Poems

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Progress

The government is very very slow

And almost totally incompetent.

But notwithstanding, that the mechanism

Grinds gradually on to a conclusion.

Democrats are working for the people.

Republicans are working for some god

That doesn't have a thing to do with people.

Despite the obstacles Republicans

Throw into the works, the country moves,

After many deaths and retrogressions.

The stupid call this progress optimistic.

Others only as unnecessary.

6-30-13

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Santa & The Boxers

Christmas Eve. My daddy was an Elk.

At midnight Santa Claus was at the club

Talking to the children of the Elks.

My father planned to watch a boxing match.

He said when it was over we would go.

He watched two bruisers beat each other blind.

I didn't want to see it. Daddy did.

The match went overtime. We left at last.

When we got there, Santa Claus was gone.

My mother when she had her second child

Promised me for months a baby brother

So I wouldn't have to be alone.

My mother had two daughters. They were twins.

6-30-13

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The Brain

The brain's a very stupid piece of junk

Designed for playing tricks on therapists

Who hold all the trumps; and are believed.

When the doctor says you are a liar,

All the other therapists agree.

The patients don't, but all of them are crazy.

It's rather like the stirring of the wind.

And on his tombstone, every counselor

Should have engraved: “He obviously was right.”

6-30-13

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Aggression

I felt it, just a moment, just a flash.

I was strong enough to be alive.

I needed just to stand, and nothing else.

It happened once before in New York City.

I felt as tall as someone that I liked.

And I didn't push away the love.

My mind did not lie crumbled on the shore,

Taken out to sea by passing waves.

That was Ken. And I remember Jay,

Little, dark complected Indian

In Jersey several months. And he would say,

“Have a good sleep” when we separated

Every evening. “Fucking Hackensack!”

I need little people. Ken was tall.

All complete, complete without aggression.

6-29-13

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Bob

A pretty little melody

By Bacharach – the 60s.

You greeted it with horror.

When I tried to name the piece

Of music you were playing, you

Indignantly said – stop!

The sensitive don't like to know

The name of what they're hearing.

Sensitivity – your flag

Upon a sinking ship

In a sea of crudity.

How well I can remember

In the barracks where we met,

You sat upon a pillow

And laughed at someone crazy

Who was rolling on the floor.

When I saw you last – back in New Jersey -

Both civilians -

You jeered at me and said that you

Were waiting – just to die.

All the greatest music

Is composed of melodies.

6-29-13

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Bottom Line

Hear the people talk.

No ifs or ands or buts.

They say it with both pleasure and aplomb.

Reagan was a hawk

Who gouged a sick man's guts,

And used the bucks to build another bomb.

6-29-13

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IHOP

In Yankee banks and restaurants

They simply don't play music.

The people wouldn't like it.

They haven't got the brains.

Just simple melodies

With simpler harmonies,

And if they're loud and ugly,

Even better.

And all the songs have words.

That's traditional.

And Yankees love tradition.

Illiterate and mindless.

6-28-13

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Subjects

More than just a flower -

More than just the sea -

Something I can think about

In my poesy -

More than just a feeling

Past or present tense -

More than just a picture

Grown in common sense -

6-28-13

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Sleeping In Denny's

I shut my eyes in Denny's

And suddenly I sleep.

Then I start. The fantasy

Absorbing me is gone.

The table's dull and cluttered,

A glass, a book, some keys.

The light inside the building

Makes a refuge from the night.

6-28-13

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The Guests

I can't sleep in Denny's

Forever, though I tried.

I'm back among the liars and the thieves

That euphemistically you call your friends.

Ugly music. Tattooed bodies.

Born to arrogance.

They oozed into the house and they

Surrounded and consumed.

6-28-13

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Sunday

So many little scorpions

All prepared to strike,

Each of them vindictive,

Wicked tail curled up -

Everyone with Jesus,

Mohammed, Quetzalcoatl,

Buddha, Bertrand Russell -

For him, but not for me.

Come the camaraderie!

Reach across the pew

And hug the man behind you.

Big foam rubber smiles!

Except the crazy lady,

Ragged, very clean,

New in the community.

Try a different church.

And the jolly sermon -

Paradise and money -

Enumerating sins

Of liberal persuasion.

6-28-13

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Jerry Falwell

I'm glad that Jerry Falwell's dead.

Don't come back again.

The world is really bad enough

With Christie, rap and gin.

