Ecstasy, madness!--

Lust-salted slug

Trailing its lacrimoso mucilage

down shame-reddened cheek:

Liebestod!

it sent me running to:

1. wash my face

2. youtube, where i enjoyed several performances of Wagner's Liebestod but Shirley Verrett is my fav this time.

When I said, “you bitch so much--

if you were a drag queen, I swear

your name would be

Katrina Victim,”

Do you remember how you brandished

the microplane grater

As if to zest my manhood

over the risotto con funghi?

The hours, the days

Sweating out your bile

On Cupid’s Bowflex

(before I leave the Fotomat

I’ve already reduced your thousand words

To three-fifty

With one rip)

I wrote the following haiku a few years back, for USA Today's daily haiku contest. For some bizarre reason, that day's subject for the haiku contest was "Bill Cosby." I couldn't resist entering--who could?--and was dismayed to find that USA Today failed to recognize the poem as a work of enduring genius. Hopefully the Slate judges won't make the same mistake:

--Hey-ba, Fat Albert!

--Who stole my Jell-o Pudding?

Mushmouth hides his spoon

of poems has helped you in that when i realized all three of these moderately enjoyable bad poems were yours, i know i have to give you the blackthumb.

you have a certain gift. i just can't think of any way to use it.....

w n c