Poems

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Daddies

Daddies who have earplugs and tattoos

I don't think make suitable ideals.

Little children need a decent father.

A racist with a job and lots of money.

A Christian with a gun. A CEO

Who's manage to acquire a private fund.

A homophobe who wants to rid the world

Of everything that's bad except himself.

Some very nice conservatives who squawk

Because they're audited. If they were square

Why would it matter if they're audited?

7-1-13

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Torn to shreds

Torn to shreds, I battle with a ghost!

What do poets write about? It seems

I never put the right things in a verse.

But what is better than the songs I sing?

Wilderness and meadows, points of view -

Liberal or Yankee – songs that praise

The deity that blesses us in war?

Tell me what to write about in verse?

I don't know, and yet I filled a book.

My subjects seldom soothe me. This is death.

6-30-13

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The Racist

The white supremacist just got off work -

The busboy with the earplugs and tattoos

Who thinks he is superior to King.

A raucous racket blares from overhead

To sing the prince of Denny's to his car.

And from that car, with every window down,

All the racist shit that's in his soul

Will blast like music and pollute the night.

6-30-13

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Mixture

I came to Denny's simply to indulge.

10 p.m. The weather is a tomb.

To get away from problems I can't solve

Except by doing the improbable.

Every day they fuck my virgin life.

They're gradually driving me insane.

I just heard a pretty melody

Popular some 40 years ago

When lost in Oakland I was going mad.

Madness! Fear! Impossibility!

I have an ace, but I will never play it.

The ruination of the one I love.

Slowly I am sinking in the sand.

6-30-13

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Wealth & Fame

Keats! Completely right!

Wealth and fame are all.

Wealth because I need it.

There is no other world.

Not fame because I am

Or for my family name.

For something I accomplish,

Something I can do.

6-30-13

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Reprieve

In a house alone with you,

Laughter, wit and happiness -

I forget the other world -

And your microcosm.

The money that I used to have,

The four soft cats we do -

Your friends, the bad, nefarious -

My mind has gone astray.

Heaven's child's hilarity -

The weather's nearly 90 -

The object of America

To bastardize the planet -

7-1-13

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Three Authors

Americans love Plath -

Collegiate admissions -

To read a dictionary

Without the definitions -

Eliot was odious -

An educated man -

Education can't

Where only genius can -

However Oscar Wilde -

Far above my station -

Genius can prevail

In spite of education -

7-1-13

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Words I dream

Words I dream and words I say

Get tangled up in nonsense,

And come out garbled, wake me up

And startle me. All soured.

Narratives that have a point

Before I reach to speak them,

Leave my mouth in pointlessness

And failed futility.

6-30-13