Jerry Falwell was a clown,

A bigot, nothing more,

All disguised in Jesus Christ.

He also was a bore.

6-27-13

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Description

Shall I describe the ocean,

The moon in midnight skies,

A once and former lover

Who in his slumber lies?

There's nothing else I like

Enough to put in verse,

Except the constant effigies,

A tumbril or a hearse.

6-28-13

Poems

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Bob

A pretty little melody

By Bacharach – the 60s.

You greeted it with horror.

When I tried to name the piece

Of music you were playing, you

Indignantly said – stop!

The sensitive don't like to know

The name of what they're hearing.

Sensitivity – your flag

Upon a sinking ship

In a sea of crudity.

How well I can remember

In the barracks where we met,

You sat upon a pillow

And laughed at someone crazy

Who was rolling on the floor.

When I saw you last – back in New Jersey -

Both civilians -

You jeered at me and said that you

Were waiting – just to die.

All the greatest music

Is composed of melodies.

6-29-13

-->

Bottom Line

Hear the people talk.

No ifs or ands or buts.

They say it with both pleasure and aplomb.

Reagan was a hawk

Who gouged a sick man's guts,

And used the bucks to build another bomb.

6-29-13

  -->

IHOP

In Yankee banks and restaurants

They simply don't play music.

The people wouldn't like it.

They haven't got the brains.

Just simple melodies

With simpler harmonies,

And if they're loud and ugly,

Even better.

And all the songs have words.

That's traditional.

And Yankees love tradition.

Illiterate and mindless.

6-28-13

  -->

Subjects

More than just a flower -

More than just the sea -

Something I can think about

In my poesy -

More than just a feeling

Past or present tense -

More than just a picture

Grown in common sense -

6-28-13

  -->

Sleeping In Denny's

I shut my eyes in Denny's

And suddenly I sleep.

Then I start. The fantasy

Absorbing me is gone.

The table's dull and cluttered,

A glass, a book, some keys.

The light inside the building

Makes a refuge from the night.

6-28-13

-->

The Guests

I can't sleep in Denny's

Forever, though I tried.

I'm back among the liars and the thieves

That euphemistically you call your friends.

Ugly music. Tattooed bodies.

Born to arrogance.

They oozed into the house and they

Surrounded and consumed.

6-28-13

  -->

Description

Shall I describe the ocean,

The moon in midnight skies,

A once and former lover

Who in his slumber lies?

There's nothing else I like

Enough to put in verse,

Except the constant effigies,

A tumbril or a hearse.

6-28-13

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Albion

The glitter and glamor and regal fuss!

God bless the queen who reigns over us!

Reaching through history far away,

Like Hollywood's Beverly Hills today.

The glory of England completely defiled

By reading the bio of Oscar Wilde.

The patriotism of Britain is quaint.

Its past as horrible as they paint.

A foggy island, an icy sea,

The former throne of poetry.

Ancient buildings, cobblestones -

Ghosts in the castles, spectral moans -

6-28-13

Poems

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GWL

A friend is sick and I am here,

Though thoughts and feelings stray.

I'm not a shrink, but more sincere.

I don't know what to say.

So I say that and listen. He

In his concealing shroud

Has friends that he prefers to me.

I am not allowed.

6-27-13

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Jerry Falwell

I'm glad that Jerry Falwell's dead.

Don't come back again.

The world is really bad enough

With Christie, rap and gin.

Jerry Falwell was a clown,

A bigot, nothing more,

All disguised in Jesus Christ.

He also was a bore.

6-27-13

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The Answer

John, John. Will never spawn.

Brightest star I wish upon.

Tell me if you wouldn't mind

Whether you believe I'm kind.

In the sense that you exert

A major effort not to hurt

People's feelings.

Please don't touch.

You don't even do that much.

6-27-13

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Happiness

So many things I'd rather do

Than simply go to sleep -

Listen to a symphony,

Write some poesy,

Have a conversation,

Talk about myself.

But drowsiness comes over me

And silences my mouth.

6-27-13

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Confused

The structure of my mind

Is crumbling into sand.

My psyche's being pounded

Apart upon the reef.

Crayons and white jackets!

The books that I called old

And had for many years

Esteemed above the new

Were written – all but two of them -

After we had met

In 1999

The line of demarcation.

My soul was built upon it.

To resurrect the past.

The past was just two books,

And all the rest is new.

I am getting dizzy

And I cannot think.

