[RCL]

Bravo!! John and Ann

Many have been inspired by Keats' sonnets. Here is my second published poem, as a book review!

On First Looking into Sheehy’s New Passages

Much have I traveled where no man grows old,
And many winsome girls and women seen;
Round many L.A. pool sides have I have been
Which bards in fealty to Narcissus hold.
Oft of middlescence had I been told
That sharp-eyed Erickson made his domain;
Yet did I never feel its edge so keen
Till I heard Sheehy speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some surfer of dark skies
When a new starlet swims into his ken;
Or like Hugh Hefner when with bloodshot eyes
He retreating sirens scanned--and his limp men
Looked at each other with a mild surmise--
Silent, atop Disney’s cold Matterhorn.

Los Angeles Times, Book Reviews (8/13/1995)

It later morphed into “On Last Looking into Hefner’s Playboy”