Rhymes

Rhymes

Everyone who writes in rhyme

Has to have a paradigm,

Whether it is a-b-a-b

(Consequently maybe baby),

Or whether it more loosely lies,

For instance in "The Bridge of Sighs",

Or the pattern of the sonnet

(Which I cannot write dog gone it!).

Sometimes rhymes are repetitious

And occasionally vicious -

Oh, there's nothing so invigorating as a little rape

By a motorcycle gang from which you can't escape

With six or seven passersby to stand around and gape.

Oh, there's nothing so invigorating as a little rape.

Or it can be clever, smart

Like the rhymes of Larry Hart -

I'll get brown and sunned un-

Less this town is London.

Though in my flat I boil tea

And entertain like royalty,

My life is just a riddle.

Don't play upon your fiddle.

I won't hear its squeak,

My spirit's weak.

And though he did the Latin Quarter,

Something can be said for Porter -

In the apse

A couple of chaps

Will sing us a rhapsody,

Perhaps they'll get a fee.

You're the fruit

That is in my yogurt.

You're the suit

On a Humphrey Bogurt.

Rhymes were once the talk o' fellers

Like the thrifty Rockefellers.

I do not like the present age.

Stupid poets think they're sage.

And now at last it seems betimes

The world will be fini with rhymes.

Ephemeral Clockwork

Ephemeral Clockwork

Like a machine, Thanksgiving ends,

Black Friday starts, then Christmas,

Beaten by carols in malls and stores,

Badgered by Santas with

Buckets and bells.

Four weeks and this will all be gone,

And the pines be brown.

Another segment of what we're taught.

But poets are born, not made.

11-29-13

 

Predators

The clerks at Pay Day Loans

Are sweet as Christmas candy.

And the customers like children

Smile and tell their stories.

“You owe three hundred, dear.”

“But, oh! Won't you take six?”

“Well, since you asked politely.

Have a happy day.

I'll see you in a month.”

11-29-13

 

Forums

A highly populated thread

Where people post what they indite,

Not a trace of talent

Or humility in sight,

But lots of revelations,

Who they are, and how they write.

11-29-13

 

A Fool And His Crap

A thing that I can't do -

All poetasters do it -

Is like my poesy,

Whether it is good.

Carefully though quickly

I've written it for years.

Nature could at least

Have let me like the stuff.

Yet just beneath the surface

Of my barely conscious mind

Lurks a loving feeling,

Though not that it is good.

Fools that any fool

Can see write total crap

Believe that they are gifted.

I'm no worse than they.

11-29-13

 

Fate

Once a gentle person,

Then ripped off too often,

Murdered by his parents,

Languishes in jail.

The law is unforgiving,

Oblivious to reasons.

Psychologists know nothing,

And care a little less.

11-29-13

The Anglophile

Too many sh-t-filled moments with England -

I'm not an Anglophile

Anymore – though Coward and Keats

And Oscar Wilde remain

Heroes forever – the British chill

And snobbery are legend.

And what's the source of their snobbery?

They murder all their poets.

11-29-13

 

Not An Evolution

Donizetti at the Tower -

Verdi's Inquisition -

Puccini and the battlement -

Offenbach was strange -

Opera has changed -

Stories without music -

Killing nuns and Nixon -

Sills and Baby Doe -

And anyone who likes the new

Is different from me -

11-29-13

 

The Mother

The eternal victim

Always justified

In each and any horror

Or atrocity,

She never felt remorse

And regretted nothing,

Except that she had children

Who persecuted her,

And all of whom she totally destroyed.

11-29-13

Not An Evolution

Not An Evolution

Donizetti at the Tower -

Verdi's Inquisition -

Puccini and the battlement -

Offenbach was strange -

Opera has changed -

Stories without music -

Killing nuns and Nixon -

Sills and Baby Doe -

And anyone who likes the new

Is different from me -

11-29-13

 

The Mother

The eternal victim

Always justified

In each and any horror

Or atrocity,

She never felt remorse

And regretted nothing,

Except that she had children

Who persecuted her,

And all of whom she totally destroyed.

