Poems

The Nightmare

Never go to Denny's on a weekend

After midnight. Everybody sane,

Nice or decent has already gone.

Nothing changes. Everything gets worse.

Rap and rock that fills the building, coming

From the cook who's unattended now,

Shouting drunks, Republicans and bastards,

The servers all belligerent and strange.

I discovered people are not nice

Unless they have to be, and they resent it.

Arrogance and thieves and vanity,

And all of them forgiven by their gods.

Home again! To recognize four cats.

The need to write is unavoidable,

A panacea. When the world is over,

Only art and science will be left.

Not Ives or Pollock. People nature gave

A talent. Calvin's right. But there's no god.

Eternity must be an endless bore.

8-17-13

 

Post

I wrote a lot of angry verse. I just

Read it. Calm. Like water in a pond

At evening. What happened to the rage?

Or was I in the center of the storm?

8-17-13

Bleak

Following the lights,

Blown along the block,

When a light is green,

That is where you walk.

Sitting in the diner

Where you always sat,

She came in at 2.

How did she know that?

Knowing where you went,

Knowing you were there,

Did they always know?
Malevolence or care?

Then she called the cops.

They answered in a while.

“We heard you're suicidal.

We'd like to help.” A smile.

8-16-13

 

Always

There was always war.

There was always hate.

There were always bigots

Breaking down your gate.

There was always cruelty

In honor of the Jew

Who reigns supreme in fiction.

But there was beauty, too.

8-16-13