[Michael Cantor]

Doesn't it take sense that the guy who raised the fuss about junky poems about poetry posts the most junky poems about poetry? What's worse, I'm beginning to like some of them and starting to convince myself that one or two in a book get lost, but string eight or ten together as a separate section and maybe they play off and help each other - and I need eight pages or so for another book...

Erato at Sarasota

Four rabbis board the charter fishing boat.
Full-bearded Hassids, extra-kosher guys
in somber suits, white shirts, black hats that float
across the Sarasota pier; surprise
the other passengers, who can’t disguise
their wonder at what’s trundled down the docks.
“They’ll set gefilte traps,” I warn - I’m wise
to all the tactics of the Orthodox -
“Put cream cheese on a three-pronged hook and troll for lox.”

“You putz,” she says, “Forget your fancy flights.
You see a beard, you think Maimonides.
The fact, my dear, is that they’re Mennonites -
good Amish farmers come for sun and breeze -
not props to populate your fantasies.
All you ever do is strew old Jews,
ex-lovers, Elliotese and Japanese
throughout a work and call it verse – abuse
a poet’s licensed right to choose whose life is whose.”

What does she know? I’m not bemused by nymphs
who nag at the conceits that I propose,
think they see truth with every sharp-eyed glimpse.
Yes dear. I just ignore her yawp and close -
unleash my rebbes till each stanza glows
with whiskered quartets singing, each to each;
mad sages dancing slow adagios,
their music droning, drowning out the screech
I swallow as I struggle; choking on a peach.


The Minimalist at Work

Mad Mary
Minimalist
Divelicates
... my whole
Masticates
Adjudicates
... and
Extricates
... its soul

“Show don’t tell.
Don’t need that.
You’ll do well
To lose some fat”

My epic poem
... has lost
... its heft
... arhythmically.
Like the Cheshire cat
... now all
... that’s left
... is a simile.