American Ethics An ancient joke tells how a kid wh… his parents out of rage or just fo… Then cons the judge by citing all… He’ll surely suffer as a lonely or…

Boundaries Tracing writhing streams, circling alpine wastes, tickling out a finger nudged between two behemoths,

Intellectual Insecurity When I must read reports I really don’t feel too slick If I can’t see what’s wrong When I encounter a [sic].

Gimme That Ole-Time Religion I As one New Yorker said, the guy w… You in New York, your wallet as h… At least has goals, unlike the oth… Who kill and maim and have no aim…

M. The Old Widower’s Effluvium His cachet evolves from subtleties… as he is groomed for an ever small… He doesn’t sweat for he cannot toi… so baths now seem superfluous,

Ask Not Whom the Toll Bails A Grecian corpse’s mouth containe… Placed there by kin who thought he… To pay the toll required to cross… (A job that Charon got through po…

A Wake In Florida’s woods there stands a… Still silo-girthed but leaning now… The trunk bone-white, stripped of… The spectral limbs shattered, gone…

The Skaters Nothing is less of the earth than couples skating: the woman in her white raiment clean, clean, and full of light,

Give Me That Old-Time Religion As one New Yorker said, the guy w… You in New York, your wallet as h… At least has goals, unlike the oth… Who kill and maim and have no aim…

The Computer Cometh A shiny joint is rasped across the… And swiftly followed by a bulging… And other iridescent joints that h… Themselves across with creaks and…

The Domestic Life of the Elephan… Elephants, Lawrence wrote,** let love bloom slowly “in their vast shy hearts.” But Lawrence dreamed.

The plank is narrow, more narrow than when he started; he could slip off at any time. The wood is slick, too, threatening again a premature plun…

Relativity at the foundry Behold the scene at the iron works Where whirls of girls and harried… Surround the boss, a man of vision… Who, visualizing a new division,

My parents always seemed to be hum… Protecting beasts once sought with… And eating guiltily the ones still… Ennobling evolution’s theme . . .… They gave me newer weapons, bats a…

Sure, ask who died, and ask why J… Won’t have Brad’s baby, whom she’… Read how the princess slept with h… See Mary’s image on a slice of br… Get proof that so-and-so’s a murde…