Poems

A Book Of Poems

I have a book of poems

I would like to give away,

The oldest and my favorite -

A jewel and a treasure

Dredged up from the bottom of the sea.

I write in unrhymed rhythm

Frequently with rhymes.

The music of the cooks is even

Louder than the crowd -

Denny's in a century

Of anti-art and ugliness.

Keats is dead. Millay is just

A distant memory.

Everything forgotten

But the precious, ugly, horrid

Here and Now

Olympus gave injunctions to enjoy

And never leave -

Cluttered up and crusted over

Like a magic window

With blood and dirt and semen.

Can I sell my book of poems?

8-10-13

 

Old Heaven

Ten minutes I'm in Denny's

In the aftermath of drunks,

Coffee and I'm

Starting to recover.

Poetry! A refugee

From 1967 -

To 70 when I went mad

And it had ceased to be.

Halcyon and happiness!

Four years. Do I remember

Things as I would

Like them to have been?
Heaven ended 40 years ago.

Heaven went to hell in New York City.

8-10-13

 

Where Is Bach?

In my life I've never even

Spoken to or known

People like the people you

Idealize and love.

In my world the people were

Impoverished and gentle.

All of them are older now

And possibly they're dead.

Forty years since I have seen

What I can just remember.

Today the fads and music

And madness. Where is Bach?

So pompous and pretentious!

“Where is Bach?”

Ugliness makes beauty feel

Self-conscious and ashamed.

8-10-13

 

To Feel

It takes a Titan not to have a feeling.

What affects is only an effect.

Nothing is innocuous. The shrinks

Of this century think differently.

One gives him information. He decides

What and whether he is going to feel.

How dear the cost of this absurdity!

God gave Man his giant little brain

Whose constant understandings go awry.

He laughs at people. But he does not cry.

8-10-13

Happy America

I must be old. The happiness

Of people makes me angry -

Raucous, loud. I used to be

Loud and raucous too.

Denny's is a bit of the

America they love

For reasons they would

Like to overthrow.

When I die they'll put me on

A shelf beside Bukowski.

Keats is stale and decadent

And old. But not Millay.

8-10-13