Poems

Poems

“This be the verse”

Larkin wrote it.

It's his immortality.

Perfect sense

Perfect said,

Intense in its frugality.

“The Cliffs of Dover” Arnold left

A golden treasure in the weeds.

One can search for more but find

Naught despite how long one reads.

“The Soldier” A verismo bard

When verse and music were expiring.

Who when in a battle shot

Would think these thoughts while guns were firing?

Beloved Oscar wrote a weal

That makes contemporaries pale.

Despite the beauties of his better

Verse they sing The Reading Gaol.

8-25-13

 

Not Larkin

My poesy is so naïve

And immature I can't believe

Somebody wrote a word.

Not Larkin whom the Brits revere,

Articulate and grown and clear.

Existence is absurd.

8-25-13

Three Men

How casual the death ignorer

Jaunted down the street.

Jesus in his pocket,

Someone ravishing to meet.

How vehement the Yankee is

Conversant with his rights,

Yes on Proposition 8,

Running through red lights.

He smoothly in dark glasses walks

Into a dim lit room,

Hair across his forehead,

Too pretty for a tomb.

8-25-13

The Carnival

Every life is sacred.

Since childhood I have thought so.

I am eating chicken.

The flesh is very warm.

Composing takes intelligence,

Imagination, genius.

Sounds evincing none of these

Are sung throughout the world.

Pain as if a portal to

Another life on earth

Was put in Man to keep him safe.

In flicks and television

Replicas of agony

Enthrall the hungry throng.

8-25-13

Death

Death the ineluctable

Is waiting.

Someone said it.

She said it and I panicked.

But I'm not dying now.

Relax my nonexistent soul

Into your former status quo.

You are breathing.

Breathe some more.

And let this evening come.

An hour at Denny's in the darkness.

Home to give the cat her pill.

Come familiarity

And resurrect my world.

Restore the hope, the happiness

And artificial calm.

The wars are in another place.

Commiserate. Don't die.

8-25-13

 

Apostasy

I agree with Gandhi

But not with Jesus Christ.

Every life is sacred.

But that's impossible.

Never did a mortal

Creep across this soil

More terrified of death,

More doubtful of his worth.

Remove the contradictions

He cannot contradict,

See how quick the doubter

Would crawl back in the nest.

8-25-13

 

Morning

Denny's in the morning -

6 o'clock or 8 -

Is quiet, cool and peaceful.

Life is just a wait.

Awake all night and busy,

Now half asleep in Denny's,

What place is good for drowsing?

I would say that any's.

8-25-13