Francis

Francis

Will he be shot like all the rest?
A Pope, a Christian with a heart

Speaking out against the tide

For the disenfranchised few.

Scourged and beaten since the Greeks.
Republicans killed Jesus too.
Seeping through the vessel's cracks

Adrift upon the sea of love.

7-31-13

Fantasy

Little men with picks and hats

In the confines of a brain

Diligently day and night

At the pipeline of a vein

Pound and hammer constantly

In a fancy in the rain.

Soon the pipe will burst and spurt,

And he'll be dead. And not again.

7-31-13

 

Group Therapy

He said, “I can't say I am there

For you. He will get mad

Or think me foolish.” And the shrink

Shouted, “You're an ass!

Everybody says it and

Your feelings are absurd."
“I don't like your attitude,”
The patient said, and stood

And headed for the door. The shrink

Was on his feet and yelled,

“You're totally psychotic!

Sit down! Cooperate!

You'll be locked in here forever!”
But the patient just kept walking.

The shrink grabbed hold his shoulder

And he knocked him to the floor.

“No one's going to make a fool

Of therapy with me!”

7-30-13

Method

He used to sit in Denny's for

An hour, maybe two,

Divest his soul of poetry,

And then when he was through

Go home and type two copies

Of the verses he had written,

Do the chores and pet the cats

And cuddle with the kitten.

Now he sits in misery

As dismal as the Spinet

He never learned to play. And he's

Asleep in half a minute.

And if he's ever published

He will reach toward the light,

Unscrew the bulb and lie forever

In eternal night.

7-30-13

 

Memories

I remember every bad thing

Everybody ever said.

They by association keep

Occurring in my head.

Will I be their victim til I

Finally am dead?

All of them implicitly

Impart an errant should.

I've known many people,

Even nice ones too. Why could

Nature not have given me

Some voices that are good?

7-30-13

Purpose

If you're writing to be famous,

Give it up today.

If you write for poetry,

Continue, you are great.

Somewhere in the universe

A bright and gentle soul

Will trump the vulgar philistines

And read your poetry.

7-30-13

 

Which?

I sleep very little.

I haven't the time.

I doze into dreams

While I'm writing a rhyme.

Always preoccupied

During a rest -

I've witnessed his worst

And I've witnessed his best.

So I relax. But

Despite his appeal

My cerebrum's wondering

Which does he feel?

7-30-13

 

A Double Bind

Not famous, no, but on a shelf with others

Who do not think of fame, but to be great.

Candles burning in an empty cosmos.

The thought of strangers liking what I write

Nauseates the innards of my soul.

To die unread and stay unread forever

Is a greater death than in a grave.

What's the answer to this double bind?
Just to write what poesy I can

And hope that passed my wishes I'll be known.

Let Alexander cut the double bind.

And if not the Muses, then what else?

7-30-13

Poems

The Extra

Shakespeare was pontificating proudly

After the success of several shows

When a little extra elbowed forward

And hollered, “Look at William, how he blows!

Sententious and a couple clever sayings,

And damned if he don't really think he knows!”

7-29-13

 

Limit

Sadly am I limited by nature

At birth to only just a few ideas,

Then everything I think, I just repeat,

Though I refine and polish its expression?

Sartre wouldn't take the Nobel Prize.

He didn't want to mark the end of growth.

Another pose? A tree that's in the rain

And always green, and always in the shade.

Not the sun! Forever strong and hot.

It killed the hero of the century,

Mersault, the summary of human thought,

Of everything significant to life.

7-29-13

The Enemy

If you're up a tree

Or your ship's about to sink,

Never call a cop,

And don't bother with a shrink.

Just behind the badge,

Cops are bullies too.

Shrinks are very rich,

And that's all they can do.

He died at 91,

No country and no war,

In and out of jail,

That's what thinking's for.

7-29-13

 

Genes

Do felines have the brains to ask,

“Why do I want to do this?”
Or following their feelings do they

Dig and pull their claws?