Forget when they were written

If the poesy is good.

6-27-13

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Poetry

I write of my ideas

And far less frequently

Eyesight filtered through my fantasy.

Words and their ideas

When they occur to me

Make closed and aperceptive poetry

6-27-13

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Jacqui

If I'd only asked her

Are you having me

Followed? Are having them

Enact oblique charades?
Then she would have answered

Either yes or no

And probably explained,

Or that's what I suppose.

And 40 years of misery,

Insanity, perdition,

Doubt and second guessing

Would never have occurred.

But she's dead. The puzzle

Will not be explained.

6-27-13

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Imagination

Someone said that Einstein

Said genius is imagination.

That leaves me out of it. Because

I've no imagination.

However Keats had nothing else.

And Keats is rarely great.

Shakespeare who was ultimate

Was simply all imagination.

Even though I seldom like

Or understand him, I see that.

In his head a hundred worlds

And all with populations

Carefully depicted by

The Muse of poetry.

Does genius need an education?

Something it can act upon

Besides itself, an emptiness?

Words and histories.

Poems

-->

Confused

The structure of my mind

Is crumbling into sand.

My psyche's being pounded

Apart upon the reef.

Crayons and white jackets!

The books that I called old

And had for many years

Esteemed above the new

Were written – all but two of them -

After we had met

In 1999

The line of demarcation.

My soul was built upon it.

To resurrect the past.

The past was just two books,

And all the rest is new.

I am getting dizzy

And I cannot think.

Forget when they were written

If the poesy is good.

6-27-13

-->

Early In Denny's

No waitresses in Denny's

Except the two old harpies,

Solicitous, intrusive, and unwelcome.

2 a.m. and almost half -

The noisy music beats

The senses out of anybody's brain.

I left him dozing off.

We had a conversation.

I wish it had continued.

He sent me out for food.

After he had eaten

He settled down to sleep,

And I went out to Denny's.

That's where the verse began.

6-27-13

-->

Jacqui

If I'd only asked her

Are you having me

Followed? Are having them

Enact oblique charades?
Then she would have answered

Either yes or no

And probably explained,

Or that's what I suppose.

And 40 years of misery,

Insanity, perdition,

Doubt and second guessing

Would never have occurred.

But she's dead. The puzzle

Will not be explained.

6-27-13

  -->

Imagination

Someone said that Einstein

Said genius is imagination.

That leaves me out of it. Because

I've no imagination.

However Keats had nothing else.

And Keats is rarely great.

Shakespeare who was ultimate

Was simply all imagination.

Even though I seldom like

Or understand him, I see that.

In his head a hundred worlds

And all with populations

Carefully depicted by

The Muse of poetry.

Does genius need an education?

Something it can act upon

Besides itself, an emptiness?

Words and histories.

6-26-13

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Soliloquy

I have done some evil things.

I wish I could undo them.

You're not the only man I knew

Who wanted to be loved.

Nor the only one who tried

Sincerely to be loving.

I am like my mother.

Incapable of love.

Except for certain people.

No amorphous love

Moving like a fog among

Unwary populations.

My beleaguered brain

Teems with many faces,

Most of them unwelcome.

None of them I've known.

I didn't love these people.

I didn't ask them in.

I have no understanding

Of other people's minds.

6-26-13

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Kitty

The cat was so neurotic

In everybody's way,

Crying to be petted

A dozen times a day.

Standing on your lap,

Lying on your wrist,

Something in his nature

Urged you to resist.

When other cats were petted

He was pushed aside.

Smaller. Ever smaller.

He laid down and died.

6-26-13

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Desperation

Shrinks are all we've got.

That is what he said.

Never look too closely

At what you cannot lose.

Though they pummel you and throw you

And force your medication,

Lock you in confinement,

Tell you you're a fool,

Never say a thing

That cures a single problem,

Answer any question

Or tell you what they think,

Trust them with your feelings

Like a preacher with your soul.

They are all you've got.

The preacher gives you god.

6-26-13

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Love

Love. The single word

Is some religion's slogan.

A clothing manufacturer

Sews it on its shirts.

Rituals and smiles

Make everybody happy.

Like Tommy telling Santa Claus

What he wants for Christmas.

Republicans are kind

To people who are white.

And god will rid the world

Of homosexuality.

Hoodlums call each other

“Brother”. Or just “bro”.

For all the affectations,

It's impossible to love.

6-26-13

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Screwed

Synanon. Cathexis.

