"Rap Genius"

“Rap Genius”

From the ashes of Shakespeare

Comes hideous music.

Rap is genius. The Phoenix ascended

Into the heavens.

It must return!

Beautiful music is buried in sand,

And no one's composing it now.

Nobody wants to. If anyone can.

An era of darkness, philistines, death,

Republicans, violence, Christians and wars,

And hardly a dime for the sick to survive.

Yankees are funny. Their country's a joke -

A joke without laughter or life.

10-31-13

 

Bob

Sensitive and humble,

e.e. cummings, care -

The vicious way you crapped on him

And made a mockery of me,

Then toddled home to your obese

Superiority.

10-31-13

 

What A Shrink Would Say

A shrink would say I hate you

Since you caused me so much trouble.

So I suppose I do, although I don't.

Don't argue with psychologists,

Policemen, god or judges,

Or by god you'll wish the hell you hadn't!

10-31-13

 

Power

When a mother or a father or a friend

Has power over someone, it impairs.

A life becomes extinct,

And an automaton exists.

Fear, debilitation

Always follow in its wake.

No escape, no exit but a tomb -

The power is the power to destroy -

Coming from the autocrat's compassion.

10-31-13

 

After Reading The Times

I won't read the news,

Although I've said as much before.

It's there to feed the misery

Of everyone who reads it,

Shootings, wars, republicans,

The end of the humanities

In colleges – And sex and death

And rap the only

Reasons to survive.

Keats was wrong.

Beauty is passe.

10-31-13

 

The Writer

I saw a man alone

Sitting outside Denny's

On a curb, and writing.

He was as old as me.

Another aging looney

Who wants to write to god.

Verse or observations?

Intensely how he wrote!

To him it means a lot. Which to

The coroner means nothing.

Has he a love somewhere

Who wants to read it?

10-30-13

 

The Wife

Her husband owns a station.

They have money up the a--.

Each day beside her husband

As the busy hours pass

She likes to wear her jewels.

None of them is glass.

Diamonds and motor oil!

The dream of every lass.

10-30-13

God's Crew

Emotions

Those without emotions

Are usually right.

There's nothing to distract them,

And all they see is light.

But people with compassion

Are people who can feel,

From whom the hateful wicked

Can very simply steal.

10-29-13

G

Underneath his madness

There is wisdom in his brain.

Angels tell their secrets

And confide in the insane.

Little children love him.

There is warmness in his soul,

An often gentle person

Who could never find a role.

People who are normal

Try to think and only sputter,

Believing there is truth

In the palaver that they utter.

10-29-13

 

Chaos

I am crazy too.

Everybody is.

Look at what they say

And think that they believe.

In Brooklyn and in Syria

They'll shoot you with a gun.

A small quartet of Christians

In a booth discussing scripture

(Really it's a table),

And I wish that they would move.

10-29-13

Phony

The waiter's smile is broader

And the patron makes a joke.

Everybody laughs.

A little interest is feigned.

The most the patron thinks

Is that he's funny.

Then forgets it.

I go into Denny's

And believe that I am loved.

The country's full of idiots,

And I'm the biggest fool.

10-29-13

 

The Rich

No one in America is rich.

You never see them. They don't come to town.

Living on a hill, around the bottom

Is a wall, a gate that has a guard.

On the hill are houses

And some helicopter pads.

This is how they travel, come and go.

No one in America is rich.

They don't have telephones. They don't get mail.

They aren't listed at the IRS.

10-29-13

 

G

There's a mansion on the crest of Badger,

Fenced and gated, with a liveried guard.

Helicopters ferry him about,

And he never has to drive to town.

The IRS is unaware of him.

And that is where he lives. He has a lawn.

Also he has money, which he gives

To the poor. It's inexhaustible,

As are the poor. And he sleeps and dreams

When it pleases him. He builds computers,

Making new computers out of old.

Life is sweet. And six or seven cats

Make him happy when he is alone,

Which he seldom is. His friends are legion.

10-29-13

 

God's Crew

Will a gun convince me he's insane?