Do humans have the brains? Or do they

Follow their companions

So they talk and look and act alike?

Or making daddy happy,

Do they join the latest war?

7-28-13

Bon Mot

Southern belles and Krakatoa!

I walked in the place.

“Oh,” she said to them, “here comes a fagot.”
I asked without a pause, “Are you

Another goddamned Christian?”
Horror, ice and Armageddon!

How her smile dissolved.

“I guess I said it right,” I said.

“Oh no, you said it wrong.”

Three burly tattooed Jesus Freaks

Thrust forward from the shadows

Clearly there to expedite

My pending trip to hell.

I turned to run and didn't stop

Til the alarm went off.

7-30-13

 

Odetta

I made two good remarks, and got

Some titular guffaws.

The manager no longer is

In sympathy with me.

I remember when she thought

I was a funny guy.

So back beneath my rock and keep

The witticisms clean!

My father whom I hated had

This difficulty too.

I always thought him clever. Waiters

Thought he was a bore.

Unlike Proust who when his father

Stumbled stood and cried,

I never cried until I saw

Him lie at last and dying.

The tears began.

My mother shut them up.

7-30-13

 

Bruce

He collared me and said I am

A knowledgeable guy.

Something that was never said before.

He has read my poems

And he said they had such power

He could hardly read them.

And he came as close to saying

That my verse is great

As anyone I ever met has come.

He is Persian and he tried

To put his thoughts in English.

I couldn't understand him.

So he smiled. I went away.

7-30-13

Poems

Genes

Do felines have the brains to ask,

“Why do I want to do this?”
Or following their feelings do they

Dig and pull their claws?

Do humans have the brains? Or do they

Follow their companions

So they talk and look and act alike?

Or making daddy happy,

Do they join the latest war?

7-28-13

Warmth

Warm love and praise reflected -

I do not feel a thing -

Come always unexpected.

Poetry can sing.

Why is it I wonder

My body doesn't care?

My heart is hiding under

Something in the air.

Never was I less

Enchanted by the sea.

Abandon consciousness,

And then write poetry.

7-24-13

 

Retrospect

At the trial it appears

I lied with every breath,
Lost in madness, almost tears,

Terrified of death.

My verse was gone in 98.

I'd really ceased to write.

I took it up to reinstate

A candle in the night.

7-24-13

 

Risperdal

The only thing that keeps me sane

Makes me go to sleep -

Frequent naps throughout the day -

Dozes and bad dreams.

Society's ingratitude!

Insanity and art!

Funnels money into war

Neglecting mental health.

7-28-13

Poems

GWL

The only man I ever knew

Intending to be good -

Diogenes – a burning lantern

In the lightless wood.

One of only several even

Able to be kind -

Too busy with the machinations

Nobody designed -

A jewel in the gutter

Just the very sad can find.

Facing death defiantly -

Facing god with truth -

And every happy memory

Happened in his youth.

7-28-13

Weeping

So many good ideas

That never will be said

In the darkness of the universe

Where everything is dead.

People are much nicer than I

Give them credit for.

Tattoos, rap and violence,

Bigotry and war.

I don't want to die. That really

Never was my aim.

Denny's is a circus,

And America a game.

I used to love the English

Notwithstanding Oscar Wilde.

Then I heard of Turing too.

The final myth defiled.

7-28-13

 

Relief

When I am depressed, I read my poems -

Feelings I can understand,

Ideas I agree with.

Or sit in Denny's, let my feeble brain

Be beaten passed oblivion

By loud and noisy music.

Like Michelangelo I strain

To put my soul in verse.

Picasso stolen from a Dutch

Museum and then burned.

Nothing's sacred but their fetid

Homophobic god.

7-27-13

Two Fads

Never show emotion. For a while

(Sincerity is now replaced with guile)

The latest Yankee fad has been to call

(And even the police have caught the ball)

Any feeling or distress “a drama”.

The other (let it not be Ms Obama)

Is of course like Pompeii excavated,

To have your naked body decorated.

