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