Did Rene go crazy finally?
Flushing sheets down toilets of the hospice

Where he worked. Or leaving her alone

And stranded with no purse in San Francisco,

And leaving with her car. Itinerant.

“Bursting people's bubbles” was his phrase

Constantly. His bubble had been burst!

In retrospect I should have been afraid.

Everybody took him on his terms.

And I was blind. And am. What does it take?

That just the incoherent are insane?

Now he's old. No longer lithe and sexy.

Living in a house, a double bed

And nothing else except a clutch of puppies

Crapping on the carpet. That was Joe.

He said he loved me, sinking in the sand.

I never think that somebody is crazy

Unless he's turning circles on the sidewalk.

I think this means that I am crazy too.

What is better? Rich men on a mountain,

Behind a gated wall, who pay no taxes?

Ordinary people who vote yes

On Proposition 8, and love their children,

One of whom grows up to be a fag?
The ghettos and the slums that barely have

Enough to eat, and vandalize and steal?
What is better? Jesus loves them all.

10-30-13

Games

Games

Let's play games. Tell me I'm a queer.

I will be enraged and cast at you

That you're a nigger. You will box my ear.

It's what phony gamey people do.

Republicans and Christians in full sail

Will shoot us with a gun, and then they'll nail

Us to a cross of splintery old wood,

And feel they're very very very good.

10-29-13

Cold

I woke up as cold as down a mine,

And in my semi-conscious head, this line:

I don't love you. We are only friends.

Considering what yesterday portends.

I have a kitten and his name is Fred.

He sleeps all night perhaps upon my bed.

This could make the coldest bastard care.

When I wake up I always find him there.

10-29-13

 

Meaning

Johnny was one of those people

Who knows what you ought to feel.

Evince any other emotion,

He'll kick a big bruise on your heel.

I am unable to sleep,

So I just lie here and sigh,

Flat on the family bed,

They're all so unwilling to die.

Far under heaven on earth's

A portentous princess who won't love,

While lost in the constellations

Are the souls of the poets who don't love.

10-29-13

 

Being Loved

Anyone can be loved.

It only takes good looks,

A charming disposition,

Or glibly savoir faire.

But to make somebody happy

Is given by the angels.

10-29-13

Walking Out Of Denny's

The moon's a little wedge of cantaloupe

Hanging in the mystery of night.

The music is beginning to affect me,

Perhaps because my circumstance is right.

I always wanted wit, from youth, not half.

Now all that I can do is make you laugh.

10-29-13

Starting With Dylan

Starting With Dylan

Listening to Dylan.

I really don't know why.

So terrified of George,

I'm less afraid to die.

I've been writing poems

Since the age of 10

Like every poetaster says,

And doing it again.

Why do I write poems?

There's nothing else to do.

57 years,

And I never wanted to.

But I'll continue writing

Perhaps until I'm dead

Because there's simply nothing

I'd rather do instead.

Although I've lost the touch

Particularly mine,

Like Richard Rodgers when

He wrote with Hammerstein.

10-28-13

 

Praise

I am not susceptible to praise.

Like a breeze on sultry summer days,

It passes and refreshes, then it's gone.

I remember it. But I go on.

Aloft in loose formation, there are birds.

I remember love, not hollow words.

But oh! If what the words bespeak were true!

I have nothing in the world to do.

Tell me that you think my verse is good.

It will be like nailing Christ to wood.

10-27-13

 

The Homophobe

I'm a man. And what I do

Is none of your concern.

But god made you a homophobe,

And nothing will uproot it.

You wince, you squirm,

You glower and

You march in anti-gay parades.

And if I'm shot like Harvey Milk,

You'll feel a little happy.

And that is nature. That is god.

But god and nature made me too.

10-26-13

 

The Poesy Machine

A poesy machine

That hasn't any heart,

But some facsimile that turns out

Constant thoughtful phrases,

And feels compassion.

Nothing's to be done.

That cares about the cat it hates

And cannot crease rejecting.

The poetaster brags upon himself!

