Poems

Fate Destroys


Fate destroys the decent and the good
As thoroughly as any man of war.
The vicious and the selfish and the evil
Endure forever.  And they call this love.
The final brick, reduce the gods to one,
Monotheism, then to call it love.
If I could cry, the sea would overflow
The shore, the chosen planet inundated
With salty tears, with brine, both for my soul
And for the hearts and minds of those I love.
The heart is real.  The mind is chemical,
And evaporates.  The endless grave,
A mercy and a blessing to some minds.
Don't let suicide destroy the man.
Find a way.  Look how easily
The Prince of Greece was blown into decay,
The Parthenon.  Destruction we can do.


9-6-13



A Very Small Achievement


Yesterday he told me that my aim
Was to kill god.  This was not my intention,
But to escape the horror of his love,
The love releasing hell upon the hopeless.
Rich men have a reason to love god.
Poor men love him just as much and seem
To feel contented in their poverty,
Compensating money with their love.
The persona!  Image!  Underneath
Is there any other person there?
What are my intentions?  To write verse.
Conflicting motives contradict my mind.
Some thoughts I think my soul would never think.
My head, a bowl of water.  In it fish,
Multi-colored ever swimming fish,
Cohabitate, but don't belong together.
A metaphor!  Doctor Kelly, Freud!
I can hear her saying even now
And once again, sneering with contempt,
“How poetical!”  I wrote a poem.
Let me see a patient that she healed.
A poem is a very small achievement.
But one that even she cannot bring off.


9-6-13

Happiness


Like a dog contented
In a graveyard full of bones,
A little girl upon the sand
With many colored stones,


A lazy sleeper looking
At myriads of stars,
Or prostitutes upon the dock
Welcoming the tars -


So I sit in Denny's
Imagining my books,
Surrounded by their titles,
Like the stash of crooks.


9-6-13