Poems

Review


Everything we need
And everything we want,
A dwelling with a deed
That mother used to haunt -


Four delicious cats -
One as soft as sin -
Contented without rats
And always sleeping in -


Lying in repose,
Dreaming of their last
Interrupted doze
Just an hour past -


Little clutter here -
Lady Ga Ga there -
Unless another ear
Prefers another air -


9-29-13

The Magazines


When I was a medic (the glory it brings!)
On a short walk through the hospital wings,
I saw an old lady who quietly said
There wasn't a magazine she hadn't read.
Quickly I hurried and went to a store
And bought her some magazines, three, maybe four.
Then back at the ward with the zines in my mitt,
A colonel or major or some stupid shit
Stopped me abruptly and said to get out.
My intentions enraged her.  Like more of a rout,
I turned and I left with my gift in my hand.
Little of this can compassion withstand.
“Care about people!” psychologists say.
Care about people.  Stay out of their way.
Care about people?  Yes, really I do.
Five maybe.  Four maybe.  Three.  Maybe two.


9-29-13

Two Quatrains


With you and the government eager to feed
The tattooed and indigent lousy with need,
Little hands open, freely they ride,
Nothing gives nothing, and goes with the tide.


Some people are sick and unable to work,
And shrinks are unable to knit up the quirk.
Take a position.  Where do you stand?
With Jesus, Republicans, Roark or Rand?


9-29-13
Together


Tiny Tina and
Little Rebecca -
Salt and pepper at
Denny's at 6 -


To see them together
Starts the morning -
My encomium -
Nothing prolix -


9-29-1


Some Loves


Is selfishness sincere?
A pocket full of cigarettes,
A belly full of beer.


The people I have loved
Almost make me weep -
Brutal to their children -
Angels when asleep.


Some gentlemen will screw -
A tussle and a shove -
Seven times a week
And never mention love.


I was relegated
To oblique obscurity,
And listened to encomiums
To his maturity.


In my youth I was
An underfunded whore,
So probably I could
Remember several more.


9-29-13



“Iraqi Freedom”


In Denny's sat a kid
Who wore a baseball cap on backwards.
Across the brim was stitched -
“Iraqi Freedom”.


Was this a jeer of mockery
At Yank duplicity,
Or another willing instance
Of a sly redefinition
Of a bloody situation?


Everything has reasons,
But not everything makes sense.


9-29-13

"God's World"

“God's World”


O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
    Thy roaches and thy prickly pears!
    Thy rattle snakes, thy grizzly bears!
Thy mustard gas, thine homophobes!
Thine AIDS, thy germs, thy rap, the robes
Around thy white supremacists!
World, world!  J. Edgar Hoover's lists!


Long have I known the horrors that appall,
    But never knew I this:
    The deadly nightshade's kiss,
Which sounds like something out of Johnny Keats
Whom critics mock, tuberculosis eats;
My soul – well, I don't have a soul – the fall
Comes just before the winter.  That is all.

(with no apologies to Edna St. Vincent Millay)

11-24-10

Awake Too Soon


Head above the water -
Echos of Millay -
Fanciful conceit -
Like the ocean spray -


Gentle loving verses -
Written with a pen -
Like the colored stones
In a diadem -


Detoured from my route
By Keats at 21 -
Music and sensation -
And nothing can be done -


Thinking it was Byron -
Hoping it was Keats -
Rather it's Millay -
A plethora of sweets -


Found her on the shelf -
A modicum of dust -
Printer's ink and beauty -
Instinctively I trust -


9-28-13
Inequity


Putting poems in a folder,
Freddy hit the middle.
I wasn't mad.
I moved him off.
And then he jumped again.
I moved him off.  And then I thought
Had the cat been Kitty,
I'd have raged.  And then I thought
When god is done with killing,
Does he touch the futile brains
Of eager poetasters
And make them think
They're geniuses – like Keats?


9-28-13

Twenty Minutes In Denny's


A desperate day!  A depressing day!
George is distant and reserved.
Nothing but an hour of Bach
To recommend to god.


I'm in Denny's – a magical place
For writing poesy.
The gems that shied from dawn to dusk
Glimmer slightly now.


Millay has nothing still to dread
For the laurel on her brow.
When she nods it won't fall off
For what I'm writing now.


