the Mississippi River runs like molasses in the summertime


Rob Nadeau, Untitled, 2002

The Way of All Handwriting
-- by Ron Padgett

As long as there is hair on the human head
And people wish to arrange it
There will be combs.

But I don't want to sign my autograph.
I want to follow a coil
Down into my desire
To fall face first
Into a blue-green swimming pool
The shape and size of my own body,
So the joke will fly away from my physiognomy
And the steel strings that hold it to my interior monologue
Fall into the ionosphere
Where even combs go when they die,
Perfected, like first crayons,
Bright basic colors.

Dog
-- by Ron Padgett

The New York streets look nude and stupid
With Ted and Edwin no longer here
To light them up with their particularity
Of loving them and with intelligence
In some large sense of the word:
New York's lost some of its rough charm
And there's just no getting around it
By pretending the rest of us can somehow make up for it
Or that future generations will. I hear
A dog barking in the street and it's drizzling
At 6 A.M. and there's nothing warm
Or lovable or necessary about it, it's just
Some dog barking in some street somewhere
I hate that dog.

Chastity in Gomorrah
-- by Elizabeth Skurnick

Whenever I say I'm on layover
Everyone bursts out laughing.
Suffice it to say my descent has been grim.
I thought dildoes ornamented lawns
And you scrubbed you grout with S&M.
Here they wear white, but their edges are tattering.
The lamb falls off its skewer, black
And I clutch my hands at the glass that keeps shattering.