Cops

Identicals

The loneliest man in the universe

Stands on Olympus and wishes them well,

Sees that the earth is a tenant of hell,

Chipping its rent from the shards of a shell,

Found on the beach in the wake of a swell.

The loneliest man in the universe

Bathes in the water splashed up from a well,

Drawn from the bottommost oceans of hell.

Life is a carney, a pea and a shell.

Bodies that perish in rivers swell.

10-1-13

My View

Anything but physical,

Fisticuffs, a kick,

Is painless and is easily

Forgotten very quick,

Unless you will remember it.

For what? An effigy

To hang among your trophies

Or inform your poesy?

To remember is pretending.

To forget is like stream

That passes over pebbles

And's forgotten like a dream.

I will never leave you.

It could not happen now.

We're changing. This the laurel

Hanging on a Muse's brow.

10-2-13

 

Cops

The terror of policemen -

Hoppy told me they're my friends

When I was 6 or 7,

Which is where the rainbows ends.

They'll hit you and they'll beat you

If you glance at them or look

In ways they disapprove of.

But by the Book. Oh, by the Book.

They congregate in Denny's

Ever morning about 3,

And everybody fawns and loves

And cuddles them but me.

I think there's something Freudian,

A little sick in this.

The coppers bask serenely

In the transference, the kiss.

All the little sycophants

Craving a rebirth

Cozy up to cops. It's just like

Meeting god on earth.

10-2-13

 

Metaphor Completed

This morning I woke happy

And groggy, felt my way

To Denny's for some coffee,

But I don't believe I'll stay.

Two poems came out quickly,

And I like them, which is rare.

Age is overcoming me,

But still there's something there.

My verses lack the quickness

Of the young, the sudden edge.

But listen to me, Burmeister,

I'm standing on the ledge.

Burmeister! Who said when in my

Youth I wrote a sonnet,

I'm hanging from a ledge and hope to

Hoist myself upon it.

2-10-13