11-29-13

Musing

If I were in hell

I couldn't live there if I knew it.

If there were a heaven

I would relish and eschew it.

Following the circle of the sun -

A single planet -

Some wondering, some certain,

Some not caring what began it.

Dreaming in a sleep that's un-

Precarious at night,

In the morning waking – for a

Second, all is right.

11-28-13

 

Macho

Stein said, “Pussy,

Don't do me this way.”

She wept and cried, “Be kind.”

And Hemingway standing

Outside their house,

Heard them, disgusted, and fled.

11-28-13

If you like my poems, my name is Joseph Hart.  I have books on both Amazon and Kindle, most Kindle books are $1, all but one paper book is $10 or less.  One (very thick) is $12.50.  The books I like are "Endymion Awake", "Keats and the Sea", "On Sleep, &c", "Poems Published in Audience Magazine" and "Ten Chaps". These poems are all very mild and unlike what I write now, their only point is to be pleasant.  Most of the other books (not all) are cynical and abrasive.  To see all the books on Amazon, go to Joseph Hart Poetry.

'Tis The Season Again

'Tis The Season Again

I'll be home for Christmas

With an M-16.

Barfing by the Christmas tree

That makes the season green.

One a.m. in Denny's.

Denny's is no slacker.

Christmas songs this morning make

Black Friday even blacker.

Everybody's wishing

Merry wishes to each other.

Mommie's in the neighbor's bed,

And daddy's with his mother.

I just read that England

Uses meter, rhythm, rhyme.

There's hope. If she'll spare Turing,

Keats and Wilde this time.

11-28-13

 

The Poets

Poesy I'll say,

But never poet.

Every man's a poet in his soul.

And all the bards

Like flowers in a garden

Lie underneath their barrows

In the rain.

11-28-13

 

Three Limericks

There once was a fellow named Jack

Who gave it a wonderful whack

Which wasn't as odd

As the length of his rod

Which allowed him to whack from the whack.

A feisty old fellow with cheek

And joints so archaic they creak

Kept getting crushes

On girls with small tushes

And sneaking about for a peek.

Exceeding my place and my station,

I leap to my feet in elation.

This limerick's dirt,

But I'll give you my shirt

If it isn't my greatest creation!

 

“I Love You”

When his outrageous parents

Were not down and praying,

They beat him with a belt

And used their tongues for flaying.

Until when he was grown,

Middle aged to greying,

He could not say, “I love you” -

The only words worth saying.

11-27-13

A Thanksfgiving Day Hymn

A Thanksgiving Day Hymn

Tomorrow Thanksgiving is here,

The day we hold most dear

Except the day our savior was born,

Later in the year.

Pity the grim ascetic

And lonely paripatetic

Without a mother to stuff with bread,

Good is an emetic.

No one will be sad,

Not mom or sis or dad.

We left a can of squash to feed

The poor, so they'll be glad.

11-27-13

Queers

The obstetrician took

A look into her cunt,

Saw two embryos

And hollered, “What a stunt!”

A dual pregnancy,

And both of them were male.

But then the obstetrician's

Face began to pale.

These two inchoate persons

Without a feature missing

Each possessed a penis,

And it seemed that they were kissing.

Clearly they were fagots,

Which all good men condemn.

He grabbed a pair of forceps

And aborted them.

It made his other patients

Who heard the news rejoice.

These evil little embryos

Were Nancy Boys by choice.

4-21-12

 

Homosexuals

I don't like homosexuals,

And I'm a faggot too.

They're waspish, cold and lethal

If you're clumsy. But a few

Are gentle little creatures

Who will curl up in your arms,

Not all of them naïve like me,

Like refugees from farms.

And lesbians are practically

A study in tattoos,

Purple hair and macho,

Like a carnival of cooze.

11-27-13

Cats & Talent

My poems do not sparkle with delight.

They grumble like an ogre in the night.

Where is Keats who showed me how to write?

I wrote before we met. And even now

Poesy is not instructed how.

Sad eyed Saturn, laurel on his brow.