The aging poetaster

Who has manufactured friends,

Brags about the poesy he writes.

It doesn't matter. There is nothing

Else to brag about.

But ah! The bliss

To summon up a poem!

10-26-13

 

An Incident

I kissed a photograph of Keats

And said so in a poem.

She read it and she sneered. Then said

She'd never kissed a picture.

Is there anywhere on earth

It's possible to be?

That homophobes, republicans

And Christians don't befoul?

For reasons that bewilder me

Illegal immigrants

Want to settle in America.

Go home! Get out!

Go somewhere you are loved!

In this loathsome country,

Christians even hate even each other.

Republicans are at each other's throat.

This is no place to live if you're alive.

10-26-13

The Husband

He endured it years

With miserable complaint,

Using as in infancy

A self-imposed restraint.

Frequently he felt
He was about to faint.

Oftentimes he laughed.

Rigorous life chafed.

The nectar he had quaffed

Called youth was gone.

He got into his car

And drove not very far

To a cliff, the edge

Of a rocky ledge,

And breaking from a spell,

Looking at the sky,

Drove off. And as he fell,

He hollered, “I can cry!”

10-26-13

Obsessing

Obsessing

Think it through? I can't. I never could.

A spider trapped and stuck in its own web.

I come to no conclusion. Open-ended.

Or to the same conclusion once again.

I'm walking on a treadmill. It keeps running.

Every step I take, I stay in place.

If I stopped walking, would it take me backward?

In a world of several billion people,

Everybody has his loyalties -

Country, union, god and family,

And as many fads as he can muster,

If they're modern. Here I sit in Denny's

And watch the milling carnival of drunks.

A baseball cap on backwards and a gun -

The Yankee contribution to the arts.

No one but a phony says “the arts”.

10-27-13

-

The Clergy

The Clergy

Indifferent and bored, and on his collar

A little card says “Clergy”. Then the guard

Unlocks the door, and pompous fills his face,

The love of Jesus bursting from his heart,

And knowingly he walks onto the ward

To bring the life of Jesus to the souls

Of those that Jesus doesn't bother with.

A surrogate, a substitute for Jesus,

He sits and talks and I suppose he comforts

The eager crazy. I have no idea

What he said. I just noticed smug,

And depth – just like the sh-t they're sitting in.

10-27-13

 

Her

All her friends are good for is a f-ck

And their money. Sitting in the center

Of her web, fat and like a spider,

And her daughter greets you at the door

Palm up and arm extended. Is she crazy?

Or her daughter? This is academic.

They get on. And they are getting older.

And her prey is poor and crazy too.

She phones you when you're sick and says, “Send money.”

She's hated and she knows it. Everyone

In her family is hated too.

They know it. They don't care. That issue's settled.

They are legion, scattered around town

In dirty little roach-infested houses.

In Lyndon's Great Society. What Reagan

Indifferently called “the safety net”.

10-27-13

 

A Cat

Recipient of all my rage,

Repository of my hates,

A middle aged tuxedo cat

Who wishes to be loved.

I get the urge to pet him,

Partly sympathy, part guilt,

He twists and writhes and turns!

I want to throw him out the window!

Incessantly he's sitting on my

Hand or lap or rubbing

Up against my face. I pat

His butt. Sometimes he moves.

It's so sad. Pathetic!

Can't I change what I am feeling?
He is in a quandary.

I don't know what to do.

Damn you, god! With all the kinks

You put in human nature.

They sing a god of love. And I'll just

Say they are mistaken.

10-26-13

An Incident

I kissed a photograph of Keats

And said so in a poem.

She read it and she sneered. Then said

She'd never kissed a picture.

Is there anywhere on earth

It's possible to be?

That homophobes, republicans

And Christians don't befoul?

For reasons that bewilder me

Illegal immigrants

Want to settle in America.

Go home! Get out!

Go somewhere you are loved!

In this loathsome country,

Christians even hate even each other.

Republicans are at each other's throat.

This is no place to live if you're alive.

