Poems by Richard Epstein. Not much commentary, only one picture (sorry, Alice), and little disruption: just a place to find poems by Richard Epstein
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A lantern on a lanyard on the last Train out of town to Anywhere at All, Which happens to be east of Little Jugs, Gives more illumination than you’d think. A carrot and a stick and several shoes Piled on the platform where the caboose becomes Thin air; and you, you weren’t expecting that. The elegance of emptiness does not Include a carrot or a pair of heels, But Anywhere at All will be amused. A…
When I was young, there was abundant time, The local trees insatiable, the bugs Bigger than classmates. I remember names Were things, as permanent as furniture. Now I am not. Sequoias come and go, And monuments are jittery. I see What I have seen. I tell a bug, I knew Your family. I made a Science Fair. He is not much impressed, and he is dead Or playing dead. And April's grass is green.
The rain distorts my make-up, blue The color of my hair and eyes. (My nose is red, my heart is green.) A scenist has prepared the skies Ingeniously. I’ve come into My own here--Look! A human bean, A roly-poly in a cage, The Widow Twankey on her walk, Wishing the weeds would grow so high, I could ascend my private stalk And put all heathen in a rage. This dragonfly my private eye: He boos and…
from These Denver Odes The daisies mown will blow again. The moon pines not, nor is dismayed, rejuvenating without pain; once man into his grave is laid, he is no more a man. His dust may someday form some form instead. It won't be he. The new moon must return; but man, when dead, is dead. So you, figured like Helen, bright of eye, Celinda, will not see how good you look, made up for night, to be…
For extra credit he remembered much That wasn’t worth remembering, forgot The kinship he had promised to except From discharge, and demurred at growing up. It made him charming, like a short-term loan, Lots of interest there, so he changed his name To Amaryllis-in-the-Shade and wept, Or said he did, at auld acquaintances. The Times that try men’s souls, he did not read, Other than archived, knew…
This is the country where a commandant Discovered persiflage and flavored it, Enlisted Cherokees for crowd control, Good local color, founded an orphanage, And called it Huxley on the Hill of Beans. A modernizer, they say now, who stored The name of every voter in a barn Shaped like the Trianon, then burned it down To prove he was sincere. From the insurance He bought a trotter and a Brahma bull…
I threw the golden apples all at once. I might have hit her once or twice, but mostly They landed where I meant them to. She stopped And picked one up, glistening like the sun On cutlery. The apple looked good, too. You think I’m Eve, she said, and passionfruit A golden bauble wrapped around a core Of propagation and distraction? Run, You fleet-foot son of Adam. I got far Enough to watch her curve…
Nothing more gorgeous than her gardening, Which needs no barge or poop, just steer manure And leafmeal crumble. Mulch is promised us, Not always promptly. What we grow takes time, Then flowers in the night. Conservators Have failed their catalogues; Linneans weep, Knowing somehow they've given it no name. Ignis fatuus , some pink scholar said, But he cared more about the Amazon, One-breasted…
After the wolves and avalanche subsided, After some man was found encased in ice, A quill clasped in his hand, a bowler hat, Crown up, between his legs, there wasn’t much To do but lay new shingles on the roof. The goats were glad the wolves were gone, the dogs Looked sheepish, and the bowler hat was blessed By Father Tom, the light of rectitude. We thought, though, that the corpse might be a…
Here is the world on fire, Sun or flames at morning, Roofs ignited dawning, Cries in bedrooms, smoke At short-order breakfast windows. Pity the children, widows, The crippled aunts with one hand free, And the anxious dogs barking, Liar! Liar! And the diving ducks breaking the lake. All the new men aflame, Nothing the sun will see Set them aboil and aburn. Look, from laburnum and briar Smoke is…