Nurtured like a kitten by its mother,

Every cat has instincts and no other,

Each varying in nuance from its brother.

However I have not examined cats.

I've seen them tumble, cuddle and relax,

All their worlds suburban two room flats.

Simple, bland they stay upon their tracks.

11-27-13

 

Waking Up

I always awake optimistic

Except when I wake up insane.

I think I'm getting well

In the center of the war,

Though the enemy's not retreating.

“Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen

Makes me fall in love

Until the music's over

With Charlie whom I hated,

Insidious, unkind.

Sea shells, sand and snakes

Where water laps them daily

In a regular routine.

11-27-13

Instinct

Instinct


It's long been assumed
That children are born
Without instincts, requiring a parent
To love them and bully and beat them
Into a virtuous life.
Kittens are weaned from their mothers.
Like chickens they flee from the hawk
Just out of the egg.
But people – the glory of god -
Are nurtured to do as they're told.
And if the parents are zealous and eager,
Their children are hammered like copper.


11-25-13

At Denny's With George


People's motivation – this is deep,
Thoughts and riddles while they are asleep,
The universe, the ocean and the sky.
Does anything occur when people die?
But when I write at Denny's – am I there?
I'm not deep – except an urge to care.
Cattle standing stiffly in a field -
People who hear “no” but do not yield -
The music from poor Junkets and his pen -
Never aim to emulate again -
Writing poesy, but what to say?
Miracles a million miles away -


11-25-13

Emily


Strong and happy.  Is she happy?
Well, she makes me so.
But concentrating busily
With a job to do.
A Lady Atlas with the planet
Balanced on her shoulders,
But carried like a dancer
On a stage in front of none.
She laughs and smiles.  No.  Giggles.
And as open as the sea,
With gentle lazy waves that lap
The beach a hundred miles.
Like a dream she walks in sleep.
She reads my poesy.


9-26-13

Endgame

The Thread

They like my opinions,

Revile my opinions.

But they're indifferent to my songs.

The subject – didactic -

We've had it as morals,

Mere explanations,

Any instruction.

It even was said

If you read him correctly

Shakespeare's didactic.

The other shoe dropped.

Now on the floor is that

Everything written

Is really didactic.

And that would include

An anti-didactic didactic.

11-24-13

 

Tired

Jeffers has a craggy kind of beauty,

Sans the magic of a melody.

Little mouths will open at a rustle

In a pocket made of threads and twigs.

I am very tired. Am I dying?
Poesy is oozing out of me

In moments of recrudescence remembered.

Is it sickness? No one wants to read it.

When rocky mountains fall into the sea

And splash a torrent skyward, just the thought

Of death that spurred a billion new religions

Will cause the world to stagger through its problems.

11-24-13

The Healing Bus

The healing bus was driving down the mountain.

A man without a name was driving up.

The hapless man was crowded off the road

And ended in a ditch. The man got out

And hollered at the driver of the bus.

While he was asleep that night some thugs,

Members of the hospice, woke him up

And beat him nearly dead. The healing bus.

From a hospice hidden in the mountains.

Touted as the medicine for men.

Across the country, known and recommended.

That is where I started going mad.

The hospice is no longer there because

The man who built it, garnering some fame,

Died in prison for attempted murder.

11-24-13

 

Genius Paradox

Does a genius think he is a genius

When a clever notion comes to him?
Like the poetaster whose delusion

Tells him that his verses come from god?
Is talent self-effacing? Must it be?

Does self-congratulation nix the talent?

Everyone who sings is called an artist
Whether he can sing a note at all.

And every poetaster thinks he's brilliant.

A paradox! Can genius love itself

And still remain a genius? Heifetz did.

11-24-13

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving day will soon be here,

And as in days of yore,

Christians will find lots of things

To be thankful for.

Perhaps they'll find a fagot

In a swamp all mutilated.

Truly an occasion to be

Praised and celebrated.

The man who shot the woman

In Detroit – as well befitted

Such a fiend – by 12 good men

And true will be acquitted.

Illegal immigrants who now

Reside on Yankee soil

Will be driven to the beaches,

Shot and left to spoil.

