Meaning

Meaning

Nobody knows and everyone's trying.

Some very nice people

Are lonely and dying.

Jesus and Socrates, broke on the rack,

Figures from history,

Will not come back.

Age is the gibbet from which we are hung.

And death to the old is a

Myth to the young.

Thinking up purposes,

Dying their hair,

Piercing their noses,

Such freedom is rare.

Freedom! The freedom

The Steppenwolf knew -

Just like the Steppenwolf -

What do they do?

Genius and talent come

Just to a few.

They blew up the Parthenon.

What was it worth?

Nothing is sacred in

Heaven or earth.

2-22-14

 

Keats' Beauty

Keats was wrong.

It isn't all sensations.

There are other beauties

For a song -

Paradox and poignancy,

Thoughts in sweet relations,

Feelings as emotions come along,

Written by a person

When alone,

Carved and fashioned from his very bone.

Rain and seas were beautiful already.

2-21-14

A Rhyme

Loesser wrote the only shows

On Broadway worth a jot,

Quick and clever, each of them,

Regardless of the plot.

And Verdi gave to Europe

All the beauty that it's got.

Puccini had a lover's warmth.

Like a constant sot,

America is staggering

Across an empty lot.

And the world – the stubborn world -

Has absolutely not

A thing but gods and bigotry.

Can the heart be bought?

I'm alone and looking on,

Unteachable, untaught.

2-21-14

Tedium

Half her head shaved,

A nail through her tongue,

Tattooed and fat -

It's good to be young!

Does she like poems? She

Doesn't like mine.

Off to the bars every

Evening at 9.

This is what Man who's

Superior to

The animals does. What else

Is there to do?

2-21-14

Sitting In Denny's

She can hug people.

I cannot do that.

I've written a volume

Of poems so fat

It's simply a pleasure

To sit and look at.

Sitting in Denny's

From 11 to 3,

I'm watching the people

Who don't seem to see,

And wondering what they

Are thinking of me.

I am a psycho

Who passes the night

Sitting in Denny's

Pretending to write.

Farewell to the middle class,

Christian and white.

2-21-14

Music

The sh-t they call music

And play in the bars,

Not overcome by the

Noises of cars.

The Christian adores it

In luxury's ease,

Deluding himself he

Has several degrees.

Though people are wise,

What have they read?

Music is finished -

Shot in the head.

In Denny's I listen

To garbage instead,

Vapid and vacant and tuneless

And dead.

Where can I go to?

The Muses have fled.

Bach in my house with

A cat on my bed.

2-21-14

If you like my poems, I have books on Amazon, both paperback and Kindle.  The paperbacks are mostly $10 apiece, the Kindles mostly $1.  To see them, go to Amazon, click on Books on the drop down, and type Joseph Hart Poetry on the search bar.