Poems

-->

Suffering

Suffering becomes sweet poetry,

As a grain of sand becomes a pearl,

And diamonds result from squeezing coal.

This would please the prosody of Poe.

Cut the knot and liberate the soul

To freedom, life – like Jesus in the temple.

But there's an obstacle to this suggestion -

To hit a cat or drive into the dirt.

Suffering makes gold – or iron pyrite -

That sits unread upon a dusty shelf

Until the paper's yellow, time is gone.

7-2-13

 

-->

The Wing

The crude results of unprotected sex

Are living on the north side of Visalia.

Congress buys them everything they have -

Their booze and meat and artificial nails.

You have found them – you with even less -

And they will not appreciate a thing.

You fold them underneath a gentle wing

And there protect them til the morning comes.

7-2-13

  -->

Pretty Death

I can write a poem about death,

Such a pretty song with metaphors,

Clever phrases and complexities,

And not a drop of blood. But when it's written,

I am destined nonetheless to die.

7-2-13

  -->

A Fly In Amber

I am 66, and I believe

I shall not be free before I'm dead,

Like a fly in amber, from the world

Of the Duartes.

They entwine like glue -

Always here,

And always when there's more.

At 66, effectively I'm dead.

The only way to extricate myself

Is to ravel sadly Shakespeare's sleeve.

Alexander couldn't sever it.

Whoever said that suffering makes art

Wrote about a genre I know well.

I can leave. And usually leave

To go to Denny's. There at least an hour

With music they call music overhead

And tattooed citizens and screaming kids,

I sit or sleep or suffer -

Write a poem -

Drinking tea and coffee – and Manon

Has reached the desert,

And she is insane.

No respite! Drive the heathen from the temple!

Even Jesus Christ was crucified.

Jesus Christ! And sexless purity,

Without feeling, everything for god!

7-2-13

-->

“Frankenstein”

Victor Frankenstein, the doctor

Said of his wife, “I should have socked her

When she cried, “Create a man,

You pediatric also ran!'”

When he should have thrust his mug up

With defiance, Victor dug up

Something wet and icky.

Here the tale gets tricky.

This creature gotten from the earth,

Born again, a second birth,

Detested Victor with such spleen

That it became quite mad and mean,

And so pursued forthwith and forth

Its creator to the north.

And there upon a floe of ice

(I add to make the story nice)

They floated into paradise.