7-27-13

 

Help

Are people any good for one another,

Especially psychologists and cops?
Crawl inside your soul and make it better?
Or solve the problems keeping you aground?

So what good are people to each other?
Though some defy the rules and try to be.

It's odd that I am fonder of Rebecca.

I was sad. She smiled. And I felt happy.

Cops are rough. Psychologists are rich.

And ordinary people do not care.

7-27-13

Double Bind

The policeman pulled him over

And asked to see his license.

He gave it him and didn't say a word.

The policeman asked to see his registration.

He gave it him and didn't say a word.

The policeman asked for proof of his insurance.

He gave it him and didn't say a word.

Then he said, “You haven't said a word.

Why is that?” The gentleman replied,

“No matter what I say it will be wrong.

You'll beat me up and knock me down

And take me off to jail.”

This bothered the policeman, so he

Pulled him from his car,

Knocked him down and beat him up

And dragged him off to jail.”

7-28-13

Poems

After Reading The Paper

The newest genre doesn't look

A lot like anything,

And any child could do it though

He will not learn to sing.

Rather like an icon of a

Medieval saint,

He cannot sing, he cannot write,

He never learned to paint.

Poetry is finished. That's what

Poetry is worth.

But now the Bible can be read

Anywhere on earth.

Wear a crucifix and talk to god

And with the new

100 for your birthday, buy

Another big tattoo.

The bigots and the Christians dance

To celebrate the birth

Of their Jewish Jesus.

It's the greatest show on earth!

7-27-13

 

Anglophile

I was an Anglophile since Wilde

And Keats, before I was 20.

Tried to change my citizenship

When I was 24.

Then I heard about Turing

Which resurrected Wilde.

Victims of English propriety,

Ingratitude, and hate.

They turned on the man who had

Made them happy.

They turned on the man who had

Saved the war.

One in 1890,

And 1952.

Now rubbing salt in the wounds of Christ,

Some very stupid officious men

Consider forgiving Turing,

And possibly Oscar Wilde.

Wilde and Turing and Edward the Second

Should consider forgiving them.

The British rule with decency.

Americans just shoot.

7-26-13

 

A Fragment

The magic of creation -

Don't say “miracle” -

Poems come from nowhere

And lie upon the page.

Act the way you feel

Or you will go insane.

Those who lie continuous

Have given up their souls.

Perhaps there is a chip

Of charcoal in their chest.

Dust gets on their fingers,

And smudges what they touch.

7-26-13

Merry England

The golden-tongued and wordy English

Murdered Alan Turing.

They took away his clearance,

Deprived him of his office,

His lab, his work, his life.

He died at 42. When even

Shakespeare reached his 50s.

The British do know words,

But that is all.

Music in two thousand years?

“Danny Boy” and “Greensleeves”.

Then Lloyd Webber

Gave the island song.

How many Alan Turings

Without his intellect -

Or Oscar Wilde the genius

Of his imagination -

Went the way of Turing

And Wilde to stagnant death -

Unsung, unknown, forgotten -

Just as Alan Turing was

Who kept the nazis out of Merry England?

If you care for caring,

The Isle of Britain's dead.

7-26-13

 

Good Verse

When Larkin wrote “This Be The Verse”,

How confident the title.

Am I as right in my impression

That my poems are good?

50 years I've been insane.

For 50 years I've written.

I have written all I must,

But I continue writing.

To cast aside my ancient peeves

And childhood misbegotten,

And for the sake of poesy,

Just write, forgetting Keats.

Am I a genius? That's a word

Capote called himself.

And men were calling Shakespeare years

Before he ceased to be.

It's a word, unfeeling word,

And like a stone through tissue,

It drops into the water, sinks

And barely leaves a ripple.

I loved the word when I was young.

It's nothing to me now.

7-25-13

 

GOP

The enemy of life and hope,

Tomorrow and the people,

Old or poor, but not the rich,

Is Republican.

7-25-13

 

Two Hours

I sat in Denny's, read my book

And thought the poems brilliant.

