A Certain Mad Rectitude

Those are three of my friends without whom I don't know what I'd do in this life. That's putting it mildly.

Things are -- shall we say -- confusing. I am preoccupied. I don't have much to share and hate to be obtuse.

How about a clever, Kay Ryan poem or two?


Say Uncle

Every day
you say,
Just one
more try.
Then another
irrecoverable
day slips by.
You will
say ankle,
you will
say knuckle;
why won't
you why
won't you
say uncle?


Say It Straight

I have a mania for straight writing -- however
circuitous I may be in what I myself say.
-- Marianne Moore



What we could
and what we can say
stray as in a dream;
a certain mad rectitude
creeps in, by which
something simple as an apple
can never be determined
wholly edible.
The crisp act is deferred,
the object blurred by scruples.
The more we cherish clarity
in principle, the more it is
impossible. Will enamel
ever strike the fruit?
Will Eve grow wild and forgivable?
For it's unlovable
to talk too long with snakes,
whose reasons fork
the more the more
she hesitates.