The NRA has won its case.

A few more thousand dead

In another month or two.

Praise god. And go to bed.

And this is just what men have done.

Their god has done the same

To the 27^th power.

Amen. In Jesus' name.

11-16-13

 

Endgame

I think my verse is brilliant,

But I know that it is lame.

Be famous for an hour

And forgotten is the game.

Bursting through the brambles

Is the echo of my name.

I do not have the music

Little Keats is touted for.

I haven't got the depth

That men whose shirts are stuffed adore.

I'm looking at the sea

But sitting silent on the shore.

11-25-13

Rilke

Visalia

I met a man with talent beyond measure

Relaxing in a coffee shop in peace

Drawing perfect pictures at his leisure

With a pencil, beauty in release.

Where is he now? His name should be on banners.

This was more then 30 years ago.

Gone, and all his self-effacing manners.

A drifting talent lost. Or fame comes slow.

11-24-13

Rilke

I can't die. The cats aren't dead.

My poesy's not famous.

Rilke's deep so it's been said.

I'm an ignoramus.

Millay and Keats are all I've read,

And Larry Hart and Poe

And Rupert Brooke. Great minds instead

Read poets I don't know.

Bukowski, Rilke, Stevens and

Merwin, Larkin, Jeffers

Like golden bulls sublimely stand

And tantalize the heifers.

In the fields of art I graze

With poetry that's pretty,

An image or a turn of phrase

Is all that makes a ditty.

Nothing deep, profound and such

So I can't comprehend it.

Poetry my heart can touch,

And senses recommend it.

11-23-13

Autonomy

Man is strong and so's his bitch,

Independent from their youth.

Darwin never burned a witch.

A Christian never told the truth.

When you're old, you are not fair.

Beat a mongrel mad, it

Doesn't need a mother's care.

Some people never had it.

Nothing on this earth makes sense.

The universe is poetry.

Some people at the world's expense

Live in total liberty.

11-23-13

 

Janus

Scrap the crap and try again,

Computer, pencil, pad and pen.

There is no music in my verse,

Nor a river in the glen.

Fierce and feisty, taking aim

At the horrors and the shame

On the planet, always there,

A boring and redundant game.

Bred on Keats, when I was young

With gentle wishes songs were sung

Til I matriculated to

Cold cadavers who'd been hung.

Something empty, sweet and whole,

No heavier than half a soul,

Pretty poems, beauty. I

Could never play the poet's role.

To be cynical I'm loth.

Carving beauty. I'm a sloth.

If I survive a hundred years,

Perhaps I shall have written both.

11-22-13

 

Jokes

Humor! And I breathe again,

Consider there will be tomorrow,

Angry friends will smile at me.

Release the ballast! Let my heart

Rise above the sea.

Love returns. And happiness.

And optimism too.

11-19-13

 

Keats

Insanity! Don't think and be detached!

Make poetry as meaningless as music.

What Shostakovitch said should tell the truth -

A selfish tale about the poet's life.

And what I think must catch up with my rhymes.

And yet there is a wealth inside my soul.

Where for god's sake is imagination?

Am I dead? Is there some connection?
But I see consistency of style,

A length of thread that isn't broken yet.

11-24-13

Black Friday

Black Friday

At 1 a.m. on Friday

Macy's will open its door.

And through the shoot the cattle

Will trample to the floor

Everyone not quick.

Insane and sick.

Women from their nurseries,

Farmers from the plows

Will come to save a dollar-fifty.

Why demean the cows?
This is a tradition.

America you know

Was founded on tradition.

The Bible tells me so.

11-23-13

Answer To An Open-Minded Reader

Answer To An Open-Minded Reader

I have been insane.

Many things are worse.

Although it had more pain

Than afterward a hearse.

The poets that I sing

Mean nothing but a star,

A shallow shining thing.

Stars are what they are.

Though my skin is deep,

There's nothing in my soul,

No similes to reap

Diamonds from coal.

And if a poet blows

Of patriotic gods,

I hang him so the crows

Won't eat the budding pods.

