Poems

Here & Now

Jesus is a philistine.

The Parthenon's in ruins.

Senility and mental illness

Light the stairs to heaven.

What Jesus doesn't do to Man,

He'll finish off himself.

All the gentle creatures are

The predators of others.

Nothing but eternal pain,

Age and disillusion.

And ultimately -

I don't want to say it.

7-14-13

Berlin

Berlin wrote the show biz anthem.

Thinking Rodgers didn't like it,

Chucked it. And he was surprised

When later Rodgers asked to hear it.

I am not like him.

If you do not like a tune,

I'll just compose another.

Such with Berlin. I would treasure

Every song I think is good.

But bury under ashes every

Verse I think is bad.

7-14-13

 

How many years did I endure

How many years did I endure

To get my freedom back?
The executioner is god.

The warder is my friend.

In a cowl beside the block,

With an ax in darkness

Stands the Christian deity.

And countless harbingers

Around the planet carry out

The last of his intentions,

And do the duties he would do

If he did not exist.

7-13-13

 

A Few Poems

I don't need a lot of poems

But they will not stop.

Like The Sorcerer's Apprentice

They keep bringing water.

All I need of poesy

Is just a few to tinker at,

Revise into perfection,

Some to fix the phrases
Or make the rhythms work.

To try until I've got it right,

And think – god did not make this.

7-13-13

 

What To Write

I cannot be flowery.

I never was like Keats.

Nor am I like Dickinson,

Though neither of us feels.

Disillusioned and acerbic,

Unpoetical and brittle -

Sensual – but long ago.

In don't know what to write.

The English still write poetry,

But all of it is words,

Insubstantial shadows

Of the skeleton of Keats.

The less I read of poetry,

The more I am myself.

MFA and education -

It can teach the forms

Of poetry through history.

It cannot write verse.

7-13-13

 

Stones

People wave at me. I wonder

Is it me they're waving at?
The words fall into place. And should I

Contradict the Muse?

Why is everything that's good

Connected to its death?
A babbling baby will mature

Into a hairy soldier.

A soldier for the government.

A killer for a gang.

Little babies, pink and blue,

A bassinet, a gun.

That's the story of mankind.

It used to be a stone.

7-14-13

Driven Crazy

It's people who make other people crazy,

Not the pollen, nor an errant gene,

Nor is it done by those already mad.

Staring into night with eyes aglow

And fantasies abounding in his head,

He walks the shore and listens to the sea,

And thinks of no day in particular.

Selfish people, people who tell lies,

Thieves who hide behind a clever con,

Any of a hundred kinds if people,

Turn the trusting, frightened or naïve

Into wild or passive lunatics.

And no one – not a government of men -

Can put the pieces back, or even tries.

7-13-13

Values

The fools believe they know me.

There's nothing here to know.

There's nothing for their cognizance

To think it is perceiving.

I think there is no word

For the concept I am thinking -

The uselessness of values
In the imminence of death.

Anyway a value is like

Oil that's on a window,

It doesn't stay, it slowly slides

Toward the window sill.

7-13-13

Listening To A Shostakovitch PC

Strident and harsh and unpleasant the music

After Puccini, considering Ives.

God help me! I even remember his name.

Who was the Greek who without any talents

Wanted the world to remember his name

So he burnt down a beautiful temple?
We are his heirs. He created a zeitgeist,

A poisonous cloud that enveloped the earth.

Sensual poems, intelligent, beautiful

All have succumbed to the ogre of time.

In a millennium – more, maybe less -

The cloud will disperse and the flowers will bloom.

Possibly not. There may be no more earth.

Man himself is the infamous Greek.

But there will be none to remember.

7-13-13

Texas

They won't harm a fetus

But god damn the full grown man.

America loves children.

Texas loves them even more.

Did Texas pass the law to ban

The books in Texan schools

Encouraging a child to use his mind?

Did Texas write the book rewriting

Yankee history?
“America! The Hagiography.”

Johnson came from Texas,

But you wouldn't know it now.

7-13-13