The local mental health

Clinic here will shred your mind,

And send you on your way.

If you can forget them,

Everything they said,

All the names and faces,

Perhaps you will survive.

But I cannot forget them -

Or Dr. Mary Kelly

At Oakland's Highland Hospital.

A ghost, a soul, a shadow,

Some heinous aberration

That warps the universe,

They're with me til tomorrow,

Unforgettable today.

Is this the goal of treatment?
To wrench a patient's mind,

Monopolize his memory,

Ineluctable?

So I remain a casualty

Of counselors who in

Indifference and arrogance

Do not remember me.

I could take them all to court

And sue them for their teeth!

The mentally defective

And his credibility!

6-26-13

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17 Books

Everything I wrote

Except my 17 first books

Is boring and abysmal.

But I think the first are good.

That's more than Larkin, Poe or Brooke

Or Housman, less than Keats,

And less than Shakespeare and Millay,

And not as much as Aiken

That I never read.

My genius has deserted me

And inspiration's dead.

The Muse that didn't come that often

Doesn't come at all.

If I could sell the books I have

And write for avocation,

Boredom, cause of cults and wars,

Would get to know me well.

6-26-13

Poems

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Gay Rights

The news may put my moral

Sister in a coma,

But they approved gay rights

And did away with DOMA.

Gays are human beings.

Now we have a voice.

I would still be me

Even if I had a choice.

6-26-12

Poems

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Civil Rights

The Supreme Court,

Erstwhile the darling

Of Kennedy's 60s

Is now in its grave.

Nothing is sacred

But god and Republicans.

The south is triumphant

And bigotry king.

God and the south -

Is the country Republican? -

Long before Christ's second coming

Will set the whole nation aflame.

Kennedy, Russell, the Justices

Have fallen to total decay.

And in a day – maybe two -

Comes the decision on gays.

The issue on immigrants

Isn't who wants them,

But why are they willing to stay?

6-26-13

  -->

Jill's Assessment

Thank god I've got the poems I wrote

Collected into volumes

Many more than 20 years ago.

Or there'll be nothing indicating

I had any value

When the worms have eaten me away.

Nothing that I'm writing now

Or have for many years

Is the least akin to poetry.

She tells me I am good.

She said I'm brilliant. And she used

To read my books, assess them

And respond.

But I have read some other writers

That she thinks are good,

Amateur and famous,

And I detest them all.

In see no talent,
Just a lot of words.

As they so I.

At least I have a friend,

Educated, with no ear for art.

6-26-13

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Suppress your compassion

Suppress your compassion

Or you'll be consumed

And shredded apart by the poor

Whose only allegiance

Is god and your money.

The rich in the jungle

Are like a cadaver

Filled with, invaded by worms.

6-26-13

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Pavarotti

Pavarotti said intelligence

Does not affect a person's taste in music.

I switched Joplin on. He hollered, “No!

Shut that horseshit off!” “Because it's pretty?

Has a clever tune and harmony?
No one gets a knife between his ribs?

No one goes to prison or gets shot,

Mangled, raped or beaten? Yes, it's shit!”

6-25-13

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Inspiration

I depend on inspiration.

The fictitious Muse

Owns my hand.

I write so fast

It's hardly a sensation.

The phrases in a cluster

Take their place in line.

Consciously

I couldn't write it.

None of it is mine.

My body is the poet,

My genes and my unconscious.

My icons are
The Parthenon,

And the Sphinx upon its haunches.

6-25-13

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Shrunk

Though my life be oh so long,

I'll never write a happy song,

Or make a sound that has the gist

There's good in a psychiatrist.

If there's one, I will not be

A patient he will ever see,

Unless before my final day

I'm absolutely locked away.

And if I am, they will not see

The docile soul I used to be.

67 years of pain

Will greet the bastards with disdain.

Erstwhile hopes have all gone by.

Some people have been nice to me.

Before your gods I'll testify

They all outstripped psychiatry.

6-25-13

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Try a conversation

Try a conversation with a shrink!

He reasons like the devil.

When he's got you on the brink

Of madness that is desperate

He sends you on your way

After writing an appointment

To come back another day.

6-25-13

-->

Wimps

Is every wimp considered with contempt?
Or only in America where violence is god?

The former god of love did not return.

A wimp may be a coward. Or someone who is gentle

Who has to step aside when Yankees walk.

A wimp's a man it's possible to kill,

With total ease and without provocation.

