Two Poems
Mark Blaeuer

Men & Hats

As with my hat upon my head
I walk’d along the Strand,
I there did meet another man
With his hat in his hand.
—Samuel Johnson

A third man trod his hat beneath
hobnails, at my command.
The fourth man pleaded with his hat
to dance a sarabande.

A fifth man quarreled with his hat
(addressed as Ray Milland).
A sixth man told his hat to fly
away to Samarkand.

The seventh stuffed his hat into
a satchel: contraband.
The eighth man wore no hat at all—
his skull had been trepanned.

The essence of our hattishness
eludes an ampersand,
which, too, dispenses with the hat,
impersonating and.

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Originally published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal (September 2023)

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Beyond the Pail

I was strolling along when a voice from my brow
said, “It’s never too late to bedazzle a cow.”
And this inner authority added a note—
that I might as well start with the cow at my throat,
for indeed a big Guernsey was pressing my neck
with a shiv in her hoof, and some bilious dreck
to repeat in that murderous argot of Mu
with a quaver to render each platitude new.

But then Herkimer Duffeltote—dubious name
for a deus ex machina—jumped in the frame
and karate chopped Elsie, who shambled right off.
Now the moral arrives (here imagine a cough):
When your milker is mouthy and daring to go
off her nut, let a god-hick apply the shutō;
or If violent endings are too curt to use
in your doggerel, bellow moronic adieus.

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First published in Lighten Up Online (September 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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Two Poems Mark Blaeuer

Two Poems
Mark Blaeuer