9-28-13

Expired


I've been dead since 75
Despite the sense I am alive.
Wrote three books of verse that soar,
The last in 1984.
Vestiges, a broken spell
Keep me writing, but not well.
I perceive a passe glint
Of talent peeping through the print.
And many songs – none between -
Come daily from this old machine.


9-28-13
Love


All the men I loved who would have loved me
If I weren't incapable of love.
The feeling's there.
I don't know how to show it.
Pretty men, intelligent,
Who sit for Bach and Haydn.
I'm with one now.
He isn't fond of Haydn,
Sleeps through Bach
And has a yen for women.
I don't care.
I could be friends with him
If I knew how.
It's tragic and I laugh.


9-28-13

Playing Bach


When I play Bach, and I know that he wants
To listen to one of his own,
I feel such discomfort, it seems that the Bach
Is boring and shallow and slight.
When I surrender the Bach I feel better,
Despite what he plays in its stead.
But when he is gone, the room becomes rich
And redolent with Bach.


9-28-13

Lies


Lies!  I never thought of them
As other than absurd,
The sweetest lies this troglodyte
And poet ever heard.
Poet?  Well, a poetaster.
Really not the same.
All of it intended and
Sincere.
So not a game.
Not a prince.  So not a tumbril.
Just a common cart.
My only aim since youth – to be
Another Larry Hart.
Brilliant rhymes!  Clever rhymes!
With sentiment and wit.
Tumbled into Keats and that
Was quite the end of it.
That's not to say that otherwise
There could have been a way.
I never had his talent.
I'm discovering Millay.
Will that divert the tide into
A different direction?
It's doubtful.  But she's beautiful,
As even Keats was not.


9-28-13

Thank you, daddy


Smugly he had taken us to supper.
Coming home, the parrots all said “thank you”.
I did not.  I would not join the group.
I wanted him to know I was sincere,
Not by rote pronouncing what was right,
But showing gratitude alone together.
He turned and leaned across the seat and said,
“Jimmy isn't thankful.”  To the grave
He never knew what had been in my mind.
One fact I can be absolutely sure of.
He never knew because I never told him.


9-22-13

Millay & The Drunks

Millay & The Drunks

Look at their faces! All of them drunk.

The animated and too bright smile.

Everyone is a neighbor now,

Open handed and free of guile.

I am dying. I wish I were,

If there is a heaven where Haydn and Bach

Sing through the clouds, like heaven's self.

What is the purpose of further talk?

When a poet like Edna Millay -

Gems in transparent mucilage -

So her phrases and pictures and thoughts -

That never age, that never age.

All my innards and all my mind

Relax with poesy, pretty, calm,

After Millay, instead of Keats.

Every rhythm a restive balm.

9-28-13

Keats & Millay

I don't have her beauty.

I don't have her touch.

I read Keats forever.

I read Keats too much.

But I am not Millay.

Keats I am eschewing.

This briars and the thickets

Of words was my undoing.

Perhaps it's what you read

That troubles you, he said.

Will what I read affect me?
It will not raise the dead.

What you are determines

What you read. Perhaps

What you read provokes

An imminent collapse.

Looking for a goal.

Another yearly prince.

Surreptitiously looking -

I've been looking since.

9-28-13

 

Edna Millay

Edna is the poet.

The Yankees played no part.

Her sweet collected lyrics!

The sinews of the heart.

Ideas fall like gems

In a happy clutter

Beautifully right

When the Muses mutter.

9-27-13

The Machine

The machine works! The people,

The representatives,

Solicitous and maudlin

When you telephone

Ask about your health,

“To who have I the pleasure...”

And do not know a thing about

The question you are asking.

Of course if every question

Has a multitude of answers

Then every representative
Is absolutely right.

9-27-13

 

The Smile

Needy people, lonely and distraught,

Are deceivers. People who have not,

Smile while they relieve the ones who've got,

A tiny smile, the corner of the lips

That only an accomplice can perceive,

Sitting in the shadow while she sips

The nectar of the drones, who don't believe.

9-27-13

The Girl

The Girl


Believe in something other than to die -
Nor have your love intruded on by lust -
To look at a completely empty sky
And know the sea decays – and so goes trust -


When someone needs your company – that's all -
On pain of loneliness – to be afraid -
Footsteps echo down an empty hall
Swept and mopped and dusted by a maid -


Whatever happens, she will not object.
Ignore her, she will merely wander on.
Defeated absolutely, young and wrecked,
She sleeps in Denny's, when she can, til dawn.


