Poems

The ship

The prow of a ship gives water

Back to the sea!

Green and black and foamy

Swirls slip off

The deck, around the rope

That's coiled, the anchor.

And the mast near-horizontal

When the ship tips up

Bears a tattered rag that loudly flaps.

8-24-13

 

Good Advice

Don't give him your opinions.

Don't offer him advice.

Certainly not once.

Especially not twice.

Everybody knows

Somewhere in his mind

What will suit him best,

To what he's disinclined.

If his little derby

Fits perfectly his head,

Don't hand him your fedora

To warm his crown instead.

8-23-13

 

Safe Freedom

To live without permission

As if I'm unattached,

Unnoticed, unconsidered,

And there's no jeopardy.

The cat that I am petting

Moves beneath my hand,

Or even walks away,

Fearful of no loss.

Is there any hope

For one so caught in glue

He dreads a darkened chasm

Independently?

8-23-13

 

In Group

I sat in group and cried from start to finish

Every day. The counselor went on

With the group and left me to myself.

He never spoke to me. I never spoke.

Was he allowing me to let it out?

Or did he like the others think me so

Evil I deserved no consolation?

Finally the misery was gone

And I was empty. So much I suppose.

8-23-13

John

Was everything you said completely false?

Does the sun still circle round your earth?

Fabricating answers to all questions,

Silly and unpleasant in your world,

And pathetic, wanting just to die.

You never saw the truths about yourself,

Blessing your largesse with infancy.

Spoken to, but just because you're there.

8-23-13

 

At The Bus Stop

Sitting in the piercing heat

I'm waiting for a bus

And happen to be thinking now of Keats.

Things get so embedded

In my mind I can't forget them,

Which recognizance of them

Exacerbates.

Keats was such an idiot.

He wrote at 24

As simple minded

As a 10 year old.

His language was remarkable

And frequently a phrase

Or picture or sensation

Justifies his reputation.

His verse unlocked the chamber

And the heart of poesy

For me. However we are not

In any way alike.

8-23-13

 

The Past Recaptured

I don't want to read my verse.

I only want to write it.

Except enough to ascertain

That what I wrote is good.

8 a.m. in Denny's

Where the decent people are

Like 8 or 7 years ago

From midnight until dawn,

When Denny's was our Arcady,

A paradise of fun.

Yesterday is over,

But memory though dim

Was half recalled this morning,

A time as sweet as then.

8-23-12

 

Crying

You cry and I am helpless.

I don't know what to say.

Just sit and let it all come out

Until you go to sleep.

I envy you the depth

To which you feel your feelings.

I just have a replica

Of what I might have felt

Put down in poesy.

I wish that I could cry

Until the pain has ceased.

Maybe I'd relax

And smile at you again.

8-23-13

 

From Mom & Dad

You ruined my life when you were alive.

Don't ruin it when you're dead.

A vestige of insanity

Lingers in my head.

If it weren't for the pills I take

I think that I would be

A drooling incoherent

On back ward number 3.

Like a darkling phantom

I move through life somehow.

And I am on the verge

Of the back ward now.

8-23-13

 

Grief

Music makes me cry.

People never do,

Unless I'm crying for the pain

Of someone that I love.

I hurt him when I left.

I put him in the wrong.

Discomfited and sad, I'm drinking

Coffee by myself.

But I am not alone,

Never by myself.

A pen, a pad and poesy,

And heaven is at hand.

8-23-13

 

Virtues

He told me I am strong.

My cousin years ago

Snarled that I am weak.

He said I make a judgment

That's usually just,

And I adhere.

He said I never cry.

I don't because I can't.

My heart is full of dust.

And the judgments that I want to make

Are violence and rap,

Tattoos, theft and homophobes.

I wish that I could cry.

Any praise is welcome. But

I wish instead of judgment

He liked my sense of humor

And my efforts as a friend.

8-23-13