“Lit Major Grad School Blues” and “Lives of the Poets” by Karen Greenbaum-Maya

“Lit Major Grad School Blues”

I dreamt that Vikings sacked and pillaged,


razed to coals a conquered village,
 


sailed home to set about tradition:


successful raids deserve coition.
 


An orgy in the village square


is treasure everyone might share.
 


No one plans to play for keeps,


and languid limbs stuck out from heaps.
 


Friends and neighbors lie entangled,


or, so Chaucer says, embrangled.
 


Off to the side is one whose brain


convinces him he’d best refrain.
 


Perplexed, perturbed, he stands apart:


It looks like fun, but— is it Art?

“Lives of the Poets”

Ernest H. liked his cats polydactyl,


yet he’d scritch and he’d scruggle their backs, ‘til
           

exploding with scratches 
           

they’d strike in cross-hatches


with scarring approaching the fractal.
 


At sweet Brendan Constantine’s reading,


the host pulled him over for speeding.
           

She demanded, “Explain
           

your aesthetical vein.”


He just smiled, “You’re not drowning:  I’m bleeding.”
 


Because of his hairline’s retreating,


wise Ovid declaimed, Life is fleeting,
           

but Art, she lasts long.
           

This he put in a song,


and found it improved with repeating.

---

About Karen Greenbaum-Maya

Karen Greenbaum-Maya, retired clinical psychologist, German Lit major, and Pushcart nominee, no longer lives for Art, but still thinks about it a lot. “Real Poem” received Honorable Mention in the 2013 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Contest. Kattywompus Press publishes her collections Burrowing Song and Eggs Satori. Links to on-line poems can be found at: www.cloudslikemountains.blogspot.com/.