Who belongs to her?  Does she belong
To anyone?  To justify her stay,
A plate of toast's in front of her.  It's wrong.
For fifty thousand years it's been this way.


9-26-13

The Lover


His sin was that he loved me.  And the hell,
Perdition at the bottom of a well.
A gallows swings its shadow cross the sea,
A rope for hanging lovers from a tree


With a single noose that dangles free
For a Muse whose sole autonomy
Is in the liberty of poetry.


All the world will put you in restraints.
A nation of illiterates and saints!
There is no hope.  All hope is in the soul
Of a single poet on a roll.
A trite cliché makes diamonds out of coal.


9-26-13

The Muse


“On Sleep, &c”, “Endymion
Awake” and “Chaps” - three lovers of my heart.
My three books.  My immortality.
All the rest are commonplace and good,
But nothing like a window-breaking truth.
No truth.  You cannot weigh it in a pan.


Now I am becoming complicated,
Self-adoring, narcissistic, proud.
I did not write these books.  Perhaps a god
Or something that's in nature undisclosed.
I merely moved the pen across the paper.
For this a laurel?  Silliness.  A lie.


But I am glad I was the crucible,
And that I moved the pen.  Obedience.
All of life on earth is in a stricture,
In poetry the manacles removed,
And I'm in even more captivity,
Writing as I'm bidden – by the Muse.


9-26-13


Emily


Strong and happy.  Is she happy?
Well, she makes me so.
But concentrating busily
With a job to do.
A Lady Atlas with the planet
Balanced on her shoulders,
But carried like a dancer
On a stage in front of none.
She laughs and smiles.  No.  Giggles.
And as open as the sea,
With gentle lazy waves that lap
The beach a hundred miles.
Like a dream she walks in sleep.
She reads my poesy.


9-26-13
Karen!


Karen, the acerbic prune,
Works graveyard, and it's fitting.
A little yellow net upon
Her bun (that's on her head).


I only just turned 67.
It's been many years
Since someone with a rancid word
Could cause me such a rage.


Very garrulous and stupid,
And she thinks she's 17.
She knows and listens to the classics -
Acid rock and rap.


She tells the patrons everything
They never asked to know.
And if you really need a cup of
Coffee, you will die.


9-26-13

Poems

The Day George Came Home


He's back again.  I hope he stays.
So often he returns.
The cats are foreign, and he feels
Alien.  He said
He didn't think about this place
In three weeks he was gone.


I feel sad.  But in a mood
The truth though contradicted
Is still the truth.  He's home at last.
This poem is his welcome.


9-25-13




Karen!


Karen, the acerbic prune,
Works graveyard, and it's fitting.
A little yellow net upon
Her bun (that's on her head).


I only just turned 67.
It's been many years
Since someone with a rancid word
Could cause me such a rage.


Very garrulous and stupid,
And she thinks she's 17.
She knows and listens to the classics -
Acid rock and rap.


She tells the patrons everything
They never asked to know.
And if you really need a cup of
Coffee, you will die.


9-26-13


Difference


My genius in my youth
And just my talent in my dotage,
Similar to Wilde except
I never had a life.
Like magic from a dipper
Until 1998.
Who will ever know there was a difference?


9-24-13



A View


Denny's is the closest
I have ever come
To having friends – and George
And Jay and Gary.


However when you have
Friends as sweet as these,
The count is unimportant.
It's the happiness.


And Jill becomes the strangest -
Something more than love -
Across a continent -
Serendipity.


9-24-13


Gary


Perhaps when I'm in heaven
With all the cherubim
I'll have another lover
Gentle, sweet – like him.


I teased him like the bastard
Mental doctors paint.
He made funny faces
And planned to be a saint.


Finally he left me,
Muscular and pretty.
In 1969
I went to New York City.


Everything I wanted
And everything I lack
In a single lover
Who's never coming back.


Except one day he did.
He followed me.  He wrote.
I was in Manhattan.
I ignored him, like a goat.


9-24-13

Oakland


The therapists in Oakland
Despised the mere appearance
Of every hapless psycho
Who stumbled through their door.


Except of course for Brian,
Blond and tall and handsome,
And Larry who was loveable
And had a funny nose.


Kathy I was fond of.
She cried and she was baffled.
And a woman who had studied
Psychology in school


Looked angrily and saw
The shit and the palaver,
The lies and the deception
Of their psychotherapy!


