AM Juster
AM Juster Poems
Dear Lord,
Please flood her nerves with sedatives
and keep her strong enough to crack a smile
so disbelieving friends and relatives
...
Narcissus, I no longer haunt the canyons
and the crypts. I thrive and multiply;
uncounted daughters are my new companions.
...
Foolish artist, why must you sketch my face
And hound a goddess eyes cannot detect?
I am the daughter born of Speech and Space,
Babble's mother, a voiceless intellect.
...
The other frogs consider me aloof
And mock each out-of-season mating call,
But I regard my plight as living proof
That faith can foster something magical.
...
Arthritic fingers of the olive trees
Accuse the sun of ancient injuries.
The shallows harden to an ochre crust
...
I dream the Florida of Body Heat
With Kathleen Turner twisting in her dress,
Wind chimes unsettling my sweaty sleep
And lovers marinating in deceit.
...
The flower children gone to seed
Bake brownies for the PTA
And give to liberals in need.
...
We saw the mass grave at the Moscow Zoo.
A sullen man dug up a human skull
Then held it high for journalists to view.
Forensic specialists arrived to cull
...
AM Juster Biography
After his secondary education at The Roxbury Latin School, Astrue earned a bachelor's degree from Yale University, where he served as President of the Yale Political Union, and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. Astrue, who previously served in the Social Security Administration as Counselor to the Commissioner, served in the US Department of Health and Human Services as General Counsel and as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Leigislation. He also served as Associate Counsel to the President of the United States at the White House in the Reagan and George Bush Sr administrations. In the private sector, he practiced law and was as a senior executive at several biotechnology companies. Astrue was nominated as Commissioner of the Social Security Administration by President George W. Bush on September 14, 2006 and confirmed by the US Senate on February 2, 2007. He was sworn in on February 12, 2007 to serve a six-year term. Poetry In the June/July 2010 issue of First Things magazine, Astrue was profiled by poet Paul Mariani, who revealed him as the personage behind the pseudonym and anagram A. M. Juster, the poet and translator associated with New Formalism. As Juster, Astrue has published a book of Petrarch translations, a translation of The Satires of Horace (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008) , Longing for Laura (Birch Brook Press, 2001), and a book of original poetry, The Secret Language of Women (University of Evansville 2003). Juster was also the first moderator for Eratosphere, the largest on-line site for formal poetry. 2002 Richard Wilbur Award, for The Secret Language of Women selected by Rachel Hadas)
The Best Poem Of AM Juster
Against Roses
A long eugenic past
reduces roses to
a vain and pampered caste.
Their charm is artifice,
their fragile shell of cells
unfit for wilderness.
Their languid symmetries
and anorexic airs
exalt deformities.
A run of blossoms, thick
and tangled by the road,
displays a truer pick.
Prefer the bindweed vines
that cannot stand alone
yet clench the mossy spines
of trees and grasp as tight
as nightmares or disease
while hoarding hints of light.
By cloning a delight,
obsessing towards some form,
we dull what should excite.
A rose bouquet contrives
to label wordless joy
when nothing true survives.
AM Juster Comments
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9/21/2026 1:24:42 PM # rel_20260910T140628Z_5ffb431
Without a doubt the best poet I've read on this sight. Where are you? I hope your're okay. These are old poems. Any new ones? Scott.