Aaron Belz
 

Aaron Belz lives in St. Louis. His reviews have appeared in Jacket, Wired, and Publishers Weekly, and he has had poems recently in Exquisite Corpse, Fence, and McSweeney's. To visit his web site go to http://belz.net.

BACK WEST

Vast crimson sunsets beckon us West.
We don't go because we're busy back East.
I don't blame us because we were born here.
I envision an alternate America, though, that tips East
With all its best cities and universities in the West
Where vast yellow sunrises would beckon us East.
We still wouldn't go, we'd be busy back West.

BACON'S AGE

The modern critic quite forgets,
The art of playwright was considered
A "despised weed," in Bacon's age.

The Renaissance critic could never have known,
That bacon itself, would be considered
a vile meatstuff, in the modern age,

Though a perfectly appropriate
Sheath in which to wrap
A filet, say, or a dead playwright.