elijah’s england

Dad (feeling generous): “I’ll take you anywhere you want for dinner.”

Amelia: “Chuck E. Cheese?”

Dad: “Anywhere but Chuck E. Cheese.”

Elijah: “England?”

Dad: “Anywhere within driving range. How about pizza?”

Elijah: “Yuck.”

Dad: “Seriously, you don’t like pizza? Come on—you can get anything you want on it.”

Elijah: “England?”

Dad: “Come on man.”

Elijah: “Okay. Chick Corea?”

Mom: “Elijah! Do you even know who Chick Corea is?”

Elijah: “Yeah, he was a jazz…dude.”

video from comedy on parade

The sounds is bad (thanks for noticing), so click here if you want to read along. 

clinton and buckley

.
CLINTON

Maybe today is not your birthday.
Maybe your birthday is another day.
But there’s still reason to celebrate,
for on this day in 1980 was born
unto Bill and Hillary Clinton
a child that they chose to name Chelsea.

It was the year of the famous escape
of Cuban prisoners from Fort Chaffee—
a time of turmoil in “The Natural State”—
but the Comeback Kid had a kid of his own.

Chelsea Clinton, Chelsea Clinton.
Will she be the first woman president
of the U.S.A.? Looking at a photo
of her holding a microphone,
I say yes, she will be the one.
Her leadership will change everything.
.

BUCKLEY

Maybe today is not your death-day,
but maybe, just maybe,
for some of you this poem will be
the last thing you read.

Too late, if you were William F. Buckley,
notorious journalist, political gadfly,
for you died this morning in your study
thus ending an ideological odyssey

that began in the mid-1950s
when you founded a little bi-weekly
called The National Review; frankly,
you were a stallion, a man of your party,

respectable for decades of witty
repartee—and for more than forty
books ranging from spy thriller to essay
to Ronald Reagan’s biography,

which remains unfinished. Hey,
see if you can communicate in some way
what life is like beyond all this. Are we
about to enter eternity?

.

another old poem…

.
A SECRET

I am a
bad writer.

It is a
secret I
keep by
writing well.

The drawback
is it gives
me a sullen
disposition.

It is like
looking at
the world through
one tiny eye.
.

e. d. morel

Edmund Dean Morel, my friend,
the rhythm in your name
reminds me of the pacifism
which was your claim to fame.

But before we break out the palm wine
and dance and play the bongos,
let’s remember that all you wanted at first
was British free trade with the Congo.

Your motivations were capital then,
for you were a capital fellow.
You needed to feed five little ones
and keep the missus mellow.

But as time passed you found the truth
about slavery so appalling
that you published articles and a book
and opinions about France started falling.

Arthur Conan Doyle followed suit—
the creator of Sherlock Holmes—
and so did the American author Mark Twain.
They both wrote outraged tomes.

Booker T. Washington, civil rights activist
soon would join the fray,
as would the famous chocolatier
William Cadbury.

Edward Dean Morel, did you ever
eat a Cadbury Egg?
The ones with yummy goo in the middle
for which kids at Easter beg?

I hope so, because freeing the Congo,
knocking Leopold off his feet—
in fact, victory over every tyrant in the world
couldn’t have tasted as sweet.

begone dull care (1949)

I’ve watched this video three times in a row—Norman McLaren—who knew?

america doesn’t really care a lot?

“Poetry is a marginal art form in a culture that values neither literacy nor artistic expression in any vital way. America does not persecute poets, it does not hate them and seek to smash them like bugs—it just doesn’t really care a lot. The country is a pragmatic, dollar-and-cents kind of place.” —Campbell McGrath

eclipse

Things
I did while
the moon
was red:

reread
and edited
an application
essay;

trimmed
my beard,
which is red
and gray.

king leopold

……..For Knerr

Ah Leopold. Leopold!
Belgian King, Congo’s captor,
Killer of millions untold,
Veritable human rights
velociraptor.

So many Africans left for dead
While you spent your vacation
At a brothel in Hampstead—
Not funny. It was a house
of flagellation.

You were a Machiavellian,
A pervert, and really quite cruel.
Every right-thinking Belgian
Arrived hours early to boo
your funeral.

ethical dilemma

You enter a restaurant.
On the menu are two choices:

HOT DOG

HAMBURGER

Should you order
a cheeseburger?

thomas hardy the tank engine

From now on my poetry
shall be like Thomas Hardy’s—
I shall write about ponds
and about dying trees

and of the sadness that creeps
into love, over time—
and that life is absurd
and death sublime.

And I shall be like Hardy
in the way that I think,
no longer contemplating
my kitchen sink,

its bottle of Dawn
and unwashed dishes—
instead, haphazardness
and lovelorn wishes.

But I shall not grow
a broad mustache
and wax it each day
into a flamboyant swash

or wear a starchy shirt
with its collar sticking up
or drink expensive tea
from an overly tiny cup

to emphasize how big
the head of an author
tends to be,
nor shall I bother

to refer to myself
as the tank engine.
People already know
I’m the tank engine.

my best wand

Of all the magic wands
I’ve bought over the years
only the steel one
with the sharp tip
really works—you point it
into someone and say
ABRACADABRA
and the person magically
becomes wounded.

poems by roger clemens

I picture the Rocket sitting at his little desk composing tiny poems, oohing and aahing over them, folding them into envelopes with cover letters and sending them out to the Paris Review and Atlantic Monthly—only to receive form letters eight months later, “We’re sorry; please submit again.”

Finally Slate has accepted a whole slew of Rocket poems, and the world is a better place for it. Seriously. Amazing stuff. Here’s “Headaches”:

Kids come to my house and work out.
I invite them to come work out.
The littler kids,
I try to get them to sign a waiver
In case a bat comes out of my hand, or a ball.
We’ve experienced that.
That’s headaches.

The rest are here: http://www.slate.com/id/2184571/.

steve schroeder’s poem about me

This is funny. I wonder if that pretty much captures the public perception of me?

upcoming readings

Feb 18, 8PM - Comedy On Parade, Mad Art Gallery, St. Louis, MO

Mar 3, 7PM - Illinois State University, Normal, IL

Mar 4, 6PM - Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL (see David Wright’s announcement)

Apr 1, 8PM - Regional Arts Commission, St. Louis, MO

I’ll be reading my own poetry at all of these events—if you’d like more info, email me, and I’ll try to supply some.