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