I paid the check and left and now

The damned illusion's gone.

My mind is like a Ferris Wheel,

Either up or down.

7-25-13

 

Eating

Cheese, a cup of milk, and soft white bread!

This induces such euphoria,

Sweet feeling comes and overcomes

A miserable depression,

And I believe the world is possible.

Martin, Milk and Turing don't believe it,

Nor Oscar Wilde. Republicans are gods,

And gods don't cry. They don't need cheese and milk.

But mortal, I enjoy my light repast.

7-25-13

British Decency

Anglophile

I was an Anglophile since Wilde

And Keats, before I was 20.

Tried to change my citizenship

When I was 24.

Then I heard about Turing,

Which resurrected Wilde.

Victims of English propriety,

Ingratitude, and hate.

They turned on the man who had

Made them happy.

They turned on the man who had

Saved the war.

One in 1890,

And 1952.

Now rubbing salt in the wounds of Christ,

Some very stupid officious men

Consider forgiving Turing,

And possibly Oscar Wilde.

Wilde and Turing and Edward the Second

Should consider forgiving them.

The British rule with decency.

Americans just shoot.

7-26-13

Jill

The Picture

You were kind to me. The things

You said about my poems.

I felt the youth behind your words -

An independent wisdom.

Today you sent a picture,

And tonight I fell in love.

You're a child, and I'm a child,

But nonetheless I'm older.

Across a continent we write -

And whence the sweet illusion -

The fact you are a woman,

The impression you're a girl?

Since I saw your photo, I've

Begun to like my poems.

It makes no sense, but let it be.

Life is all confusion.

7-25-13

Jill, A New Poem

Willful, stubborn and defiant,

Beautiful, a spitfire -

We have written many months -

Today she sent a picture -

Not a recent one, but one

When she was just a girl -

How long ago? 42

Years. She was a beauty -

As she is at 60.

An enigma – that I felt

An understanding youth in every

Syllable she wrote.

Now the photo – which I framed -

Cements and underscores

The certainty of her and my impression.

She went to Europe, told the Pope

That Jesus is a fiction.

She was there with Shakespeare when he

Wrote her favorite play -

Macbeth. But she likes Ginsberg.

These are words. What good are words

To picture an impression?

7-25-13

 

Two Hours

I sat in Denny's, read my book

And thought the poems brilliant.

I paid the check and left and now

The damned illusion's gone.

My mind is like a Ferris Wheel,

Either up or down.

7-25-13

 

GOP

The enemy of life and hope,

Tomorrow and the people,

Old or poor, but not the rich,

Is Republican.

7-25-13

 

Good Verse

When Larkin wrote “This Be The Verse”,

How confident the title.

Am I as right in my impression

That my poems are good?

50 years I've been insane.

For 50 years I've written.

I have written all I must,

But I continue writing.

To cast aside my ancient peeves

And childhood misbegotten,

And for the sake of poesy,

Just write, forgetting Keats.

Am I a genius? That's a word

Capote called himself.

And men were calling Shakespeare years

Before he ceased to be.

It's a word, unfeeling word,

And like a stone through tissue,

It drops into the water, sinks

And barely leaves a ripple.

I loved the word when I was young.

It's nothing to me now.

7-25-13

 

A Prejudice

Is this another prejudice?

That people with tattoos

Despite how happily they smile,

Are adders neath the skin?

Something made them tattoo up.

It wasn't independence,

As everyone is doing it,

Except the simple few.

7-25-13

Poems

Two Kinds

If I am remembered

By posterity,

At least let it be said

Of my poesy

In hell – which is a fiction -

I was torn between

Simple pretty verses

And poems that are mean.

Babies smile at strangers.

Born gregarious -

They grow up to be bastards.

Life's a lot of fuss.

7-25-13

 

A Short Poem

He gives them all they ask,

And even whim.

They take it and give

Nothing back to him.

He is good,

And kindness is a spell.

Let god decide.

Alas there is no hell.

7-25-13

 

Transactional Analysis

I know nothing of psychology.

