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