Beat the Heat

Your zowie yoga pants
Dusty with jackrabbits
and tumbleweeds
Such heat makes me dig
Deeply into the freezer
For another solipsism
No better way to stay
Cool and a la cart

Parlor Tricks

How the time goes. You remember?
The little paneled case: Miss Mills having been unhappy
In a misplaced affection, and as it was her custom to walk about
In the daytime with her absolute certainty of having seen him before,
and we both said, Betsey, one of these days.

Now, Agnes, you have a wise head.
With a woodman’s axe in my hand,
I clear my own way through the forest invisible
Familiar it would appear, for corporeally speaking
she saying, Look, papa, what beautiful flowers.

And Miss Mills smiled—a tradition in the Commons
She lived principally on incessantly playing one tune,
and saw dog incessantly dancing one dance
(Oh, no. I object, you know) which he said very rapidly,
and went as to sleep,
I had dreams of poverty in all sorts of shapes,
but I am a Memorial to a more convenient time.

Although we are like two pretty pieces of confectionery,
I told her how I loved her.
I told her I was shut up close.
The conservatory doors were standing open, enough,
and Jip was lying in her lap, winking peacefully at me.
It be got rid of, for six months at least, unless they could be
closely engaged,
and never walked slowly on any account,
and felt relief from the fatigues of business,

If my calculation is correct, amounting to forty-one, ten, eleven
he seemed to be describing clouds about himself, at home
though I thought we all bore that with fortitude.
While I had been away from home lately,
Traddles had called twice.
I began to reflect whether I had done anything with some horses,
to stop very short when she appeared to trust not ignobly,
Mrs. Micawber and myself were roused from my amazement,
and concern for her - I am sure,
Miss

George Bush Parkway

The Tipp City council has voted to rename a section of road the "George Bush Parkway." This is a letter I wrote to a local paper to explain why I think their decision shows clear evidence of homoerotic worship of Dubya. It's true. All these goofy, hyperconservative men in this town have a definite man love for Dubya.

George Bush Parkway?
Have Tipp Cityians gone mad? Some of the people in this town have been like girls at a Sanjaya sighting the way they have sighed and swooned over George Bush. Can people here be any more aroused by the president? This is embarrassing and shameful. A road named after George Bush? Why not name a cemetery after him for all the deaths he has caused. Why not name a lonely hilltop for all the allies he has alienated? Why not name a vacant lot for all of his empty-headed rhetoric? Why not name an empty storefront for all of his failed policies? Bush came here not because he loves Tipp City; he came here because this is nearly the only place where he would not have rotten tomatoes lobbed at him. Representatives in his party hold their noses around him. Officials in his administration have abandoned him. Even conservative pundits are jumping ship. And this town wants to honor someone who has as much credibility as Jane Fonda at a VFW poker game? How can you honor someone who has no honor?

Alex Culpepper
Tipp Resident

The Man with the Bent Head

It happened again
The woman with a cigarette
came to me
She was distraught
Weak and shrill
Because the man
The man came back for
His laundry
“You can’t miss him” she
muttered
“His head bends funny”
Great—
Now I sit quietly and wait
for the man with a bent head

Pic-nic

Let’s have a pic-nic they decided.
“I’ll bring chicken and I’ll bring
Watermelon and I’ll bring
The Liebfraumilch and pork loin.”
So they hastened with the feasty plans
and noted who would bring what.

The food talk was intoxicating
and everyone agreed to meet
on a sunny day under park trees.
All gathered around a table
fluffed with food baggage.
Lips smacked and mouths sharpened
for sweet meaty tastiness.

But a delighted squeal rattled the guests
because from the bushes streaked
the salmon-pink forms of the naked men.
They rushed the table—
Naked hands clutched the food bags
and off they scurried leaving nothing
but crumbs and rinds and bones
And gasps of horror

Laws of the Land

Hammurabi says—
If fire breaks out in a house, and someone who comes to put it out cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that self-same fire.