Yet I've the audacity to say

Transactional Analysis is stupid,

Rife with inconsistencies and flaws,

An overwhelming nonsense of the soul.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so.

The comfort of agreement! Those who think

Transactional Analysis makes sense

Are without conscience, foolish and all wise.

Who'd it cure? And who did it confuse?

I was taught it. And it tied me down.

Without it will my psyche drift away?

Taught it? Yes. I never understood it.

But I liked believing it was true.

7-24-13

 

Poems

Disinterested, pretty little poems -

Are what I've tried to write since I met Keats.

Too many things are pressing on my soul

And mean too much me, so many things

That will mean nothing in a generation,

Or tomorrow when the paper's trash.

Images and pictures and sensations -

Poems one will come to once again.

Rhythms, rhymes and music! Poetry!

And paradox. The talent and the urge

Had disappeared in 1998.

7-24-13

 

Happy Poems

Happy moods make happy poems!

Turn the country round.

Find a place for the Duartes.

(Eight feet underground.)

And the shrinks who didn't like me
Manifest with glee,

Let them say to someone strong

The things they said to me.

And the special Nancy boys

With tongues as sharp as knives,

Let social blunders, shyness and

Rejection end their lives.

Let this all occur and like

The shattering of stone,

My verse will like the Phoenix rise

And fly, as it has flown.

7-24-13

Misalliance

He made it very clear he wanted

Sex and nothing more.

He told me I was ignorant,

A psycho and a bore.

I told him quite directly that

I hadn't locked the door.

Still he lay in misery

On my vacated bed

And suffered my loquacity.

And every word I said

Geometrically increased

The torment in his head.

How it all concluded I

No longer can recall.

But I believe he farted

And escaped into the hall,

Down the stairs and out the door.

And really that was all.

7-24-13

 

Tough Love

Tough love is a euphemism.

When the patient's dead

The house of lords will analyze

What the patient said.

Writers in America

Are better known as hacks.

Dreaming up new therapies

Are educated quacks.

They said I made them look a fool.

I went there in a spell.

They called their therapy a school.

And nobody got well.

7-24-13

The Old

The young are very cruel to the old,

Throw them from the sled and let them

Perish in cold,

Mock them as they hobble down the street,

Steal their money, let them feel defeat.

The old have stories, and the young are bored.

But both of them are chosen by the lord.

The lord! And what American would want

A lord! The ruddy young, the old and gaunt!

7-24-13

Poems

Front Page

The British had a baby

And according to the news,

It's going to make just everybody
On the island smile.

The English are a nauseating bunch.

It even made the headlines

On the paper outside Denny's.

Everybody really wants to know.

Even in America

That loves the royalty.

7-23-13

 

Seen In Denny's

All the crazy ladies,

Innocuous with charm,

Smile as though they're happy,

And pat you on the arm.

Who is going to help them?

Nobody will care

If they die tomorrow.

The preacher will be there.

7-24-13

 

Mary

If murder were legal

And I had the means,

You'd be six feet under -

One of hell's

Most industrious queens,

Insidious, like thunder.

You stay in my psyche,

A thorn in my soul

Or the cuts in the side of Christ.

I was a person and

You were a role.

The game for you sufficed.

What in the hell could you

Possibly say

To lead to such disgrace?

You drove me insane and

You tossed me away,

While laughing in my face!

7-24-13

Modern Therapy

Challenge the behavior,

Leave the problem to itself.

And boy did they confront it!

Splat! Against a wall!

And if you go crazy

They will slam you in the jug.

When he got out?

I didn't wait to see.

Psychotherapy is not

The comforting solution

Those who haven't been there

Have the notion that it is.

It's mostly for the therapists

To ventilate. The patients

Baffled and dependent

Say the therapist's a dream.

And psychotherapists of course

Never are vindictive.

Hell no!

Like Godzilla with a gun!

7-23-13

 

Pretty Poems

Pretty poems, original ideas.

Does anybody write them anymore?

