While Dying

Crazy

Why must I be crazy?

It is painful and it hurts.

And writing verse is tearing at the wound.

I never had a parent,

But a Grandpa who is dead,

And he was weak.

He couldn't overcome them.

But among my memories

A warmth I can't surpass,

He lives. And they are

Carnage in the dirt.

And things are done with fantasies

That resurrect the soul.

Unless my verse is gibberish

And I can't see the truth.

2-26-14

 

While Dying

He lay inside a coffin,

And the phrases he had read

In poetry like golden fish

In water filled his mind.

He couldn't talk to people,

But a thousand clever thoughts

Of sentiment and humor

Occupied his consciousness.

He at last was dying.

Even now he couldn't grasp it

Or accept that he would cease to be.

2-26-14

 

Hemingway

I did not like Hemingway,

Although like Gertrude Stein,

I see his gift -

Articulate and lucid.

His violence upsets me.

He's a cruel little child.

And his hateful homophobia

Directed at his mentor

Makes the Golden Boy

A silly ass.

2-26-14

Pride

For a Brit to say that Shakespeare

Is particularly his -

English – is as foolish

As Americans who claim

That Sills somehow

Reflects America.

2-26-14

Shakespeare's Words

To read the words of Shakespeare

In a constant flow of phrases,

Like water on a desert

Or shade, is more than music.

Just to change the words

And think up synonyms destroys

The beauty and the meaning,

Or reduces them to dust,

Commonplaces, sentiments and thoughts.

2-26-14

 

Sharkey 's Story

She was very lonely

Sitting in her house

Staring dull, obliquely

Through the window pane.

She went to a psychologist

Just for company,

For someone she could talk to,

Not planning to remain.

She went to see him weekly

Rather like a clock

Only just to talk.

And in several months she was insane.

1-31-13

The Wall

Breaking through the wall, the flood

Inundates my poems.

At last I start to love my poesy,

Not for reasons,

Just because I do.

My father – such a father – said

His father said to him

He'd finish on the gallows.

He did not.

Did he pass this destiny to me?

Not to me. But I'm afraid that I will

Never be a poet

To anyone except a couple friends.

Neither Keats nor Shakespeare,

With a simple sense of rhythm

And a head of concepts

I'm writing poesy.

Phrases! Phrases! Music's not my forte.

2-26-14