10-26-13

 

The Husband

He endured it years

With miserable complaint,

Using as in infancy

A self-imposed restraint.

Frequently he felt
He was about to faint.

Oftentimes he laughed.

Rigorous life chafed.

The nectar he had quaffed

Called youth was gone.

He got into his car

And drove not very far

To a cliff, the edge

Of a rocky ledge,

And breaking from a spell,

Looking at the sky,

Drove off. And as he fell,

He hollered, “I can cry!”

10-26-13

Helpless

When a friend is suffering

And he comes to you,

You hold him and you kiss him,

But there's nothing you can DO!

Should you let him weep?

Should you wipe his tears?

How to exorcise the ghosts

That aggravate his fears?

It isn't written down

In books or anywhere.

Love is not sufficient,

Nor simply to be there.

10-26-11

The Bigots

The Bigots

The bigots who are fighting immigration,

Like homophobes who hide behind a Bible,

Are wrapped like Georgie Cohan in a flag,

Skipping back and forth across a stage.

If an Ecuadoran has a home

In California, what is that to you?

Does it violate your principles,

As it would if I should wed a man?

10-26-13

 

Helpless

When a friend is suffering

And he comes to you,

You hold him and you kiss him,

But there's nothing you can DO!

Should you let him weep?

Should you wipe his tears?

How to exorcise the ghosts

That aggravate his fears?

It isn't written down

In books or anywhere.

Love is not sufficient,

Nor simply to be there.

10-26-11

The Husband

He endured it years

With miserable complaint,

Using as in infancy

A self-imposed restraint.

Frequently he felt
He was about to faint.

Oftentimes he laughed.

Rigorous life chafed.

The nectar he had quaffed

Called youth was gone.

He got into his car

And drove not very far

To a cliff, the edge

Of a rocky ledge,

And breaking from a spell,

Looking at the sky,

Drove off. And as he fell,

He hollered, “I can cry!”

10-26-13

People

People

People (even sick ones)

Who babble about god -

Come with me! Let's stroll our way

Through a mental ward,

Or tour the grounds of hospitals

Built for the retarded.

And bastards who do more than babble -

Actually kill,

Or vilify the homosexual -

Hang them from a cross so they can

Do what Jesus did!

10-24-13

Culture

Culture

Culture's not a silly word,

Affected and effete.

It's as real as sex and war.

Not everybody thinks so.

And god is not for humankind,

Exclusive of the beasts.

The other animals are just

As sentient as Man.

Though there's little they can do

But love and mind their business.

10-24-13

Epigraph

Can I think these poems

Were written by a boy,

Alone and fat, unworthy,

Living in the fields

Of walnut trees and vineyards

In 1955?

Or do I overrate them?

It's midnight. And I'm tired.

10-24-13

Kill Them Again!

Kill Them Again!

Eric Berne did not know sh-t.

Bury him completely.

And Jacqui Schiff - if she'll fit

In the ground as neatly.

Like an errant idle fish

Sea-deep not to be found,

They brought me up and gutted me,

Red innards on the ground.

Though both of them are totally,

Unutterably dead,
Their thought-like words defy all facts,

And occupy my head!

10-23-13

 

Not Feeling Well

Americans are fools

Even with degrees.

If you can't communicate

They'll bring you to your knees.

Look at all the dikes

Covered with tattoos!

Imagine kissing animals

That just got out of zoos.

Christie has beliefs,

Whatever they are for.

He capitulated

Cause he plans to win the war.

My sister likes the sounds

The radio emits.

She's 64. She also likes

Her relatives in pits.

10-23-13

More Guns

More Guns

Defenders of the Constitution,

Freedom, rights, etc.,

Republicans and the NRA -

How many thousands more will die

Before you think a background check

Is good? Before your kids are shot

With guns? Before they use one?

10-22-13

Rejection

Angry

The answer's very simple. Just get angry.

But how do you get angry at the sick?
If you reject his sister, he'll get mad.

You did it. And he did. For many years.

Resentment lingered long beyond your youth,

And meeting him again was very scary.

