I will be away for a few days as I am going to New Jersey. In the meantime, please try to finish your assignments for Prof. Hinkel. Pretty please. Back on Tuesday if not before.

40 years ago tomorrow I was in "chapel" when the school principal (Mr. Runkel) rushed in with the news & we were all sent to our home rooms & then home. I was eleven. JFK & I shared the same birthday & I took it personally.

5/29 is RI Statehood Day. my poems are one big RI sandbox litterbox.

         6
  
         and no one knows who killed the King
 or the two princes by his side –
 the talent that is death to hide
 cannot un-Gordian anything.
 Times are evil.  Redeem the day –
 that day he sat at Hammersmith
 and merged the Peace Corps with the myth:
 a green American sunray.

[Hammersmith Farm : Kennedy home in southern Rhode Island. JFK & Jackie were married in Newport.]


I know I've already told you this, but Prof. Hinkel wants you to memorize it so you can recite it back to him in 2043.

from "Midwest Elegy":

         On infinite plains,
 Among seedy barns leaning
 On edges of small groves of oaks
 Just off the quiet roads, there
 Everyone knows, serious life
 Is elsewhere.  War simmers
 On the east coast, Dream
 Shimmers on the west, the rites
 Were unbelievably successful –
 We fell in love with Marilyn
 And Jack before their time,
 They gave their lives, articulate
 In the labyrinth – a consummation.