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