This time it seemed impossible, not hard.

Then the door was open

And you tumbled through.

And you didn't trip. The funny thing,

Is who loved whom? And why were you rejected?

This was always how it had to be.

Pride be damned! You're free. That's all that matters.

If he reads this, he will know you're free.

And love it. He'll be sick. Or maybe not.

You're sick. You're sad. You're angry.

And it's over.

As they say, “You don't belong together.”

10-22-13

 

Irene

A liar, a dike and a thief, old bean!

This is a song of the bitch, Irene.

Her heart is dead and her spine is steel.

Run if she asks you to make a deal.

Rattlers are slimy and semen is runny.

And oh! Is she sweet when she finds you have money!

She busted his mind and his bank account too,

And without compassion she'll do it to you.

11-19-13

 

Grammar

A Yankee! And my grammar's very bad.

The Brits speak English.

Well, one time they did.

Most of them now talk American.

And editors of little magazines

Wouldn't recognize a clever rhyme

If they saw it. And they never do.

10-22-13

 

Intentions

For almost 16 years I tried

To make up for your past,

Your miserable and misbegotten past.

I failed completely. Maybe someone else

With your heart at heart could make it happen.

I tried to make you happy. And I did.

I hear the pompous educated shrinks,

Shouting in a wrath

Of ecstasy and knowledge,

“No one can make anybody happy!”

But twice I can remember

And deeply with a glow,

I made you glad.

The boom-box and the skillet.

10-22-13

 

Rejection

To reject somebody is to kill him.

I woke up free. At last you went away.

And surfacing from somewhere in my mind,

I believed to turn you out would kill you.

Is this what I believe? It's like a cloud,

A fantasy forever changing shapes.

You made it easy. And the day is gone.

It's all illusion. And the world is sane.

The world was never sane. It's all illusion.

10-22-13

The Zombies

The Zombies

There is no one I can tell

My own ideas to.

Opera and poetry are dead.

People (even old ones)

Only want the modern world.

Everything before it is a bore.

The country's been invaded

By the latest thing in art -

Zombies. And they're biting everyone.

And everyone is turning into

Zombies. Though they look

Like people,

They're Americans at heart.

10-21-13

 

Understanding

My poesy absorbs me.

Junkets died at 26.

There's more to me than Keats -

A depth without the understanding.

Millay was sugar water

In a tumbler with a spoon -

A glass upon a table

Where the conscious people sit.

I go by inspiration,

No idea what I think

Until I read it written.

Can it possibly be true?

Do the Muses understand me?

I don't understand the Muses.

I can't even tell if someone's

Totally insane.

Boundaries, perspectives,

What is likely, what is false,

What can be expected,

What should not.

It is big and I don't know,

But several thousand years ago,

They believed the earth was flat,

And dinosaurs ate men.

10-20-13

 

Tawdry Music

A lonely drunkard at a bar

Confesses all his horrors.

Normal people keep their lives

At home, behind closed doors.

Memories of tawdry music

Echo through my brain

At 6 a.m. in empty places,

And I feel insane.

10-20-13

 

Grandiose

I have written poesy.

And much of what I've kept

Is memorable, excellent.

And now it's time I slept.

But I won't sleep and I won't die

Until a hundred books

Are sitting on the planet's shelves

For anyone who looks

To read, appreciate and feel,

Considerably touched,

After which I will release

The life to which I've clutched.

10-20-13

 

A Saying

Someone said that courage isn't

Not to be afraid,

But doing what you need to do

When you ARE afraid.

10-20-13

 

Jill And The Modern Poets

If every modern poem

Were as beautiful as yours,

There would be a reason

To put poetry in stores.

Rather we have poets

Who like Merwin, think they think,

27 doctorates

And lots of printer's ink.

Poets who take pleasure in

Believing they are real,

Nomads of the gutter telling

How it feels to steal.

To bring the reading public

Absolutely to its knees,

Society needs several million
Poets just like these.

Or maybe in a pasture

Lying underneath a cow,

An excellent example of

What's called a lyric now!