9-24-13

If Pope Frances really wanted to be a saint, he'd renounce the church

Irene

A vindictive liar and a thief -

That's quite a tasty brew.

And she has cousins big and mean

Who'll break you right in two.

Hide the silver, lock the door

And never let in.

But kiss her ugly tattooed a--

If she comes back again.

9-24-13

 

Irene Duarte

Yesterday the rattle snake

Took off with 40 dollars,

Washed her clothes and got a ride,

And didn't spend a dime.

She gives the dike a rancid name,

But not through molestation.

An aging, tattooed indigent,

That sucks the blood of friends.

So deep in debt he cannot swim,

He nonetheless gets angry,

But dreads to be the object of

Another person's anger.

The government misjudgment gives

The undeserving money

Eternally, and gives the sick

A room and cigarettes.

Sneak and thief, insidious!

She's here to get the bucks

From his misbegotten love.

Her name's Irene Duarte.

6-9-13

 

St. Francis

If Francis wants to be a saint

(And someone said he does),

He'd see the church the way it is

Compared to what is was.

He'd take the blood soaked bible,

Throw it down and trounce it,

Take the ornamented church

And totally renounce it.

9-24-13

 

Liars

Waltzing with liars

And curtsey to thieves!

Don't look away until

Everyone leaves.

Syrupy sweet like

Puccini they talk.

Don't plant your heart.

It's a garden of chalk.

9-23-13

My House

I love my house – my static house -

Curios and books -

Lots of pictures on the walls

And shelves – and quiet music -

Four cats that sleep upon the chairs,

Tables, sofas – and

When he comes back tomorrow,

My house will have a soul.

9-23-13

 

The Elevator

An elevator floating in the sea!

So goes my love for you.

Thoughts about my poetry.

Continually the elevator rides

Up and down forever

On a sea of shifting tides.

Ambivalence! My poetry is grim.

Then suddenly it's perfect.

I am loved. Perhaps by him.

9-23-13

 

Faith

Simply knowing you are 67

Gradually makes you very old.

Little things, like mopping up the table

And keeping coffee off your manuscript

Seems about the most you can accomplish.

Nonetheless the verse keeps coming out.

The rhythms, if they ever were, are good.

You're vigilant for an identical.

A plethora of notions fill your head,

Though not as wanton as they were before.

Your friend of 16 years, and half your age,

Is coming home tomorrow. And he said

He'll publish too, and find you both success.

There are people older than you are.

Some are dead, and some are still alive.

And you have been obsessed with age

Since you were 41.

The miracle and madness yet prevail.

Since the day at 17 you tried

To kill yourself and nearly brought it off,

God – despite the beatings and the horror -

Like a sparrow – and he watched it fall -

Kept the faith. You have no faith at all.

9-23-13

The Craigslist Poem

The Craigslist Poem

The Craigslist winner – or a finalist -

Yesterday was printed in The Times.

The prize – 10 grand – the picture of the party

Where the award was given – rich and posh.

The poem that was printed? Jersey loved it.

Excellent. Believing it was mine,

Deeper than I ever wrote before.

It hadn't any talent,

Intelligence or rhythm.

And certainly no music.

And nothing that made sense.

Phrases! They were bullets

Ripping cotton off a dummy,

Implying or suggesting something -

Probably old age.

But oh! A song beloved by its author!

A song? Oh yes! That Ives would set to music.

And this imagination

Was exactly like a dream

With just as little meaning,

And the meaning in a dream

Is skin that's dead and flaking

Off the bottom of a foot!

9-23-13

Poems

The Demons

Clean and sweet, original -

A poem meant as art -

Not a nuts and bolts description

Of the poet's life -

Yet confession's what I'm writing

And writing it again -

Opinions unrequested -

And not a thing to love -

A poem never dies -

Prose sits on the shelf

And slowly fades from memory -

A verse you can recall -

Since 1999

I've wrestled with the demons -

Poetry, confession -

It's poesy I love -

9-22-13

 

Decline

I started writing poems -

Poesy per se -

Sporadically continued

Til 1998.

And then it went away.

We met in 99.

I took it up again,

But this time like a diary.

And looking back to then -

Wrestling with the demons -

Confessionals or art -

So very little poesy,

And such a lot of heart.

I prefer the poesy -

The quartz and crystal kind -

That shimmers in the moonlight,

The moonlight of a mind.

