Christopher Mulrooney: rejection slip
rejection slip
©2002 Christopher Mulrooney
the area of our unconcern is so vast only the marble statuary on our lots can last
will the Maenads of the Common Room jig to it with their goggle-eyed disciples in a wig to wit
conjugating for the class “accessibility” at the blackboard as what-you-will not Modern like a buckboard?
not that anything we like is Amish Christ’s folk always seem too Uncle Tomish
the poet Yüan Chên in a dream
©2002 Christopher Mulrooney
asleep my arm in yours a-roam at night awake nothing stopping my tears but my handkerchief ill I’ve been thrice since beside the Ch’ang your grave at Hsien-yang has seen eight autumns you beneath the wells your bones in mud I a whitehaired man in this crowded world my son-in-law my son both followed in turn at Night's Terrace were they known to you?
Po Chü-I (Chinese, 772–846), tr. after Waley
a kid for two farthings
©2002 Christopher Mulrooney
a race of scorpions drives them like maddened cattle in the streets to burn for trash the emblems of democracy and freedom lo the cities waxed empty and the mere name of men bruited about by Holland auctioneers