A spirit in me lives

My father couldn't tame.

I won't read my countrymen,

And they will do the same.

11-22-13

Sweet

Something sweet or sweetly said

That warms your body while it's read,

Leaves a glow when it is done -

The epitome of fun.

I can write the sweetly said

And make a Christian of the dead,

But I meet in gross defeat

The epitome of sweet.

Always bested in a fight,

I never wanted to be right.

Wooed by Keats when he was dead.

Something sweet or sweetly said.

11-22-13

 

Revenge

He didn't hate the blacks.

He grew up to be gay.

He thought that all the immigrants

Should be allowed to stay.

He said the most unpleasant things

About the NRA.

It made him feel disgusted

Just to see a Christian pray.

He planned to leave America

In April, March or May.

He died an awful death,

And that made everybody say,

“Virtue has been vindicated.

Jesus has his way.”

11-22-13

Milk

A miserable lunatic

Supported by his ilk

Killed a human being

By the name of Harvey Milk.

Milk was homosexual.

While fagots shook their fists,

The homophobic city

Only slapped the killer's wrists.

Thanksgiving will be here.

The ranches run with gore.

And Milk a memory that Yankees

Can be thankful for.

11-22-13

Threads

The covers on my books

Are beautiful to see.

Pity that's not true

Of the poetry.

Poetry! The threads

That flourish with delight

Where people without talent

Publish what they write

And carry on at length,

Believing that they think.

And so, so goes the world,

And a sea of ink.

Like water, blood and wine

Do these opinions flow,

And not a soul among them

Says, “I do not know.”

11-22-13

Unpopular Opinions

Unpopular Opinions

A belief that you would kill for

Is really unphlegmatic.

The untalented sell poems

Which is very democratic.

People get quite angry

When you contradict their gods.

Some hurry to the hardware store

And buy a couple rods.

People without brains

Write endless posts on every thread,

Tossing praise and censure

Over other posts they've read.

Those without the slightest knack

For writing poetry

Post and praise each other

In a shallow ecstasy.

It really doesn't matter

Whether anything's in rhyme.

It is a pleasant way to bask

In print and pass the time.

Then someone who is naughty

Posts some thoughts, and all the chaps

Who felt their thread was sacred

Leave. It of a sudden snaps.

11-21-13

 

Matisse

Henri he ran the gamut

From genius prodigy

Through mediocre modern

To completely enervated.

And now he's a colossal name in art.

I don't see it.

Who am I to say?

11-21-13

 

Fairness

The lowest poetaster

Who ever held a pen

Dotes on every syllable he wrote.

I scrap and I surrender

But then begin again,

And hate my poems always.

I'm a goat.

As blowhards about Jesus

Dominate the noisy air,

Murder homosexuals,

And no one seems to care.

Vanity and justice

Are the least of all that's fair.

11-21-13

A Blind Spot

I just woke up. I'm numb. I think

I just saw through my blind spot.

On a hidden level

I don't co-operate.

No, that's just a sleepy lie.

Everyone has bones.

11-20-13

 

Songs In Denny's

Do these hateful women

Pinch their noses when they sing?
I endure this music

Like a cat enduring sex.

The lyrics come from Scrabble,

Like a lot of random words.

The music isn't music

Known to any age of Man.

I sit in hell in Denny's,

Just the waiters, god and me.

11-21-13

Logic & The NRA

The Constitution guarantees

The right to own a gun

To every single citizen.

Unqualified. A right.

So to do a background check

Eliminating millions

Is unamerican and goes

Against the Constitution.

Could this be what the bastard thinks

Who stands and pulls the trigger?

11-20-13

"Feed Me Diamonds"

Matisse

Henri he ran the gamut

From genius prodigy

Through mediocre modern

To completely enervated.

And now he's a colossal name in art.

I don't see it.

Who am I to say?

11-21-13

“Feed Me Diamonds”

“What's the good in being good”

When being bad brings money,

And god forgives you anything?

That's how the game is played.

11-21-13

 

Integrity

The law does not exempt the sick

Nor succor the disabled.