Here I am alone -

Confessions and complaints -

Poems about myself

And cats, and smashing saints.

9-22-13

 

Jill's Poems

Delicate and gentle things -

A touch that you can feel -

Mildly enigmatic -

Makes them very real -

Never quite the fantasy

That you expect in phrases

In artificial poetry,

But honesty – which fazes,

Like Rupert Brooke, without the edge

That made his poems sing.

Her poems are an altogether

Different, perfect thing.

Beneath the mask of poetry,

The face of truth is there,

Nothing overwhelming,

As gentle as it's rare.

9-22-13

About Noon

Everybody's writing books

And poems, advertising.

What's their purpose?

Immortality?

Wealth from sex and violence?
Take a mattress to the corner.

You'll get rich and faster.

Stephen King and Morrison

Got famous selling hell.

Tattoos, pain and rock and Jesus!

And Republicans!

If the GOP can help it,

Just the rich will live.

Such a morning with misgivings.

Nothing else is good today,

Except somebody said she didn't

Hear me make a hateful ass

Of myself impatient for a ride.

Tuesday he is coming home.

And we begin again.

He will give me confidence.

And I'll – continue writing.

9-22-13

 

Image

Another phony poet

Thinking he is great,

Stacking up his papers,

Hoping death will wait

Until he's rich and famous.

Prince of Poetry.

Don't express a word of doubt.

Someone will agree.

9-22-13

Countless Poets

Everyone writes poems,

And no one's worth a damn.

Even Johnny Keats.

Two centuries, a sham.

Bukowsky has some feeling.

Jeffers is a bore.

Merwin is ridiculous.

The time of art is yore!

Some paper and a pencil,

The clumsy hairy apes

Write their boring thoughts.

Laurels, wine and grapes!

9-22-13

 

The Saint

I'm not sad, I'm angry.

Are you a blessed saint?

Praise the damned untalented,

And tell him what he ain't?

I'm sad my verse is lousy

And finding out this way.

Mediocre phrases.

Embarrassing, I'd say.

Publishing those books

And passing them around,

And getting no responses,

Not the slightest sound.

I am not prolific.

It's just loquacity.

All I liked was Larry Hart.

Then came poesy.

9-22-13

 

State Of Affairs

We won't have any extra,

But today we have enough.

The homicides continue.

Were policemen always rough?

They gathered up the sick ones

And took them to the Bay

And left them on the sidewalk.

And then they went away.

Jacqui Schiff is dead.

A blight has been removed.

Tuesday he is coming home.

By someone he is loved.

My verse is like a diary.

It lacks the crystal edge

That would make it poetry.

I'm hanging from the ledge

Still wrenching with an effort

To hoist myself upon it,

As someone told me years ago.

(I cannot write a sonnet.)

9-22-13

 

Poems

Look at it. Your poems!

Like everybody writing -

Merwin and Bukowsky -

Though Bukowsky (hardly Shakespeare)

Has a modicum of feeling -

You think you are divine – like Jesus Christ!

At least you have five friends.

One is coming home

To publish his own verses,

And help you publish yours.

Three of them wait tables

At Denny's in the morning.

Tina offered you a ride.

Rebecca brought you cheese.

Not overlooking Emily

Who loves to sit and talk.

And finally there's Jill -

Not finally nor least -

But finally she's tired.

New Jersey's far away.

You used her to the limit.

She praised you like a god.

All of it a phantom

You didn't quite believe.

Too old for changing horses -

And nothing you can do -

After 50 years you're learning

Poetry's not you.

9-22 -13

 

After A Year

Fool! You thought she liked you

And to read the endless bilge

About you. So why would she?
Would anyone? Would you?

She didn't like your humor,

Ignored your anecdotes,

Has close to 20 other friends

Who probably aren't bores.

She gave your verse such praise

That even Keats would doubt it -

A heaven just to read -

You never thought was true.

You listened to his father

All the way to Vegas

And back. Did you enjoy it?
Perhaps that's how she felt.

And now a little coda

(A musical allusion) -

Poets never see their own defects -

Or comics realize they are not funny.

9-22-13

The Wrong Poem

I sent her a poem I did not like,

Rhythmless, contrived.

She answered it was excellent,

Believing it was mine.

She said that it was deeper

Than I usually write,

And when I disabused her,

She insisted it was great.

A bleak misunderstanding,

Just a little note,

And that was all it took

To knock my world apart.

