Behind me sits a woman

The Great And Powerful

I do not like Jacqui Schiff

Or anybody like her.

She'll incarcerate you if

It seems you're going strike her.

She's completely self-protective.

That's how it ought to be.

If she drowns or drives you screwy

She'll remain quite free.

1-31-14

 

2010

A poem must transcend when it was written

Or it will drag me back into the past

And all the madness I encountered there.

He has changed. And I have gotten older.

Yet it lives in stone, a Parthenon,

Phrases phrasing what must be forgotten.

I am dead and everyone I know

Or ever knew is gone. What will it matter?
Just the subject of some poesy.

The past is dead. Like semen, milk and blood

Spilt and dried, it's covered under dust.

2-1-14

 

Poems from the heart

Poems from the heart destroy the mind.

Read again, they resurrect the past.

For 67 years I've been alone.

I have never had a good affair.

2-1-14

 

Hyper, anxious, nervous

Hyper, anxious, nervous. I'm not crazy.

I think they're not the same. The past is gone,

And unlike Proust, I will not bring it back.

I just read a splendid book of poems,

Better than what I have written since,

And every word from several years ago.

Who will ever know? The present world

Of art is made by people who don't care.

No one wants to read what I have written.

2-1-14

The Book

Maturity is maudlin.

Youth is like a crystal,

Clean and clear,

A pool. And then the shade

Makes a shadow cross the verdant ground.

No one's made a comment

On the poems that I wrote

Throughout the years

And put into a book.

A “slender volume”,

As the vendors say.

2-1-14

 

Old Poems

I read a book of poems

That I wrote four years ago

About what I was thinking at the time.

And it did me in.

It broke the egg. The yolk was runny.

I slept and I recovered.

Now a trap door spider seals me off.

2-1-14

 

Behind me sits a woman

Behind me sits a woman. She's alone.

Every day, all night, she's often there.

She occupies a booth and sits and sleeps.

They let her. Is she always so alone?
She's very young. She often changes clothes.

She doesn't do a thing. She only sits,

Occasionally eats or drinks some water.

She dresses nicely, and she has a bag.

I sit here too. But I write poesy.

2-1-14

 

Chaos

Christ the chaos! Pulling it together.

My life in tatters never did make sense.

I rush to understand it, get ahead.

In retrospect, it's only poetry.

Only Jesus knows that I'm a genius,

And I do not believe that Jesus was.

Many things are written in a book,

Someone's point of view, imagination,

Make believe, and all of it is fiction.

Writing poetry is very easy.

Going through deciding what is good

To keep is disappointing, arduous.

Time goes by until the task is done

2-1-14