Americana

Art

I shall be forgotten in the morning,

And they will be remembered until dusk.

And then beyond, a massive night abysmal,

Amorphous, like a cloud or mist or haze.

What is art? Not every man pursues it.

Every culture has a different taste.

Painters on the walls had many talents

In Herculaneum and in Pompeii.

And on the walls of caves, imagination.

Or failing that, to capture what they saw.

What is art? Another child of nature,

That fangs and talons will reduce to flesh.

12-26-13

 

Awkward Writing

I'm writing but its awkward.

Not the flush of months ago.

I think my day is over. I still

Happen to be breathing.

Carefully the verses come,

Now better the results,

Though standing on the threshold

Of infinity and death.

I was always in infinity,

Whether dead or breathing.

Shelley was divine and true.

Byron was a phony.

And Keats sang to the gallery in death.

The Puzzle

A mind destroyed by life

Beyond repair.

Pegs have fallen out and blocks of wood

All lie scrambled.

Desperate consciousness

Struggles to assemble them in time.

The pieces will not fit again,

A loss of what's important

And what's not.

Once the structure's broken

It will never work again.

4-27-14

 

New Poems

The words do not come easily

Like vomiting or diarrhea

When lines came altogether

In a rush.

Rhymes and words and rhythms

Like segments in a jigsaw puzzle,

Pieces interlocked.

Now I have to think

For phrases that I like.

This makes it no more conscious,

Only slower.

4-27-14

Americans

Americans! Ridiculous and foolish!

Imbecility that does not end.

A mockery of kindness and affection.

The magic words - “experience” and “friend”.

All dressed up in tattoos and religion.

Fighting, killing, pain are what they love.

Gays and Muslims. National obsessions.

And “Right to life”. But none of them a dove.

5-17-13

 

Americana

The rapture and baseball!

What a way

To start an already

Hideous day!

America! Forever the fool!

Rap, tattoos and the golden rule!

The opera's shutting down next year.

No one's left who wants to hear

Music composed in 1810.

Will harmony be heard again?

9-13-13

 

Americana

People seem to me to be

So very off the beam,

Something you would run across

In a drunken dream.

A poem full of idioms

And very trite cliches,

Things the Yankees understand

Indoor on rainy days.

Savoring their destiny,

Manifest and fell,

Murdering the Indians

And wishing gays to hell.

Anybody with a soul

Who sees things as they are

Winds up on a psycho ward

Or hanging on a bar.

4-26-14

Irene

A tiny Jacqui Schiff – she never met her -

Swift and sheer, unscalable – her “no” -

She'll leave you at her window wanting water,

Or leave a feast for seven at your door.

Without the sly and devious endeavors -

Behind a mask inscrutable – her own -

Make a friend – you'll have a friend forever -

Bore her and you'll be the first to go.

Bring her in your house, she'll make a castle -

Up the bridge – the victor in the war -

Her friends are few – her lovers without number -

The clock's a fool – her friends depart at dawn.

She has no secrets, lies without exception -

Does what must be done to get along.

She turned a storage room into a palace,

And only the preferred go through the door.

She makes her way – autonomous and certain.

Her friends are merely people – nothing odd.

In her room and shielded from intrusion,

She's probably awake, but makes no noise.

4-26-14