Tag Archives: language

I Have Me a Cat

Posted on September 21, 2026 by JMN

Name of Midnight. He’s a smoldering coal,Cat afire. Icicles of burnt siennaPrickle his inkiness. Cheeky usurperOf this enterprise which is myselfHas a preternatural luster to him.Wish I’d named him Buckminster or Trajan.I’m only half serious when I sayDude has the … Continue reading →

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Thoughts on Thinking About Modern Verse

Posted on September 16, 2026 by JMN

I will have such revenges on you both that all the world shall—I will do such things what they are, yet I know not. (Shakespeare, King Lear) I think of much modern verse as language exhibiting unwonted, thus potentially interesting, … Continue reading →

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Colossus of Lapsus

Posted on September 14, 2026 by JMN

A defining word for a moment captures the moment in a captivating way.Think of something legendarily large, say, the Colossus of Rhodes,Wonder-of-the-world-level specimen of attentional dimension,Commensurate with, say, a full-on breakdown in the cereal aisleOf the supermarket of nations. Colossus. … Continue reading →

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I Have Me a Sister

Posted on September 11, 2026 by JMN

I have me a sister whose every reportIs she’s fit as a fiddle and couldn’t be better.Her world is the best of all possible places,No matter she could be as mad as a hatter. There’s nary an ache or in … Continue reading →

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Sung Now

Posted on September 6, 2026 by JMN

Harriet Tennessee AlexanderDid not suffer an overripe deaconTo go unremarked from where she stood.My great grandmother, duly churched herself,Would slyly christen the immoderate soulA constipated Baptist. Landing hardOn self-righteous in her considered viewCould overplay the sanctimony card.The railroad bisecting her … Continue reading →

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Battle Hymn of the Besotted

Posted on September 5, 2026 by JMN

We know that God loves. But did you know that God also hates?(Franklin Graham) Frankly, reverend, you’re a broken cracker,Besotted bottom-of-the-barrel divine,Breath blown into a mud pie by your maker,Reared on sodawater and moonshine. Word cloud from a cherrypicked psalterHovers … Continue reading →

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‘The Man Who Discovered Uranus’ by David Kirby

Posted on August 31, 2026 by JMN

What you say doesn’t have to be true. / It only has to be imaginable. (David Kirby, from his poem “Not the Almost-Right Word”) In my pronunciation, from boyhood until fairly recently, the planet Uranus rhymed with “your anus.” Now … Continue reading →

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On ‘Difficulty’

Posted on August 30, 2026 by JMN

This comment by Victoria Moul has jostled my world: It is very difficult indeed to write lyric poetry which is both beautiful and straightforward to understand, and which also has something to say — a clear and specific message or … Continue reading →

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Alligator Alcatrator

Posted on August 25, 2026 by JMN

Numpty majuscles issued from the gladesBy the avenging angel of foul moodsCodify the swampiness that reeksIn the lacustrine gulag’s frothy jakes.Vulpine apologists voice vapid pokesWith knit foreheads and chic tortoise-shell specs.McGeorge Beetlebrow humps insider scoopsWhile Polymarket shills fellate the creeps.Where … Continue reading →

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The Landscapes of the Face

Posted on August 17, 2026 by JMN

The landscapes of the face possessAnd repossess my hand. Even stillIt’s on the move: peak, fissure, defile;Shadow here, just there a vegetation,A blink, a snout, a rumination —Fondest barbarism captured yet!The face solicits pen and ink to nail the stink,Charcoal, … Continue reading →

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