“Fewer People Having Sex”
 
Either the bluster
lost its luster,
or else the sleaze
turned into disease.

More Things in Heaven and Earth
 
Brought to our knees
by Diogenes
Shaken by Bacon
Hobbled by Hobbes 
Finagled by Hegel
Hustled by Russell
and screechy from Nietzsche.

 Dostoevsky’s Idiot
 
Prince Myshkin, the moral sleuth,
despite the grief he got,
kept seeking out the damnable truth
without the lies and rot.
 
I’m damned if I can distinguish
your love from hate, he said,
a prince without the gift of guile
who appeared to be underbred.


Compass in a Case
Objet trouvé
 
North is not the thing she thought it was.
On a wayward former Indian trail called Bleecker,
on the ground, is a compass in a case
that names a misperception by the seeker:
she finds the  Native trail goes north-northwest.
In dovetailed teak and walnut, oak and cherry,
the inlaid landscape of the polished woods
is buoyancy, not mere itinerary.

Terese Coe


If you have any thoughts about these poems, Terese Coe  would be pleased to hear them