Anselm taught high school for several years, was a senior editor for Houghton Mifflin, was editorial coordinator for the Los Angeles City Schools, and is currently running his own editing business. He has written over 2,800 poems and has had over 1,495 poems accepted by over 800 publications, among them The Amherst Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Piedmont Literary Review, and Walt's Corner. He also had a paperback of 100 poems titled Mornings at the All-Nite published by Alpha Beat Press in 1996 and a broadside published by Lucid Moon in '00.
Heirloom | Unacceptable
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Heirloom
Even though my brain
knows that happiness
doesn't ever happen
while totally absorbed
doing the work that may
bring it about and that
the work takes far longer—
hours writing a poem,
a week trimming hedges,
months painting the house,
years perfecting love—than
the minutes of happiness
that follow; nevertheless,
so unifying and precious
is the gift of those minutes,
created by natural selection
and every bit as complex
and rewarding as our eyes,
that my brain considers
the unfairness of exchange
most fair and sustaining.
Unacceptable
Though born
naturally on earth
with a built-in
circadian clock
under moon, sun,
and stars, never
knowing any other
place, my mind
and body have
never felt comfortable
being on a planet
constantly spinning
to reveal cold dark,
warm light, and millions
of forever unknowable
stars and therefore
readily sympathize
with the ancients
who first imagined
the constellations—
Aries the ram,
Taurus the bull,
Gemini the twins—
anything to make
earth and blue stars
in the night sky
more acceptable. |
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