The land of god has doctors who

Get rich. And can be purchased.

Vent your soul in poesy.

Integrity is rare.

Sick or well, the bully wins,

Whether is right.

Heaven is for everyone

And no one goes to hell.

Everyone is good. And earth's

The final destination.

11-17-13

On A Picture

I gaze at a picture

And wish for a chart

To guide me to cities of yore -

I am a Gothic

Romantic at heart,

Remembering what went before.

11-20-13

 

Ugly

Beauty is passe.

Ugliness is in.

Simply just to say

“Beauty” is a sin

The common man avoids.

It isn't how he lives.

Crooks and paranoids

Jesus Christ forgives,

But nothing as archaic

As beauty, or as stale.

The brutal and prosaic

Will probably prevail.

11-20-13

With The Shrink

With The Shrink

He looked at me and said, “Now Joe,

What's wrong?” I said, “How well I know

No matter what I say, what word,

You'll sneer and mock me. I'm absurd.

I'm the sea. You're not the shore.

I've met psychiatrists before.”

He answered, “Do you think you're mad?”

I said, “I think my soul's been had.

In these dirty, concrete halls,

One man sleeps. Another falls.”

11-20-13

 

Feeling

Between the interstices of

Affection and despair,

Whether there's emotion or

The feeling isn't there -

Like drifting down a river that is

Pouring in the sea -

So went Keats in wordiness and

Grandiosity.

I'm throwing out the ballast and I'm

Floating through the sky.

There is no god in silence. There is

Naught to do but die.

11-19-13

 

Books Of Poems

Quiet muffled poems, cotton things,

They are not sharp as ice like Rupert Brooke,

A single muted violin with strings,

Collected in a plain and simple book.

60, 55, or 61 -

So many books! My mind has been preserved

Until the planet falls into the sun,

Time so long the poet is unnerved.

11-19-13

Doubt

Doubt! The tears I saw,

His eyes got red,

Threatened by the bullies he'd provoked,

Ugly men, a gang.

He was alone.

Doubt! And indecision.

To go back

And take another action

Or go on.

“They aren't like us.”
The human race,

A mix -

All of them alive,

On feet with eyes and hands,

And many gods.

To be a man

Who's stymied by a mob.

11-19-13

 

Boredom

No feeling but a passive agitation -

Nothing in your head except your brain -

A wooden effigy without sensation

Like sleeping without feeling in the rain -

No wish to leave without an urge to stay -

You pace the floor a minute, then sit down -

No one hears, and not a thing to say -

Ambivalence – the only game in town -

Not a thought to recognize another -

Not a thing to write a poem about -

A candle without air begins to smother -

What is verse? You never did find out -

11-19-13

On The Loss Of Beauty

Not Alone

There's someone sleeping in the house,

So I'm not alone.

And I am free to pace the floors

Around the cats and think.

He put music on. It's playing.

I see shadows on the walls

In the twilight. They are sad,

But not lugubrious.

A quiet and contented grief,

Til I remember why I'm sad.

This is empty. This is hollow.

I am only not alone.

11-17-13

 

The Myth

They have god and vanity,

And I a myth of poetry.

In Denny's with a pad and pen,

To satisfy an ancient yen,

I sit and write throughout the night,

And know I won't be young again.

I am sad. But life is good.

Termites in a brain of wood.

For all that's said – a great amount -

Phrases are the things that count.

Quatrains and couplets by the sea!

No one can write poetry.

It is the aim of lesser men

Who know they will not live again.

This mythic art does not exist!

An ocean covered by a mist.

11-18-13

Tomorrow

Not only doesn't everybody have

A talent, everybody thinks he has.

The heart deceives.

A black man crucified.

And beauty is a fiction of the soul.

Tomorrow comes eternally. Tomorrow.

There'll always be a sun. Somewhere a star

Will light a world. Tomorrow always comes

Though life to see and welcome it is gone.

Not only what he says but how he says it.

They seldom have a what, nor have a how.

Heifetz – like a god – has ceased to be.

