New York Times Crossword Poem Draft

Is all fair foul or fowl my brother in my
father's basement that comes with troll
who stole whose sanity for I've a code
to break and trails I'd rather take
than these. Photos on a stick no Bond girl
dreamed and I've a job to do so help me
sooth my father's woe and so to work
I oughta for blood etceteras to water.

--

you're maple leaves and I'm the raker
you're the target, I'm the dart

New York Times Crossword Puzzle Poetry Draft


A new week dawns, we're out of Q-tips
the crosswalk yawns with apes.
A passing car, a lofted glob
oh autumn rain, ah puddle jump
it's new, the raincoat isn't rote.

A note: my uncle's 92 no end
approaching. His belly's open
suctioned by a pump, his
daughter home to help. Removed
the hanging fly strips from his view.
Oh purple purple eggplant in
my arms, the plums and pears
and peaches bend the trees as we
load another box and pick, eye
watermelon, cleave beets from soil
and carrots from the silt
what lilt this action gives my eye.
We say good bye, head east, auto
full of dinner and dessert.

New York Times Crossword Poem Draft

Once saw-toothed tigers saw to
the vermin, and camp
meant dogs around an aura, lath
met plaster, last night, last year, I mean
before the grafted apple and oboe,
before the plow, Euro never
met yen, the trilobyte, and a cobra
rose without a basket, no one asked it
but we share the ride
with oh who knows but all is faster
than despair - I cling to the spar
and far off land fades, a sprinter
from a burning building, present past
and I didn't ask, and now it's ash
as I will be though I want to burn.
I'm out of tune, you hold the hymnal
I cannot hear, you're not aloof
is anything indelible? Erase
what trace we leave, our fallen sash
another chistled stone.
Don't leave me alone, I need oomph
for every tibia and ulna
There's ahead to love not just a sled
ride down and out but grace
before the years-off grave.

New York Times Crossword Poetry Draft


oh blinkin bladder oh latte
Lizst me Bach in g clef
squirt me a dash of PAM
thunder me not your Eliot
swami swim my past Irani
I bet it all on number seven
oh heaven oh Hook my Smee
we sing we suffer apnea
we see the shooting star
that ran the sky, the gamuts
of lives in crusty relics
the Ottos, oliphants and Omars.
ask not but genuflect for oil
run we now the bulls in tutus
the real McCoy Fibber Magee
McPhee monkeys masked in panic
oh manic mayonnaise oh maize
amazing Incas, you nod tsk tsk
we backward bend the blarney stone
go home to lives less large
no Haydn on the barge, ink
fodder, a rabbit's foot
in boots more agile
but fragile as Ionic
columns underground your zit
ginormous as your earlobes
and no respite from trash.