Poems

Front Page

The British had a baby

And according to the news,

It's going to make just everybody
On the island smile.

The English are a nauseating bunch.

It even made the headlines

On the paper outside Denny's.

Everybody really wants to know.

Even in America

That loves the royalty.

7-23-13

 

Seen In Denny's

All the crazy ladies,

Innocuous with charm,

Smile as though they're happy,

And pat you on the arm.

Who is going to help them?

Nobody will care

If they die tomorrow.

The preacher will be there.

7-24-13

 

Mary

If murder were legal

And I had the means,

You'd be six feet under -

One of hell's

Most industrious queens,

Insidious, like thunder.

You stay in my psyche,

A thorn in my soul

Or the cuts in the side of Christ.

I was a person and

You were a role.

The game for you sufficed.

What in the hell could you

Possibly say

To lead to such disgrace?

You drove me insane and

You tossed me away,

While laughing in my face!

7-24-13

Modern Therapy

Challenge the behavior,

Leave the problem to itself.

And boy did they confront it!

Splat! Against a wall!

And if you go crazy

They will slam you in the jug.

When he got out?

I didn't wait to see.

Psychotherapy is not

The comforting solution

Those who haven't been there

Have the notion that it is.

It's mostly for the therapists

To ventilate. The patients

Baffled and dependent

Say the therapist's a dream.

And psychotherapists of course

Never are vindictive.

Hell no!

Like Godzilla with a gun!

7-23-13

 

Pretty Poems

Pretty poems, original ideas.

Does anybody write them anymore?

I tried to. Then I petered out.

Then waylaid into rage.

Oh sweet intoxication

To feel the anger come

On rhythms ready-made

From my unconscious!

Possibly well-written,

But would anybody want

To read them twice?

Or disagreeing

Read them even once?

I don't care what other people want.

Like Howard Roark, I write for myself.

For many years incapable

Or doing even that!

7-23-13

 

Pianists

Does anybody seriously

Know one pianist

From another when he isn't looking?

Cziffra, Hamelin and Wild,

Horowitz, Perahia

Coming from the stereo,

The album on a table.

Regardless of the pianist,

I listen to the music.

What a fate! Obscurity and fame!

7-23-13

 

Didactic

I reigned the rearing stallion in the night!

I was edging to didactic when I write.

Like Socrates I do not know a thing,

Not even insight normal people bring.

It's not “don't think”. That's Keats. And he was young.

But what I think. And poesy is sung.

Images! Not flowers or the sea

Or a full moon in a rhapsody

Of clouds and darkness. Ghosts that can't be seen!

Am I Romantic? Castles on the green!

Romance is gone. It's plastic and tattoos,

Gadgets and technology. And who's

Looking after dead, dark deities?

The Pope. The indigent. And such as these.

Republicans use Jesus as a whip

To mind the slaves that row a sinking ship.

Blatant lies! Rhetorical disguise!

Even fools can see this with their eyes.

7-23-13

 

A Rough Poem

Pentameter is soothing like the sea.

A rhythm unrestrained eternally

Weaves and turns, continually along

To the ending. And a perfect song

Is like a gem, cut, faceted and fine

Emerging shining from an unseen mine.

Regular, a poem, pseudo-real.

I never know the cause of what I feel.

Ideas that occur in common speech

Are as suited to a poem as the beach.

Gradually closing every door,

Then opening them again to look once more.

I'm saying things I did not read before.

My verse's train has broken from the track

And goes astray and on another tack.

My poesy's half-gone! I made it go.

Wanting, wishing. These can make it so.

Once poesy gushed in a steady flow

Uninterrupted. Now I want to write

More consciously, and brush away the pall,

No longer work in darkness, but in light,

And just make pretty poems, that is all.

7-23-13

 

My Poems

If only from my body

And my unconscious mind,

The poems come from me,

And not from god.

So they are mine,

Although I didn't write them.

I felt them come, I watched the pen,

And think it was a Muse.

There are no Muses,

And this verse is mine.

Like a shadow or a holograph,

They will ghostlike rise above my grave

To live alone, after I am dead.

7-23-13