Fairy Tales

“Sound & Sense”

There are poems of what you say,

And there are poems of how you say it.

Sondheim drew the distinction,

His contribution to art.

Musical language and magic words

Made Fitzgerald cry.

But cranky old geezers who use their wives

Fuss with alliteration.

When the heart of the once thought dead

Opens and poesy comes,

Merely to mention the sound of the sea

Returns the soul to youth.

But what is the meaning? And must a song

Have a meaning at all?
Of course it must, or you have created

The dictionary again.

12-16-13

Poetry & Music

How could a man as vulgar

And ugly as Bukowski

Want to become a poet -

The gentlest of the arts?
And why would clumsy Frost

Compare it to a game?

Even Joyce

Said “poetry's a game”.

Is that what living is?

A vulgar, ugly game?
And once the underdog,

The black man owns the world?

At least the world of music.

Classical's defunct.

A trip into the past -

Callas, Tetrazzini -

1910 the farthest

Backward sound can go.

All the rest is legend,

And those who never heard it.

But anyone can sing it

As it was sung then.

Music is immortal,

And poetry is dead.

12-16-13

 

Lost Half

Another 16 years -

That's 32 -

I'll be too old to dodder -

I'll be known or I'll be not -

But always writing poems -

And you'll be 53 -

That's not the end of time -

A song I wrote a day ago

And now I cannot read it -

The latter half is lost forever -

Genius battles time -

And verse that's unremembered

And illegible is gone

Into the soup primordial -

The brain's infinity -

12-16-13

 

Threads

Little minds like scorpions

That cannot write a song

Demonstrate incompetence

On every public forum.

Slinging praises at the bad,

Prolific with opinions

As though they'd found the secret truth

That gave them excellence.

When they write in rhythm, they're

Ridiculous and clumsy.

Their rhymes don't rhyme. In freedom they

Have nothing much to say.

12-16-13

Fairy Tales

If you'd become a poet,

There is something you must do.

Learn to live alone. Perhaps

You'll fall in love with you.

Then like every other poet

You will tout your wares

On Amazon where you'll discover

No one really cares.

If you achieve a following

(Bukowski and his ilk),

You'll become a famous worm,

But you won't spin silk.

You'll remain a duckling though

You hoped to be a swan,

Making gold from straw. And when

You're gone, you will be gone.

12-16-13

 

Converse

Tone of voice means nothing

Except a passing mood,

Or it can mean everything,

Whether love or war.

Furtive looks cause intercourse,

In stores or in the nude.

Does irony communicate?

What are inflections for?

12-17-13

 

John

It's really quite important,

Said the psychotherapist,

Who took degrees in volley ball,

Orson Welles and Jacqui Schiff,

That everybody on the planet

Genuflect when they are speaking

Of your friends. And anyone

Who says he doesn't like them

Will thereupon summarily

Be pasted to the wall.

He knew all the rules of life,

And lived for intercourse,

Kept the plays of Shakespeare

On a shelf by Noel Coward,

But didn't like them half as much

As he liked television.

12-18-13

 

Antipathy

No matter what I say it seems

I'm stepping on their laws.

On forums and in therapy

I break unwritten rules.

Other folks it seems can say

Whatever they intend,

God bless me til their tongues fall out,

Or tell me I'm a twat,

Insult me like a block of wood.

But let me answer back.

That's when the coats come off and I'm

Deleted from the thread.

So anybody in the future -

If there is a future -

Who wonders why I hate the human

Race – well, this is why.

12-18-13

If you like my poems, my name is Joseph Hart.  I have about 80 books on Amazon, both paperback and Kindle.  The paperbacks are usually $10 or less, the Kindles $1.  You can find them on Amazon by clicking "books" on the drop down menu, then typing "Joseph Hart Poetry" in the address bar.  The books I recommend are "Ten Chaps" ($12.50 - one of very few over $10, due to its size), "Endymion Awake", "Poems Published In Audience Magazine", "Poems Published Somewhere Long Ago", "Words Without Music" and "Motley Chaos".