10-21-13

 

Brains

A limited intelligence

As though there was a board

Behind my forehead,

Flat across my brain

Keeping me from thinking.

I can go no further forward,

Dull and senseless,

Without thought or pain,

Grey and like a cloud, and numb.

Unless I'm writing poems,

Beyond this point I'm dumb.

10-21-13

Lesbians

Sunday Morning

I left before the drunks came in

As the music started,

The raucous and the merry din,

Of the lost and broken-hearted.

Now I'm alone and pondering

In a house with cats,

Youth and time spent squandering,

Sneaky minds in hats.

He went insane. He lost his mind.

There's evil neath that brow.

Some people look and never find.

But I believe it now.

My medications do me right.

A keen-edged sense of sin.

I am old, and it is night.

He wants to do me in.

And if I didn't own this shack -

A tangled mess, a pity! -

I'd return to Hackensack,

Across from New York City.

10-20-13

Comfort

I watched a person weep for his religion,

Palms across his eyes. I stood and wondered.

I couldn't talk to him. What could I say?
Where's the soul so lost it takes a god

To bring it from the woods into salvation?

What could I say? I couldn't talk to him.

Aware of wounds but mute to say a word,

When someone hurts, I want to comfort him.

And I can't. And don't know what to say.

People cry for comfort and relief.

Help me! Heal me! Even hidden pains.

Nothing helps. A hand upon the shoulder.

But I am unaware of its effect.

10-19-13

 

The Phone Call

No one but dad and psychologists

And you believe I'm bad.

And a friendship of 15 years

Ends in psychosis and sh-t.

Cordelia and Lear. Do they reconcile?
Does the ocean prevail?
And I am going insane.

All the corners are taken.

What can I say? There's nothing to say.

All I was thinking was right and wrong.

You do not love me at all.

11-19-13

A Word To George In His Distress

Can you expect him to be there for you?

Not since his grandfather died in his youth

Has anyone, anyone been there for him.

A few people tried. They were talking to air.

Or dismissed summarily. Driven away.

A silly expression. To “be there” for you.

There's nothing inside him,

Behaviors or feelings,

To be there for anyone ever again.

But he writes poetry – really quite good -

A surrogate person, persona, a mask.

And all of it totally, utterly fake.

He's dead like a tree that is rotten inside.

And several times he has fallen.

Today he is going to try.

10-19-13

Lesbians

Shirley was my lesbian

In chocolate cords and boots,

Very witty, very nice,

But very long ago.

You also have a dike

I'd like to rip up by the roots!

Your lesbian is here to take the dough.

I wish your heart would

Seek a new direction.

My lesbian took nothing but affection.

10-19-13

 

The Last Lap

I'm going insane. Isn't risperdal good

Any more? I've been taking it 30 years.

I'm starting to cry so I guess I'm not wood.

Now ends the world in a flood of tears.

I couldn't withstand. I have never been strong.

People like flies buzz around me and whine.

Passing unseen through the feet of the throng,

I'm grasping my books. Even these are not mine.

10-19-13

The Last Lap

The Last Lap

I'm going insane. Isn't risperdal good

Any more? I've been taking it 30 years.

I'm starting to cry so I guess I'm not wood.

Now ends the world in a flood of tears.

I couldn't withstand. I have never been strong.

People like flies buzz around me and whine.

Passing unseen through the feet of the throng,

I'm grasping my books. Even these are not mine.

10-19-13

Cliches

Dr. Kelly laughed and said, “I am

The most important person in her life

Right now.” I sat and looked at her in horror.

Clearly it was not reciprocal.

At the mercy of a therapist.

Autonomy! The patient doesn't matter.

A dollar sign. A reason to wake up

At 6 o'clock to get to work on time

Until the blessed day that you retire.

The patient won't get well until he wants to.

Jesus! This profession is a bore.

11-17-13

Still

Not for what she did to other patients,

But what she said to Kathy,

Sad, confused and frightened,

And what she did primarily to me.

I never understood it.

