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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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