Rain, Sanctuary

1978

Some paunchy aging generals who danced

Before a lens. The camera projected

Their pictures on an avocado wall.

I couldn't figure out what they were doing

Unless to free them from their inhibitions.

I went to see an orderly I hated.

If I looked, he promised I could leave.

I had looked. He tallied up the score.

He didn't give a damn what I was thinking.

I was a fool who had no motivations.

And so it goes with people in the know.

1-19-14

Poe

Fantasy is not imagination,

Quoth Poe who said a poem should be short,

Express a single feeling, which should be

Sadness. And he said that poetry

Was his passion. Horror comes from grief.

1-19-14

Sanctuary

The mental ward is open.

Take me back.

I finished college.

I've a taste for Bach.

On the ward,

I only sit and stare.

No one takes from me

As I have nothing.

I'm afraid

They'll never let me out.

Innate, a horror

Of captivity.

Off the ward,

There's violence, deceit,

Sex, tattoos

And music that destroys.

My poems have such very pretty covers.

I've four cats,

I've got to stay alive.

1-19-14

 

The Puzzle

He said,

“You didn't hurt me.”

And I said,

“Good. I didn't want to.”

And he said,

“You didn't hurt me.”
“I had no desire.”
He said,

“You didn't hurt me.”
I was totally confused.

I never understood that conversation.

Not bludgeoned in the guise of honesty.

Nor with the knife of truth to make amends.

1-19-14

 

My Father

My father was a very loving man

Twisted and perverted by disease.

Tuberculosis kept him 10 years down.

Was that the reason? Never mind his mother.

His father was my only childhood love.

Raised by parents who were from Kentucky,

He hated blacks – and fagots, which he was.

I think if only once the fool had lifted

His ironic brogan from my face -

Never mind. I didn't like him either.

He had a funny smell. I didn't like it.

When he wasn't mean, he made me laugh.

1-18-14

 

The Words

Tell me, god,

Where do the words come from?
Is this what I would say if I were normal?

Believing people isn't what I do.

I can't. I don't believe.

I see their faces,

Hear their voices.

40 years ago,

That would be enough.

We'd go to bed.

1-18-14

 

The Oyster

My second wind. In the vernacular.

An idiom.

I'm writing once again.

The shell may never crack.

The grain of sand

In the moisture on the oyster's tongue

May turn forever, and forever grow.

Unless I'm not as good as I believe,

The hateful fate of every poetaster.

1-18-14

 

At The Sty

Complacent, fat and arrogant! The cops

Sitting in a giant booth in Denny's,

Chatting, smiling. Jesus Christ is here.

He did come back. And there are 6 of him.

An hour's respite from the world of war -

Killing homeless men, arresting blacks

And wearing shirts in court - “Free Dan White”.

Cops are an authority on justice.

They defend the laws, which are rewritten

Every day. How ever much they change,

They enforce them all with equal vigor.

With iron in their souls and brains of wood,

Cops are very flexible. Well, no.

It simply doesn't matter why they shoot.

1-18-14

 

Rain

The age of authenticity

And genuineness ended

Many many thousand years ago

Before there was a human being born.

How to write a poem? Simply

Work or else have talent.

Labor is contrived and genius glib.

Perhaps a combination? No.

There is no combination.

It comes like rain that trickles

From the gutter round the eaves.

6-18-13

Interview

Ask your stomach. Listen to your heart.

When you wonder what the hell you think.

Love is free. But don't ask Jacqui Schiff

And her little myrmidons and minions.

They will tell you. But it won't be free.

And it won't be right. Construction paper.

Cardboard psyches talk in Eric Berne,

With their halos, thinking they make sense,

Pretending that they understand it all.

With finesse she'll make a person crazy,

And then dismiss him with a stilted letter.

No one in the world owns Jacqui Schiff.

Jacqui Schiff! Don't tell her that you love her

From her writings long before you meet.

Your world will end. And dead worlds don't recover.

Little paper people off their strings

Fall in heaps and tangles on the floor.

No one knots the strings or lifts them up.

1-18-14

If you like my poems, I have books on Amazon, both paper and Kindle.  The paper are mostly $10 or less.  Most Kindles are $1.  To get to them, go to Amazon, click Books on the drop down menu, then type Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.