Poetry
Autumn 1993
After Three Days
when she got back the peonies in the crystal bowl had shed a welter dry as ash from hideous bare heads, their slack stems in a liquid faintly foul. She […]
Poetry
Autumn 1993
The Blue-Eyed Exterminator
The exterminator has arrived. He has not intruded. He was summoned. At the most fruitless spot, a regiment of the tiniest ants, obviously deluded, have a jetty ferment of undisclosed […]
Poetry
Autumn 1993
Softly
Wherever we walk, we walk over the silent. Cities layer on layer, we know, or never heard of; whose citizens gave themselves in sleep to dreams not understood, saw how […]
Poetry
Spring 1991
The Thing about Crows
is, they are hoarse. When you are hoarse, and shout, you sound either desperate or ominous. The crows are not desperate. I say they are not desperate, but one flapped […]
Poetry
Spring 1991
The Minor Poet
The minor poet sits at meat with danger smoldering in his eye, to left, to right, his dicta fly,impaling those who blot or botch: should any dolt essay reply his […]
Poetry
Spring 1991
I Have Something to Declare
The foreign phrase book says, “How much?” “I do not understand.” “What is the matter?”“I am busy (tired, ill).” “Help!” “Fire!” “Thief!” “Do you want—” “I am looking for—” “Whose […]
Poetry
Spring 1991
Survivor’s Ballad
She’s not sure if it’s song or sermon: ballad of a tight-knit trio, graduates of the Monday German,two with beauty, and three with brio. Three were cocky and three were […]
Poetry
Winter 1969
My Small Aunt
died in a dust of lions; her Africa was secret as her body and arrived like the biblical robber by night, by darkest night; that night, however, was the cinema’s: […]
Nonfiction
Spring 1967
The Absurd Quest
The most exciting theater of our mid-century is that of the absurdists, particularly Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet. They dazzle us, first, with a fine control of craft, […]
Fiction
Autumn 1965
On the Island
After dinner the Driscolls sat for awhile with Mr. Soo, by the big windows looking out and down over the bay. There was nothing to close: they were just great […]