9-22-13

 

Untitled, Like Me

I won't die for a very long time.

This is my conclusion.

Although my verse will not improve.

Damnation and confusion!

She made it clear my poems are bad

With her egregious praise

Of something she believed was mine.

How partially to raise

A poet from an early grave,

There since he was three,

Then thrust him back into the ground,

Where he can hear the sea.

9-22-13

 

The Craigslist Poem

The barf they're calling poetry

That hasn't any talent,

Intelligence or rhythm,

Beloved of the poets,

Has imagination like a dream,

As little meaning,

Like skin that's dead and flaking

Off the bottom of a foot!

9-22-13

Pope Francis

Pope Francis

Take the congregation by its ears

And tell it things it ought at last to know!

People are the puppets of the church,

Repeating platitudes and persecuting

Those who fit some ancient prejudice.

St. Francis is a person, not a pope,

Sent by god to soothe a troubled world,

To take the emphasis off ugly things,

And tell the little judges,

Little monarchs to be still.

Will he be shot – like Kennedy and King,

Gandhi, Christ, Moscone, Harvey Milk?

Good men are not wanted in the world.

Like poetry and music, will he die?

Assiduously all the world has worked

For centuries to make a joke of justice,

To choke the good, the beautiful, the true,

And always for the god that it created.

And living hell - a human institution -

Cauldron of all ugliness and death -

Will rise – a new Jerusalem – and stand -

A monument to god's insanity!

9-20-13

Old Men

I watched an old man hobble into Denny's,

Grizzled, grey, alive – at 6 a.m.,

I didn't think of death. I thought of age.

Keats and Wilde loved beauty. Isherwood

Was 50 when he found his final love.

The earth is teeming with mortality.

And I am looking for a new beginning,

To say, “Here's where my poesy began

To have merit.” It was always good,

Interspersed with many arid tracts

Of very bad and puerile poesy.

Am I a genius? Mildly talented?

Or just a very sick and simple man

Who looks at Keats and thinks he holds a glass?
Must every line be brilliant? Every phrase

Have an edge and sparkle like a stone

By a craftsman cut? I gave up verse

In 98. He gave it back to me.

9-20-13

From Humor

Does humor come from happiness

Or from a tortured mind?

Are incessant rhymes and phrases

Genius or disease?
Nature inconsiderate

Does not discriminate.

It kills the young, the talented

Before they start to bloom.

It kills the ugly and the old,

The cruel and the kind.

All of whom in lunacy

Die looking to the sky.

Unlike Keats, my talent isn't

Images, but thoughts.

I envy him

And hate my bailiwick.

Bailiwick! What I think

Was said when life began.

9-20-13

 

A Snippet

For years in my reluctant poesy

I perceived such mediocrity,

Written in the essence of alone.

But then appears a cut and polished stone,

And I'm amazed at what my mind can do,

And disappointed that there are so few.

9-20-13

From George

I gave up verse by 1998.

It had petered out, and I was done.

I have the remnants and the residue,

And the only books that I had written.

We met in January, 99.

I was struck. And then I went insane,

As though I were a paragon of health

Prior. And again began to write.

Whether good or bad, I've written poems

Since we met, because of and about you.

If I'm ever known, and if I have

Something to be known for, it will be

Because we met in 1999.

9-20-13

 

George

Who is George? I think I have

The inkling of an answer.

A man who gives,

And only wants a friend.

A man who has a bailiwick,

An expertise – computers -

A skill he wants to sell

And be successful at his trade.

A man who has intelligence,

Thoughts and information,

And craves to see success

When his advice is undertaken.

But there is more to him than this -

Humor and perception,

Injury, resentment,

Guilt, remorse and grief,

A laugh to lift a lonely soul to heaven,

A smile to warm the icy heart of god,

And happiness – wherever he can find it.

9-20-13

 

A Bad Little Poem

I told a lie at the hour of birth.

I laughed instead of screaming.

Of fanciful lies there's a terrible dearth.

The best occur while dreaming.

A racist tells lies. But a racist's insane.

And homophobes reading a bible

Will fade with the culture. There's nothing to gain

From taboos, both provincial and tribal.

9-20-13

 

Help

Be strong, autonomous and independent!

Ask for what you need, but don't expect it.

Unless you're liked. Or know somebody kind.

If you've a gentle soul, which information

Is in your disposition and your eyes,

You'll be helped with love – by gentle people.

