Poems

A Picture


Moments of cruelty pass through my soul
When in the darkness I see like a mole.
The only good person who made it a goal
To be a good person, generous, kind -
Until comes a rupture, a break in his mind.
Just like the girl who was sweet as you'd find,
And when she was bad she was horrid,
Vociferous, cruel and torrid,
Reflective, circuitous, florid.
I love him.  I've never known anyone more.
And yet I don't know him.  Two people make four.
I'm changing the lock and I'm bolting the door.


9-7-13


Abandoned


Abandoned by the ones you loved the most
Who gave you nothing.  Nothing in exchange.
And me.  I gave you love the best I could,
Bested for my inability.
In your quest – advocacy of needs -
Understanding takes the place of sh-t.


9-7-13

Situations


The loved unloving.  Those who simply love
May perhaps sit wishing under stars.
A single world and infinite perceptions.
Janus lives inside a single soul.
Not ambivalence.  No!  Two minds.
Two wholly contradicting attitudes
Derived from antithetic situations.


9-7-13

Sick


The madness in the words that people say
Thought and understanding can't dispel.
And neglect, despair and unrequited
Love and need – and parenting that's hell.


I couldn't take it.  This is not a prison.
And you.  A little money and alone.
Someone again will love you.  I will not
Love again.  Too often mounted, thrown.


And when you weep or cuss or thrill with rage
On being told it's actually the end,
I'll say go.  I'm weary.  Will I do it?
I've seen too much to stand there and pretend.


But I was crazy once.  It didn't matter.
No one cared.  “Just get him out of here.”
I tried to love you, and be halfway normal.
I failed, and then I watched you disappear.


9-7-13

A Tinker's Damn


An old man sitting in a coffee shop
By himself – and very often gets
His coffee gratis.  All the servers know him.
He writes poems.  Always writing poems,
And has since he was nearly 17.
Such relief!  The pressure in his head
Relieved.  The world – forever just as bad -
Diminishes a moment.  Fresh and cool.
Are the poems worth a tinker's damn?
“A tinker's damn.”  The expression makes him cry.
His mother used it summing up her son.
Perhaps that's not the reason he feels sad.
Just a thought – and all associations.
Are poems more than mere associations?
Not magic from the cauldron of the soul,
Yet to be explained or understood?
An old man sitting in a coffee shop
Writing verses – desultory verses -
Without direction – all without command.


9-7-13

Alone


I was born a lonely man
Brought up by the sea.
I gazed into the water,
And saw everything but me.


Inexorably time progressed,
More thought than fantasy,
And delivered me into
The arms of poetry.


Which I wrote obsessively,
An acolyte, his fane,
Until in 1998
The urge began to wane.


The sea receded from the sand.
The lighthouse crumbled, fell.
Then I met an angel,
A demon.  And the spell


Renewed itself.  I've written
Poesy upon
My whole imagination.
And now I wish him gone.


9-7-13

Depending on people


Depending on people,
Relying on people,
Unless it's your way,
Is the way to insanity.
Praying to Jesus,
A mythical chimera,
Takes you to madness.
You've got to come back.
When you believe
That a deity's talking
In lieu of a human
Especially to you,
The core of your mind
Starts to crumble with termites,
And aphids and maggots.
The screwing of friends!
That is the story,
The way of all closeness.
The meaning of strangers
Begins where it ends.


9-9-13

The Other Side


He wanted love.  Who doesn't?
At least someone to talk to.
He gave me shit for tenderness -
The best that I could manage -
And when he was psychotic
I didn't do enough.
He took the car, abandoned
The friends who had betrayed him.
Too loving and too lonely -
Too needy – say exactly
The need that he was missing -
Fidelity and cash.


The government is rancid.
Rand's plutocracy,
Immigrants and homophobes,
Gods and gun control -
Sap its funds and interest.
The sick can just go begging.


I thought that I had killed him,
Failed him in a crisis.
But every month a crisis,
And I was always there.
I'm stupid, but not blind.
I know that I was there.


He took the car and left.
By now he's out of gas.
I know he's out of money.
Lost, alone, insane.
Or just around the corner,
Which the hospital denies.


9-8-13

An Angry Didactic


The sick and disabled,
The mentally ill
Must be conserved
And given enough
Money – yes! Money!
The Christians adore it! -
To live and be happy
As much as they can.
God or their mommies
Made them insane
And left them with nothing.
Man or society!
What are they for?
Building more weapons
And going to war?
Do something good,
You despicable frauds!
Your Jesus!  Your god!
Give them something to love!


9-8-13