11-18-13

 

Integrity

The law does not exempt the sick

Nor succor the disabled.

The land of god has doctors who

Get rich. And can be purchased.

Vent your soul in poesy.

Integrity is rare.

Sick or well, the bully wins,

Believing he is right.

Heaven is for everyone

And no one goes to hell.

Everyone is good. And earth's

The final destination.

11-17-13

 

A Picture On A Place Mat In Denny's

A castle on a mountain in the rain,

A moon behind the clouds above the sea,

All of it surrounded by the darkness,

(And thunder) are the soul of poetry.

11-18-13

The Forum Discussion

They must believe there's genius

In every soul that breathes,

Great art, a pencil and a pad,

And think there is a god,

Or else the worthy poetasters

Couldn't spell their dreams,

Or plan eternal futures,

Or vaunt their poetry.

11-18-13

On The Loss Of Beauty

Opinions are like a-hs.

Everybody has one.

But he who writes a symphony

Is higher than the gods,

Who just created Man,

But not the music.

When a poet grows into

Adult maturity,

All he knows is what he thinks.

Animals imagine.

11-18-13

 

Jokes

Humor! And I breathe again,

Consider there will be tomorrow,

Angry friends will smile at me.

Release the ballast! Let my heart

Soar above the sea.

Love returns. And happiness,

And optimism too.

11-19-13

Busting Loose

A Dilemma

Were I conservative, then I would pray

For the death of the man in Detroit.

As a conservative, since she was black,

I wouldn't care that she's dead.

11-18-13

 

Tomorrow

Not only doesn't everybody have

A talent, everybody thinks he has.

The heart deceives.

A black man crucified.

And beauty is a fiction of the soul.

Tomorrow comes eternally. Tomorrow.

There'll always be a sun. Somewhere a star

Will light a world. Tomorrow always comes

Though life to see and welcome it is gone.

Not only what he says but how he says it.

They seldom have a what, nor have a how.

Heifetz – like a god – has ceased to be.

11-18-13

 

Busting Loose

A rotted man who isn't dead!

All the books I loved and read

Populated days and nights

With thoughts and feelings and delights.

Standing on a new plateau,

Looking forward, not below,

Glancing back at the debris

Not salvaged by my poesy.

Something sweet or sweetly said!

A rotted man who is not dead!

Write sufficient poems

And enough sonatas, you

Will pretty soon be good at what you do.

So the myth Lamarckian

For the futile common man.

Am I dying? Just a goat?

I write the best I ever wrote.

11-18-13

 

The Myth

They have god and vanity,

And I a myth of poetry.

In Denny's with a pad and pen,

To satisfy an ancient yen,

I sit and write throughout the night,

And know I won't be young again.

I am sad. But life is good.

Termites in a brain of wood.

For all that's said – a great amount -

Phrases are the things that count.

Quatrains and couplets by the sea!

No one can write poetry.

It is the aim of lesser men

Who know they will not live again.

This mythic art does not exist!

An ocean covered by a mist.

11-18-13

My name is Joseph Hart.  And if you like my poems, the are on both Amazon and Kindle (cheap) under Joseph Hart Poetry.  

Gutter Poetry And Sex

Gutter poetry and sex

Gutter poetry and sex -

Being good for no reward -

Because it takes a bigger mind

Than gutter poetry and sex

To feel complete without a god -

And T-shirt slogans - “Free Dan White” -

To overcome the need for god

And a father who is dead -

Or looking in the eyes of death

And know that death is seeing me -

11-17-13

 

Family Values

The thing that matters most to her

Is whether I say “sh-t”,

And whether I adore my dead,

Forgotten family.

I don't need a doctor to

Estrange me from my parents.

Whether they destroyed my mind,

They were a loveless couple.

11-17-13

 

Integrity

The law does not exempt the sick

Nor succor the disabled.

The land of god has doctors who

Get rich. And can be purchased.

Vent your soul in poesy.

Integrity is rare.

Sick or well, the bully wins,

Believing he is right.

Heaven is for everyone

And no one goes to hell.

Everyone is good. And earth's

The final destination.

11-17-13