Even by a Christian, though you may

Be ladled every prejudice there is.

If you're loved – and there are people who

Still love for free – your problems – though not small -

Will be solved – if they're solvable.

And if they're not, I don't know what to say.

9-20-13

Poems

Purpose

To care about something regardless of death -

Poetry, music, a person -

Time will uproot it and blow it away,

Like a wind – that is gentle and mild.

In graveyards and churchyards since heaven began,

How many trees begun rotting

Or finished and gone lie on barrows completed -

The aims and the loves of the souls?

9-19-13

9/6

George moved out the 6^th -

The day that I was born.

I mean it was my birthday.

I'm happier alone.

I've never met a person

But an impediment

Living in a house with him,

Clumsy, suffocating.

An Indian named Jay

(From India itself)

Lived a floor below me.

We visited each night.

My one successful friendship,

Peaceful and platonic,

Happy in New Jersey.

He left. I went insane.

9-19-13

 

Kitty

Kitty (our tuxedo cat) -

The first cat that we bought -

You picked him out – I named him -

Some seven years ago.

Something changed his thinking.

Like me, he is afraid.

After years of living here,

He chose me for a friend.

He irritates me viciously.

I shoved him to the floor.

Tenaciously he stayed my cat.

He will not go away.

And if I pat his bottom

To get some moving room,

He turns around in circles

And lies back where he was.

Remorse and guilt are killing me.

He's crazy and unloved,

Just like me. One difference -

I WILL go away.

9-19-13

 

Hope

A solitary poet

With four cats in a house

Writes verse. Few people read it.

His destiny is doom.

Anonymous forever

From birth through life to death -

It often overcomes him,

But never quite completely.

No one has a future

Once the knell has rung.

To make an ass of death and live

A single year beyond it!

9-19-13

 

Patterns

Ever since I was a boy,

My bedroom painted black,

I've hated other people's things

In my sanctuary.

Selfish as a troglodyte

Who dwells beside the sea

In a cave and loves to listen

To the coming waves.

The sea's a repetitious thing.

All the earth's redundant.

War and death. Since life began,

Blood was always red.

9-19-13

Rebecca

Patterns

Ever since I was a boy,

My bedroom painted black,

I've hated other people's things

In my sanctuary.

Selfish as a troglodyte

Who dwells beside the sea

In a cave and loves to listen

To the coming waves.

The sea's a repetitious thing.

All the earth's redundant.

War and death. Since life began,

Blood was always red.

9-19-13

 

Youth

A Raiders fan got in his car

And turned the rock up loud -

His noises and his violence -

A very happy man!

9-19-13

The News

I know the world is horrible,

And I don't have to know

Anymore of it than that.

I'll hide my head in Keats.

Keats! Who cuts off people's heads

And waters them with tears!
Laments inexorable age,

And dies for love of snakes!

9-19-13

George

Whether time or money,

In a state of need,

Affection or assistance,

Whether word or deed,

A friend will be beside you

In space or on the phone.

If you have a friend,

You will only die alone.

9-19-13

 

George

Love and fear are separate.

They do not commingle -

Not dyes that mix and make a paint

Of another color,

Except in verse – an alchemy

Of paradox and madness,

Every phrase an oxymoron,

Oddly beautiful.

Insanity and death are the

Result of this collusion.

They cling and linger, even when

The person goes away.

9-19-13

 

Jordan & Rebecca

Little Jordan, gentle Jordan,

Gentle and sarcastic Jordan!

Years ago you're with Rebecca.

I cannot see your face.

Do I like you? Did I like you?

Was it love? Who cares?
You caused a couple pretty poems.

Is something else important?

Rebecca is a friend of mine.

Slowly she's becoming.

And I think she is your lover.

Two good things in one.

Could it happen through Rebecca

All of us became

Friends? It won't. I know it won't.

It simply cannot happen.

I'm an old and ugly man.

Embarra

Rebecca

I liked Jordan very much.

I liked to hear him talk.

I told him in a letter,

And blew my world awry.

Sarcastically he went away.

And now he lives with you.

And every day – discreet and kind,

Reserved – you talk to me.

Paradox or irony?

It's very very strange

Two ends should come together

That have so much in common.

I'm not an evil person.

Well, I am, but no one knows it

Except a lot of helpless shrinks.

And Aristotle's right.

What you do – not what you dream -

Determines how you stand with god.

And anyway, there is no god.

