First Snowfall, by James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) The snow had begun in the gloaming, And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white. Every pine and fir and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged inch deep […]
The Prodigal Son’s Brother, by Steve Kowit (1938-) who’d been steadfast as small change all his life forgave the one who bounced back like a bad check the moment his father told him he ought to. After all, that’s what being good means. In fact, it was he who hosted the party, bought the crepes […]
Onions, by William Matthews (1942-1997) How easily happiness begins by dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter slithers and swirls across the floor of the sauté pan, especially if its errant path crosses a tiny slick of olive oil. Then a tumble of onions. This could mean soup or risotto or chutney (from the […]
Song of the Stormtrooper, by Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) From hunger I grew drowsy, Dulled by my belly’s ache. Then someone shouted in my ear, Germany awake. Then I saw many marching Toward the Third Reich, they said. Since I had naught to lose I followed where they led. And as I marched, there marched Big […]
D. O. A. by Tim Dlugos (1950-1990) “You knew who I was when I walked in the door. You thought that I was dead. Well, I am dead. A man can walk and talk and even breathe and still be dead.” Edmond O’Brien is perspiring and chewing up the scenery in my favorite film noir, […]
Sick Boy, by Anne Ridler (1912-2001) Illness falls like a cloud upon My little frisking son: He lies like a plant under a blight Dulling the bright leaf-skin. Our culture falls away, the play That apes, and grows, a man, Falters, and like the wounded or Sick animal, his kin, He curls to shelter the […]
What I Did, by Jim Daniels (1956-) What are you going to do when your girlfriend’s pregnant neither of you have health insurance or a decent job and you’ve both been taking enough drugs to kill a horse or two? What are you going to do when she calls up from Wisconsin three states away […]
Gargoyles by Lucien Stryk (1927-) Hungry-eyed fogies gargoyles in full cry above the ruck and tumble of the street. They stare through shadows at a first-class loser, failed at selling shoes, flunked waiting tables, freaked out at knocking holes through cellar walls for slumlord hovels, scratched through flea-bitten nights in far-off […]
The Identification, by Roger McGough (1937-) So you think its Stephen? Then I’d best make sure Be on the safe side as it were. Ah, there’s been a mistake. The hair you see, it’s black, now Stephen’s fair … What’s that? The explosion? Of course, burnt black. Silly of me. I should have known. Then […]
jingoism, by bill shields I never wore a yellow ribbon & I’ve bled for this country no flag either or “WELCOME HOME HEROES” bumper sticker on my car I can’t find one good thing to say about American teen-agers firing extremely high-tech weaponry against a virtually unarmed enemy A parade for our heroes? A parade […]