps turning, night and day, spit-roasting all the tanned

Tired icebergs and the polar bears, which makes white almost contraband.

The biosphere on a rotisserie emits a certain sound

That tells the stars that Earth was moaning pleasure while it drowned.

The amorous white icebergs flash their brown teeth, hissing.

They’re watching old porn videos of melting icebergs pissing.

The icebergs still in panty hose are lesbians and kissing.

The rotting ocean swallows the bombed airliner that’s missing.

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*****

In case you ever need to list the English Kings and Queens in order of succession, I present you with this rhyme.  Learn it!  It can be your party trick.   

Willie, Willie, Harry, Steve,
Harry, Dick, John, Harry Three,
One-To-Three Neds, Richard Two,
Harrys Four-Five-Six… then who?

Edwards Four-Five, Dick the Bad,
Harrys (twain), Ned Six (the lad),
Mary, Bessie, James you ken,
Then Charlie, Charlie, James again…

Will & Mary, Anne of gloria,
Georges ( 4! ), Will Four, Victoria,
Edward Seven, Georgie Five,
Edward, George, and Liz (alive).

*****

*****

Me!

Whee!

- A poem by Muhammad Ali

Shortest poem ever?

*****

*****

except this – reading poetry on the bus makes the commute to work somewhat bearable.  You can nearly finish a slim volume of the stuff in a few trips.  And then you just turn it over a read it all again.  Because poems don’t get old.  People do.

*****

*****

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR

by Michael Robbins

Praise this world, Rilke says, the jerk.

We’d stay up all night. Every angel’s

berserk. Hell, if you slit monkeys

for a living, you’d pray to me, too.

I’m not so forgiving. I’m rubber, you’re glue.

That elk is such a dick. He’s a space tree

making a ski and a little foam chiropractor.

I set the controls, I pioneer

the seeding of the ionosphere.

I translate the Bible into velociraptor.

In front of Best Buy, the Tibetans are released,

but where’s the whale on stilts that we were promised?

I fight the comets, lick the moon,

pave its lonely streets.

The sandhill cranes make brains look easy.

I go by many names: Buju Banton,

Camel Light, the New York Times.

Point being, rickshaws in Scranton.

I have few legs. I sleep on meat.

I’d eat your bra—point being—in a heartbeat.

*****

The New Yorker, 1/12/09.

Yo Decorno, thanks for finding!  I never read the New Yorker poetry – guess I should start?

THE POOL PLAYERS.
                   SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Hear Gwendolyn Brooks read it at poets.org.