The sun is burning out.

I really want to ask you

Why you're being nice to me.

But I'm afraid to mention it,

Or you might go away.

9-19-13

 

Rebecca

Does she like me?

Is she lonely?

I am ugly, she is young.

My little Persian angel.

When the seraphim are hung,

She will rise above them

Like a single shining star

In the blackest night of heaven.

And I don't know who you are.

9-19-13

ssment would kill me.

And I know for writing that

I'm 27 fools.

9-19-13

Poems

George & Jill

He's my love and you're my friend,

But I was born to be alone.

What a maudlin thing to say!

But like a fish in water,

By myself I swim.

With people, I just hold my breath

And flop upon the sand.

I read somewhere and many times

There's solitude in genius.

One soul only, maybe two,

Neither of them me,

Thinks that I have talent.

I crossed Death Valley since my youth.

Verse was my oasis.

No. It was my water.

Music was the shade.

16 years out of water,

Again I am alone.

9-17-13

 

Mental Health

I never met such heartless people,

Rotten and deriding

In all my life (except my parents)

Til I went insane

In New York at 24.

Downhill all the way!

And every goddamned one of them

A therapist or patient!

I think about them every day,

Drawn like flies to shit.

But that's the past. Today is new.

Maybe I will live

Another 30 years or so.

But I won't fall in love.

A cold and arid thing to say!

That I won't fall in love.

9-17-13

Jill & Me (Rambling)

Did we meet a year ago?

Has it been that long?

Or has it been a lifetime?

Perhaps when Jesus died.

Allowed to be an Atheist

Just as you preferred,

I had god for breakfast.

I've puked him up for years.

50 years I waited -

Without anticipation -

For you – and only you – to say

My poesy is good.

It's been said before by some -

Not many – by a few -

But never with such staggering abundance.

How can I believe what I

Have never seen myself?
So goes their god and Jesus.

So goes my poesy.

Strong and agile, she writes verse

That I can tell is good.

Not my type and not my way

And not my poesy -

Modern – I am still with Keats -

But beautiful to touch.

She is better. Her you feel.

Me you only think.

Intelligence in poetry?
Perhaps if I just had it.

But still with Keats.

I need not think at all.

9-17-13

 

Moving Out

A nearly empty peanut butter jar,

Styrofoam that packed some old appliance

When it was new, and cellophane that's clamped

And holding pasta overflow the trash

And lie in piles and scatters on the floor.

Is someone moving out or moving in?
Someone has displaced himself

And life is readjusting.

Loneliness is over,

And the world has yet to die.

Bach is on the stereo again.

New pictures from the past are on the table.

The cats need litter. I'll buy that tomorrow.

The day is ending. And this house is mine

Maybe. Nothing's positive as that.

Yesterday he said he won't come back.

Probably. He's said as much before.

Now he said it in another state,

On a ward where he can talk it over.

9-17-13

 

Becoming

Breaking through the barrier

And saying what I want

And will not do -

This will put an end to fear,

Regret without emotion,

And all the little horrors

That the passive suffer through.

9-18-13

 

Patti

An aging woman misses work

Two days, maybe three,

And suddenly she has no job.

SSI is shit!

The system must continue

Without hitch, delay or stopping.

The machine is more important

Than a single living wheel.

The whole is more important than its parts.

9-18-13

 

George & Me

You brain's more competent than mine.

You get along with people

When you are alone with them

Better than I do.

All the world is happiness,

Misery and hate.

Life's a game. Some people have to work.

My poesy is changing.

My soul is changing too.

I've got to to survive. I could

Be here for 30 years.

Honest and reliable

As Lincoln in the rain,

You live for love.

So little comes to you.

Ersatz love from faithless friends!

Vultures on the lonely!

They take it all, give nothing back,

And sit in pews with god.

Come to me when you need love,

Crippled and encrusted

With blood and semen. I won't lie

Or try to take what's yours.

But what I give

May not be adequate.

9-18-13

Crazy Poems

I've stopped writing crazy

To my verse's detriment,

No oxymorons, paradox

Or complicated thinking.

Have my songs diminished,

Not provocative, profound,

If they were,

Or even interesting?

I don't know what's crazy.

I've an inkling what is right.

Knock me off my track and I
Will clamber on again.

I am mold and putty, and I

Go back into shape.

And when I die, I shall go to heaven.

What a thought!

How easily it's said.

9-18-13