A wimp is merely someone who is nice,

A rarity on earth, a place of guns.

Americans hate wimps, like Caliban

Not seeing his reflection in the glass.

6-25-13

  -->

When I had friends

When I had friends – all of us seemed open -

Gentleness and confidence and love -

Indigent and on the bottom floor -

Poverty and sex -

Happiness and love -

All of them are gone. Where did they go?

A poem written many thousand times.

A couple years before I went insane,

I was happy. Why did I awake?

6-25-13

  -->

Desultory Poem

I am much too ugly to have sex.

The humiliation's mine. Not even love

Would pull me from beneath my sullen stone.

They criticized his sibilance -

The ocean's sibilant -

Then in a hundred years, they gave it praise -

Keats the little pharmacist,

And mandatory love.

My vision's very blurry. I just

Woke. It's nearly three.

Where is Jill? She's sleeping

Very near the Jersey Shore.

A tiger after homophobes,

An educated soul,

Generous as people rarely are,

Except when sending little notes to Boston.

Yankees live for love, their Jesus

And their laundry say.

The dissolution of America.

6-25-13

  -->

Drowsy

If you put a poem into rhythm

Automatically it's artificial,

But otherwise it's only conversation.

Easily made happy, I'm not flattered.

Tell me that a verse of mine is good.

God the pleasure! Only for an hour.

Born into a jungle without talent,

No horn, no claw, no talon and no tooth,

Just a rootless deity and death.

6-24-13

-->

Age

Age and death! I hate you!

The universe is fey.

People who are beautiful

Wither and decay.

All the gods in Christendom

Regardless how you pray

Do nothing to prevent it,

Reverse it or delay.

Ruddy little children

And kittens when they play -

Oblivious as morning

To the end of day.

6-24-13

Poems

-->

Answers

Pot and booze, et cetera,

Jesus Christ, the thrill

The patriotic hawk will feel

In about a week -

Charismatic leaders of

The sham of human cults

Claiming to be mystical -

Americans need drugs

To blind them in their freedom

To the ultimate abyss,

And galvanize the tedium

Of their daily lives.

6-25-13

-->

When I had friends

When I had friends – all of us seemed open -

Gentleness and confidence and love -

Indigent and on the bottom floor -

Poverty and sex -

Happiness and love -

All of them are gone. Where did they go?

A poem written many thousand times.

A couple years before I went insane,

I was happy. Why did I awake?

6-25-13

 

-->

Desultory Poem

I am much too ugly to have sex.

The humiliation's mine. Not even love

Would pull me from beneath my sullen stone.

They criticized his sibilance -

The ocean's sibilant -

Then in a hundred years, they gave it praise -

Keats the little pharmacist,

And mandatory love.

My vision's very blurry. I just

Woke. It's nearly three.

Where is Jill? She's sleeping

Very near the Jersey Shore.

A tiger after homophobes,

An educated soul,

Generous as people rarely are,

Except when sending little notes to Boston.

Yankees live for love, their Jesus

And their laundry say.

The dissolution of America.

6-25-13

  -->

Closing Old Folks' Homes

They take the money from the poor

And sick because they know

They won't need it anymore,

And leave them in the snow.

And all the time devoutly pray

For great longevity.

Then their relatives put them away.

The soul of brevity!

6-24-13

  -->

Medicare

I read they're cutting medicare

So many convalescent homes

Will shut, and those that stay will lose

Many services they have -

And they have very few.

When the country needs a buck,

It takes it from the poor.

Does Jesus bless America?

Some of it. The rich.

6-24-13

  -->

Remembering CG

Her name was Caroline Goff.

Clearly she got off

Just to sit and think,

“By golly, I'm a shrink.”

Corpses in a hearse!

Quite the groupie she.

I told her something personal.

She shit all over me.

She let the feces fly

And did it with a smile.

The last head doctor I

Will see in quite a while.

6-24-13

  -->

Drowsy

If you put a poem into rhythm

Automatically it's artificial,

But otherwise it's only conversation.

Easily made happy, I'm not flattered.

Tell me that a verse of mine is good.

God the pleasure! Only for an hour.

Born into a jungle without talent,

No horn, no claw, no talon and no tooth,

Just a rootless deity and death.

6-24-13

  -->

Age

Age and death! I hate you!

The universe is fey.

People who are beautiful

Wither and decay.