Forty years of thinking

Always brought me to the same conclusion -

That I don't understand it.

She's never going to tell me.

She's been dead for years, her secrets with her.

Short and enigmatic,

A simply little lyric,

Not to music, only to my soul.

She had no soul, but just a brain to plot with.

“Plot”! The magic word

That means I'm paranoid

According to the magazines,

In the vernacular.

11-18-13

 

My Decrees

If I ruled the world

There'd be a lot of changes made.

Mandatory background checks

Despite the NRA,

Despite Republicans and what

They think or feel or like.

Aid to the disabled

And the sick would be enough

That they could live

And know they were alive.

To be a cop, be nice to people

(Meaner than the villains).

To be a shrink, be nice to people.

Care a little more

About the patient than about

What you were taught in college

(Whatever that was)

And about your check.

If you're a bigot,

Fear retaliation.

11-18-13

16 Years

Talking about killing, I said,

“You will not kill me?”
In a simple feeling voice

He said, “I wouldn't do that.”

I asked him, “Do you love me?” He

Said, “No. Mechanical

Men don't love.” And then I asked

Him, “Do you like me then?”

He said to me,

“You ask too many questions.”

But that he cares about me is

Beyond an argument.

11-18-13

 

Lines

Without jokes I know that I would die.

Poems kept me going 50 years.

I very seldom look up at the sky,

But pay my rent on memory in tears.

If you went away the sun would dim,

The stars would fade, the sea invade my house.

There is an enchantment being him.

Puss has made companions with the mouse.

Now we're equal. Did I make you mad?

I do not want to hear about the others.

Hapless souls accused of being bad.

Several times he's said that we are brothers.

11-18-13

A Plea

Who can I talk to?

A preacher of course,

And Jesus and god and Mary.

Not hardly I think.

We got a divorce.

Added to which I'm a fairy.

Call a psychologist,

Give him my dough,

And talk 50 minutes. That's all.

Then walk out his door

With a therapized glow,

And collapse in a heap in his hall.

Although on my meds

I am crazy as hell,

A status that's hard to reverse.

But if I stop taking them

How can I tell

I won't be eleven time worse?

10-18-13

 

The Book

A book of poems that I wrote

Have all been published prior.

It occurred to me to put

That in the title. So

The customers perhaps will think

If someone liked these poems

Enough to publish them before,

Perhaps I'll have a look.

And I believe these certain songs

Remain among the best

I've ever written anywhere,

And read will sell the book.

Next week sometime they go on sale.

A pipe dream and a folly?

There's nothing now but to await

The promise of tomorrow.

10-18-13

Some Good Men

Some Good Men

Ate, grief and self-destruction!

When a good man goes astray

And provokes the wanton villains

Just with words, a mix of races.

There is evil on this planet!

Back of bushes, under rocks,

In the night or plainly blatant

In the sunlight. Everywhere.

Do all the good men sit in churches

Praying for the death of fags?
Some good men write verse and study.

Some good men are lying dead.

God will touch the good men once,

While evil roams, and unrestrained,

Unchecked releases all its passions,

Goes into a cave and sleeps.

11-17-13

 

Human

Learning to be human. Not a clod

Of muddy fingers reaching for a god,

The opposite of what my parents made.

They are dead. Forever in the shade.

Caring. But not folly. Prodigal.

Bursting like a stallion from a stall.

Too eager and too happy, but too sad.

Arrested, beaten – both because I'm mad.

Alive because I am. But born to die.

Strong enough to live, but being shy

And frightened, taking nothing but a clock,

I make my burrow underneath a rock.

Living with great men in paradise,

Poets and composers, living twice,

Equally uncertain, splendid, brave,

Writing like a dead man from the grave.

11-17-13

 

A Didactic Poem

I hate didactic poems. This is one,

Ignorant and pompous and sententious.

Lost to his own conscience, can he love?
Everybody punishes himself,

Except the man so dead he neither feels

Guilt, remorse nor pity. Every man

Knows himself, and sees as in a glass

His nature by projection of his soul.

11-17-13