The Mind


The mind of Man is brilliant,
What it can contrive.
Let it loosen up
And leave the world alive.


Technical, creative,
Fantasies, and nine
Muses, and a world
Of intricate design.


Music, when there was
Music, and a weal
Of poetry and pictures,
And buildings you could feel.


6-20-13

Two Hours In Denny's


The noisy music's loud, the kids
Like banshees, urchins out of Dickens.
It's much too light in here.  The waitress
Laughed before my joke was done.
I'm tired with anxiety,
And bored with almost everything.
I've written far too many poems.
Every day I write some more.
Glancing through a book I wrote
I didn't find the songs that made
It seem like garbage yesterday.
Rarely will I come upon
A book I wrote that glooms the sun,
With verse like diamonds from coal.
But it happened yesterday.
I'm discontent to keep the rest.


I came home to rap and her,
A fat and stupid northside leech.


6-19-13

Categories


See the demarcations -
Midnights, mornings, gloams -
There are garbage, there are good
And there are brilliant poems.


I must separate them
Into boxes like my mind.
I want to throw them all away.
What's been left behind?


This wretched indecision
Is tearing me apart.
I'll put the poems in the proper
Chambers of my heart.


Some are good aborning.
Some require work -
Pasting petals on a flower.
Brains in genius lurk.


6-19-13

Mendelssohn


I'm listening to Mendelssohn.
There's nothing to be faulted.
The rich today in diamonds
By music are assaulted.


Common or elitist, whether
Classical or pop,
When the world is over
The cacophony will stop.


6-18-13

Mendelssohn


Alone with lots of poetry,
And nobody is talking.
Perahia's playing Mendelssohn,
But Mendelssohn is dead.
Perahia is the medium.
A seance of sensation - only sound.
Fragile figures, colored, made of glass
Are sitting on the counters and the shelves.
And I'm a wrinkled woman with no love,
A granny, a Victorian
Who sits among her lace,
Looking at her treasures,
And trying not to die.
Alone with lots of poetry,
Many stacks of poetry,
All of it is beautiful,
And all of it is mine.


3-26-12

The Devil


See the evil devil win
Every single game,
No guilt, remorse, embarrassment,
Without a sense of shame.


He's got it all.  The pot is his.
There's nothing you can pay.
The devil smiles and deals another
Hand.  You have to play.


6-19-13




The Sin


Cops are bad.  Avoid them.
As for crooked men,
Noah's flood destroyed them,
But here they are again.


Among the nation's crimes
The most egregious sin
According to the Times
Is turning someone in.


Not every Christian's sick
Or every Yankee mean,
Though most of them will pick
Your cadaver clean.


6-19-13