All the gods in Christendom

Regardless how you pray

Do nothing to prevent it,

Reverse it or delay.

Ruddy little children

And kittens when they play -

Oblivious as morning

To the end of day.

6-24-13

  -->

Never Ending

She took his final nickel,

And now she's after more.

Willingly he gives it. She is

Really not a whore.

Whores give something back.

She doesn't carry cash.

Very wise. In case she's asked

To pay for what she wants.

6-24-13

Poems

-->

Assessment

Images are not for me.

They're difficult to do.

My rhythms that seem stable

Much too frequently fall thru -

The problem being I know where

The stresses ought to fall

While strangers to the poem

Are naïve and that is all.

Language that is musical

The inner senses hear.

My poems have no music - my

Poetical tin ear.

It seems my only asset in

The realm of poesy

Is that all words and any words

Seem to work for me.

6-23-13

  -->

In Denny's

Death eradicates the point of feeling,

Society a crumbling artifice,

Bleakly staring into the enigma

Knowing there is nothing to tomorrow.

Gentle love. There is no other kind.

Do I need familiarity?
Why do people want togetherness?

Holding hands. Then they all fall down.

The harpies howl. The banshees take the night.

Nonsense! There is nothing but the air.

And silence like the everlasting tomb.

I don't want to think about that now.

6-23-13

  -->

I just read some verse

I just read some verse by Joseph Hart.

He implies policemen are corrupt.

Doesn't every black man feel the same?

He thinks psychiatry is all a sham

That does more harm than good while getting rich.

That seems to be the common understanding.

He waterboards Republicans

And wishes them to hell.

No one but the rich would disagree.

He doesn't have a decent thing to say

For homophobes and Christians. Gandhi did?

He calls Americans ridiculous,

Philistines who monger violence.

That is the opinion of the world.

If Joe McCarthy hears of this, he's through.

6-24-13

  -->

Awake

I'm too long without sleep.

Has it been a week?

I must go to bed except

Sleeping doesn't help.

Sitting with a poem

Propped between my fingers,

I fall asleep and do not wake

Until the waitress comes.

But as the situation

Relinquishes control,

My verse is more articulate
And I am getting sane.

Edna's little elegies,

Unrequited loves,

And bittersweet romances

Are very gently fragile.

I'm tired of writing poems.

I want to go to sleep.

But verse continues coming.

Don't shut the faucet off.

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Home

I've lived here 30 years.

The day that I moved in

Ushered by my parents

I didn't think it home.

And every year thereafter,

Even with them dead,

It was just a house.

Then tonight you said,

“The kitten is our darling.”
And now it seems a home.

6-23-13

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Routines

Everyone his hamster wheel -

Everyone his rut -

Each of us a Sisyphus -

Republicans just strut -

Particularly Christians

Whose big redundancies

Are hollering for heads and praying

To their deities.

6-23-12

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The Graveyard Waitress

Pleasant, sweet and cheerful,

Distant and polite,

Frequently she waits on me

In Denny's late at night.

I offered her a book I wrote.

And I never heard

If she liked the poems

Or even read a word.

There's a wall between us.

From her forehead to her shoes

Like the ancient mariner

She's covered with tattoos.

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Some Good Men

Some good men are Christian.

Some good men are black.

Some good men are Yankees.

Some good men are gay.

But the ones who play good music

Are snobs upon the hill

Who never come to Denny's

And who'd drive those fools away!

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The Unwelcome Waitress

If that woman smiles at me

Again, I'll strangle her.

I saw her shoot an angry look

Because I won't react.

America's obsession with

All rituals and fads

And mandatory friendliness

To people on the street

Is not the way I look at things.

I'm not here by choice.

And her determination to

Wrest love from total strangers

Is going to be defeated.

I don't like her, and I will

Not yield to her imperative -

A taunt in camouflage.

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The Poetry Machine

Why do I write poesy?
I am a machine -

A poetry machine plugged in

When I was 17.

I continue writing
And have for 50 years,

Sane or psycho, rental paid

To date or in arrears.

It seems that I've destroyed

More verses than I wrote

And kept so very few, and those

Of very little note.

A lover in my blankets

Hesitantly tugged.

“Couldn't you stop writing?”

“No. I haven't been unplugged.”

Hence my lucubration

In each successive night.

I hate my dreary poesy,

And nonetheless I write.

The only time I don't

Loathe it with such spite

Is reading it in Denny's.

It's something in the light.

6-23-13