I tried to. Then I petered out.

Then waylaid into rage.

Oh sweet intoxication

To feel the anger come

On rhythms ready-made

From my unconscious!

Possibly well-written,

But would anybody want

To read them twice?

Or disagreeing

Read them even once?

I don't care what other people want.

Like Howard Roark, I write for myself.

For many years incapable

Or doing even that!

7-23-13

 

Pianists

Does anybody seriously

Know one pianist

From another when he isn't looking?

Cziffra, Hamelin and Wild,

Horowitz, Perahia

Coming from the stereo,

The album on a table.

Regardless of the pianist,

I listen to the music.

What a fate! Obscurity and fame!

7-23-13

 

Didactic

I reigned the rearing stallion in the night!

I was edging to didactic when I write.

Like Socrates I do not know a thing,

Not even insight normal people bring.

It's not “don't think”. That's Keats. And he was young.

But what I think. And poesy is sung.

Images! Not flowers or the sea

Or a full moon in a rhapsody

Of clouds and darkness. Ghosts that can't be seen!

Am I Romantic? Castles on the green!

Romance is gone. It's plastic and tattoos,

Gadgets and technology. And who's

Looking after dead, dark deities?

The Pope. The indigent. And such as these.

Republicans use Jesus as a whip

To mind the slaves that row a sinking ship.

Blatant lies! Rhetorical disguise!

Even fools can see this with their eyes.

7-23-13

 

A Rough Poem

Pentameter is soothing like the sea.

A rhythm unrestrained eternally

Weaves and turns, continually along

To the ending. And a perfect song

Is like a gem, cut, faceted and fine

Emerging shining from an unseen mine.

Regular, a poem, pseudo-real.

I never know the cause of what I feel.

Ideas that occur in common speech

Are as suited to a poem as the beach.

Gradually closing every door,

Then opening them again to look once more.

I'm saying things I did not read before.

My verse's train has broken from the track

And goes astray and on another tack.

My poesy's half-gone! I made it go.

Wanting, wishing. These can make it so.

Once poesy gushed in a steady flow

Uninterrupted. Now I want to write

More consciously, and brush away the pall,

No longer work in darkness, but in light,

And just make pretty poems, that is all.

7-23-13

 

My Poems

If only from my body

And my unconscious mind,

The poems come from me,

And not from god.

So they are mine,

Although I didn't write them.

I felt them come, I watched the pen,

And think it was a Muse.

There are no Muses,

And this verse is mine.

Like a shadow or a holograph,

They will ghostlike rise above my grave

To live alone, after I am dead.

7-23-13

Poems

The Anglophile

I loathe the English anymore,

Just since Alan Turing,

And Wilde some hundred years before.

Then castles once alluring

Remind me now of battles fought

And men and queens beheaded.

The Bloody British! They are not

So civilized as dreaded.

For years since Keats and Oscar Wilde

I've been an Anglophile.

Uproot the feelings of a child,

Hideous and vile.

7-23-13

 

The List

The angers and gripes I keep writing about

Are sinking the ship of my verse!

Once deep in pleasance, I am driven to write

About things only dying can fix.

Christians, Republicans, bigots and rap,

Yankees who hurtle through lights,

Yankees in general, tattoos and war,

The horror of music and art,

Parents and shrinks and the people who hurt me,

Enemies present and past,

Poetry – look I have written a list!

I want to abandon them all.

They sully, adulterate, bastardize all

The poems I wanted to write.

What poetry's this? It's already written.

Is Valdemar starting to wake?

7-23-13

 

A Fantasy

Once he was an actor.

All his flicks were flimsy.

He pleased a mindless public

With a piece of pointless whimsy.

Then he ran for office

And soundly was elected

Because he was so pretty.

All the ladies genuflected.

He did away with mental health.

Indeed he had not any.

And gave the world another bomb.

In fact he gave it many.

He scourged the homosexual.

Well, Jesus did. Not him.

His brain which never was a lot

Began at last to dim.

