Puzzle

A Confessional

Such confessionals I could write

And purge my ridiculous soul!

They're publishing something in books today,

But it isn't poetry.

I read a book by Bukowski

And can't believe it's true,

That his brainless crap in translation

Is read in foreign countries.

My mother wanted to kill me,

And my father wished me dead.

I went to Jacqui Schiff and she

Took up where they left off.

And hateful Mary Kelly -

“Call me doctor, Mr. Tibbs!”
And the people I have loved,

The faces I've forgotten,

The lips I never felt.

Although I'm insane,

Totally mad,

I am a brilliant poet

(That's been said before),

Remarkably coherent,

With nothing much to say,

And I think I've said it all.

12-31-13

 

The Men In Smocks

The quiet men backstage with brains

Who make the whole world happen,

The gizmos and technology

That keep the common man

Happy and preoccupied

Learning how to use them.

There is no god. There is no heaven.

Science is a toy.

Nature is a game that people

Play on their computers.

Cats still sleep. And dogs still bark.

And children need a mother.

But sex and a facsimile

Of war make people happy.

12-31-13

 

Jay

I hollered and I yelled

And slammed him in his place

Some twenty times a day

In hideous disgrace.

For me it was disgrace,

For him a day of pain.

He was a depressive.

I was just insane.

I battled him with rage

And broke him with despair

As though I was infuriated.

I felt nothing there.

He stood against a wall

And didn't answer back.

Did I break his mind?
I was on a rack.

I ripped apart his shirt,

A gift. He didn't cry.

I nailed him in the kitchen screaming,

“Die! Die! Die!”

12-31-13

Puzzle

When someone's nice to me

I want to hurt her.

Whether I like her or not.

I lie alone and my

Heart is crying,

Asleep upon my cot.

Heaven was made for drunks,

But I am not a sot.

Hell was dug for Christians

And stoked to keep it hot.

I am here for neither.

In the ground I'll rot.

12-31-13

Wicked

People have opinions of my life,

That usually I wrong or I'm mistaken,

Misbegotten or degenerate.

I do not see the situation

Half the way they do.

I never understood their special vantage.

Now most of them are gone to other places -

Heaven, hell, New Jersey, in the ground.

I'm not wicked as they say I am.

It doesn't matter now. The trial is ended.

The judge is gone. The jury's been dismissed.

The dock is broken. And I am alone.

12-31-13