with a voice like Ella's ringing out there's no way a man can lose

As Planned
-- by Frank O'Hara

After the first glass of vodka
you can accept just about anything
of life even your own mysteriousness
you think it is nice that a box
of matches is purple and brown and is called
La Petite and comes from Sweeden
for they are words you know and that
is all you know words not their feelings
of what they mean and you write because
you know them not because you understand them
because you don't you are stupid and lazy
and will never be great but you do
what you know because what else is there?

The Office in Wartime
-- by Tina Brown Celona

1.
When the war started the words started
They melted like snow
On the cloth of war
In the midst of the avalanche
The fax machine printed a menu
And one of the potted palm
Turned brown and died.
Someone wrote a poem.
Someone else tried to hit a fly
With a rolled-up magazine and missed
And was relieved.

2.
She is the personal trainer.
By the pool they hit each other.
Everyone wonders if
There will be a war. If God will
Help us. The pool sparkles
Like freedom.

The Big Day
-- by Tina Brown Celona

Helplessly in the bright air
Dreaming of war
The President wakes. The camera's are ready
And waiting. The President climbs into the cab
Of a big green tractor and
Waves to the angry populace.
He honks the horn and flashes the lights
to applause. "New-cular," he whispers
Happily. America is a great country.
Everyone else had better
Watch out!