The country was in horror

When it heard that he was shot,

But only half. He gave the rich

Everything they've got.

7-23-13

 

Real Poems

Betrayal, rage and jealousy

Shakespeare put in poetry.

I write a poem and I flinch

When anger sticks out half an inch.

Pretty poems I have read.

Even Keats cut off a head.

Millay is gentle. Half the night,

Crystal, scary, hard, I write

And can't slough off the push to see

My rhythmed rage in poetry.

Though everything I write is true,

This isn't what I want to do.

Were I methodical and slow

And left the madness far below,

With a modicum of doubt

Perhaps I could squeeze pictures out,

Put happiness and thought in rhyme

That one might read a second time.

But the world! Tempting bait
For the cynic to berate!

7-23-13

The Journey

They plotted little schemes.

They knew that he was nuts.

Slowly the door opens.

More easily it shuts.

They did it out of humor

Because he was naïve

And gullible and stupid.

Darkling. He'd believe.

Their nasty plan miscarried.

It ended at the gate.

Heading for Manhattan,

Alone he left the state.

He took it to the limit.

Beaten and in pain,

They brought him back to Frisco,

Totally insane.

They meant to disabuse him.

He was silly and absurd.

They explained it all. He couldn't

Understand a word.

7-22-13

 

Money

Money isn't pretty.

The bills are bent and dirty.

The coins leave an odor in your hand.

Everybody wants it.

They'll knock you down to get it.

Then spend it just as quickly as they can.

Socialists don't like it,

But cannot live without it.

A difficulty hard to wriggle out of.

Republicans and Christians

Have it in abundance,

And use it to keep poor folk in their place.

7-23-13

Poems

Nothing

I have no name, no life, no world,

And now I've thrown off Keats.

I gave up my religion,

That farcical charade.

My country is a tyrant

That murders blacks and gays,

And keeps the immigrant beyond its shores.

Now I'm writing poems

That matter to my soul,

Not paradox of feeling.

I think I always did.

Nonetheless I'll die like all the rest,

In a world that's made a joke

Of poetry and music,

Listens to it like an affectation,

Politely claps,

And smokes a cigarette.

7-22-13

 

He could do things

He could do things with his mind -

Things that make me crazy -

Change his feelings, modify

His personality.

I am stone. I cannot change.

67 years.

I still can't hate the man who drove me crazy.

Night is dark. And sleep is almost

Totally passe.

Writing poems. Making jokes.

A victim of the night.

The others sit in camaraderie.

7-22-13

Wagner

The king loved Wagner.

Wagner had no talent.

Wagner didn't love him,

But the king had lots of money.

So Wagner worked the king the way

A miner digs for ore.

The sycophantic king gave all he

Had to Richard Wagner,

While Wagner screwed the daughters of his friends.

7-22-13

 

Stymied

What do I expect my poesy

To be? What do I want my verse to be?

I don't know what I'll write until it's written,

And nothing when it's written makes me happy.

Earlier the verses that I wrote -

Equal to but different from Keats -

Please me very much. And there it stops.

Like a cliff. And I have not stopped falling.

Will I land in water or a grave?

7-21-13

 

CSUF

I left with a diploma

Which is all I meant to do.

It wasn't quite as bad as being crazy.

I didn't like the classes,

And I didn't like the teachers,

And I hated the graffiti on the walls.

“Ragheads, we don't want you.”

“Ragheads, catch a boat.”

These “ragheads” could think circles

Around you!

7-21-13

 

God

There might have been a god when earth began

That loved the little live things, such as Man,

That very gently helped them on their way,

Every night, beginning every day.

Where is this god so silent? What has stilled him?

A tsunami in Louisiana killed him.

7-21-13

 

A Prayer

If there's a god that gives a damn for me,

I do not ask for immortality,

Although I'd like it, nor undying love,

Which would be nice, nor for a lot of money,

Which I would not refuse. What I request

Is merely to adore my poesy.

When others who can hardly make a sentence

Believe they are the next in line to Keats.

7-21-13