Two Poems
Mark Blaeuer
An Argument for Neutering
So many good dogs in the world,
yet little in the way
of butleresque humanity
to offer them filet.
So many nice cats in the world,
so few maids in the vast
throng of our seething peoplehood
to meow a hymn for Bast.
So many morons in the world,
I wonder at Darwinian
or Providential circumstances
doling out dominion.
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Mark’s notes: “This poem first appeared in The Rotary Dial, May 2014, and again in the magazine’s ‘best-of-
year’ issue that December.“
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Idiosyncratic Eden
Our road, an access, sexual, a probing
tongue from the outer world, allowed us room:
a hiker’s hill to map with elohim,
serviceberry in white lace camisole.
An in-ground swimming pool in the backyard
was rather a drawback (I couldn’t float,
she never liked a dip with chemicals).
Right after we decided to forget
to use chlorine, egg masses magically
bejellied formerly unnatural
“square liquid,” leading to—at last count—eight
varieties of froggish opera,
snails, salamanders, newts, aquatic snakes.
Mud islands rose in cattail, waterwillow,
marsh flag.
Admittedly, we had to shunt
the native copperheads and timber rattlers
off our peaceable establishment
for safety of an overcurious
chihuahua muzzle jabbing at the fangs.
Thus,
an asphalt organ of Big City Life
annihilated balance with a slurp,
although we thought we’d done the opposite.
“You’re simply an appendage of the Beast,”
the Beast now whispered in our consciousness.
It was a lie. We persevered, eccentric,
chaste at the altar of a homely faith.
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Mark’s notes: “This was the Feature Poem in an issue of The Road Not Taken (July 2017).”
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Mark Blaeuer lives just south of Lofton, Arkansas. He was a ranger for many years at nearby Hot Springs National Park, and his M.A. is in Anthropology. His poems (and a few translations from Spanish) have appeared in 100+ magazines, such as Better Than Starbucks, Bindweed, The Borough, Ezra, Grand Little Things, The HyperTexts, Lighten Up Online, The Orchards, Passionfruit Review, Pulsebeat, Susurrus, Ultramarine Literary Review, and Wales Haiku Journal. His collections are Fragments of a Nocturne (Kelsay Books, 2014) and Surfacing Below (SurVision Books, 2025). He’s also written a couple of history books: Didn’t All the Indians Come Here? (Eastern National, 2007 [out of print]) and Baseball in Hot Springs (Arcadia Publishing, 2016).
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