A True Story

A True Story


He wrote some wild polemics
About the USA
And creeps like Ronald Reagan
Who hit and got away.


The Constitution says
That everyone is free -
Who can afford a lawyer,
Not for you and me.


So he was put in prison.
Forgetting he was there
No one came to visit
And no one seemed to care.


He wrote another poem -
To Obama with dismay
And tied it to a dove
And sent it on its way.


Obama got the poem
And liked it very much.
He sent the Secret Service
To search the poet's hutch.


They found a lot of poems
For the president to read.
He thought they all were beautiful
And had the poet freed.


The poet's books were published.
Oprah read them through
And told a hungry country
They were beautiful and true.


The country follows Oprah
Like actors followed Liz.
The poet was a hero,
And wealth and fame were his.

Byron


Byron would be greater
Than I'd like to think I am
If everything he wrote weren't such an
Artificial sham.


His rhythms are impeccable.
His rhymes are clever stunts.
But I do not believe in him – not once -
Not even once.


I like his cynicism.
(Or is that another pose?)
My first Romantic hero.
I'm over him, god knows.


Browsing in the library
At school one day I found
All his songs together and so
Beautifully bound.


I thought the day I stood there
How wonderful to look
Like this.  I don't love Byron,
I only love the book.


The rhythms and the phrases
So glorious and free -
I loved everything that Byron
Intended them to be.


5-31-14

A Popular President

A Popular President


My country 'tis of thee.
We all loved Reagan more
When he raised the speed limit,
Took money from the poor,
Gutted social services
And used the bucks for war.
The prettiest damned president
To use a couple combs
Assured us only Europe
Would be hit with bombs,
And solemn as a tomb
But with a boyish grin,
That in a nuclear holocaust
America would win.

5-31-14

The Poetaster

The Poetaster


Never tell a poetaster
You don't like his verse.
Larceny is evil.
This is infinitely worse.


At first he'll just god bless you.
But that's not where it ends.
After that a legion of
The poetaster's friends


Come forth to say he's brilliant.
The proof is he has haters.
So saying all are sure your supper
Will be crow and taters.


Well, actually not.
He has no ear for rhyme.
His meter (if he meant one)
Is completely out of time.


But you don't write again
Lest his defenders come in throngs.
Just wait until the poetaster
Has outlived his songs.


None of this is fair.
Nature's full of night.
Conceit is very silly.
The poor fool just can't write.


5-31-14

Obama


Obama is a prince,
Black diamond, a gem.
He's bringing home the soldiers,
What's left of them.


I know the USA
Will never change its ways,
But Lincoln freed the blacks,
Obama freed the gays.


Obama put his weight
In back of gun control,
An obvious position
Unless you're on the dole.


5-31-14

A Popular President


My country 'tis of thee.
We all loved Reagan more
When he raised the speed limit,
Took money from the poor,
Gutted social services
And used the bucks for war.
The prettiest damned president
To use a couple combs,
He assured us only Europe
Would be hit with bombs,
And solemn as a tomb
But with a boyish grin,
In a nuclear holocaust
America would win.


5-31-14

Jerry Falwell


Jerry Falwell said,
“I'm no environmentalist!”
In fact he wasn't anything
A kind man would admit to.
But just suppose the cosmos is
So totally insane
That everything that monster said was right.


5-31-14

Being Alone

No more angry poems


No more angry poems -
The world is dead with rage.
Do parents beat their children?
Love them til they're sick?


To overcome a nation -
To overcome its gods -
Overcome the family
That can't be overcome -


To slip out through the window
And hide alone in darkness
And write a kind of poesy
That does not exist.


5-29-14

The Kid


Born rich perhaps and educated -
Well cut and put together -
He sits alone at Denny's
With tattoos and a bag.


Staring at the napkins -
Dead, inert and lifeless -
Did drugs destroy his reason?
Very, very young.


He seemed at first to be
Furiously angry.
He isn't.  He is dead.
Not angry, but he's mad.


Now that I have seen
He's lifeless and not angry,
I wish he'd go away.
He's going, walking briskly.


Bandana on his head,
Music in his ears,
Jawline beard and handsome,
I wonder where he's going.


5-29-14

Being Alone


To cast off all progenitors
And be myself alone -
There in lies the sweetness
And succulence of song.


Considering the prosody
Of other people's verse -
Therein lies the structure
Of my own.


But wherein is the truth
Of other people's rules?
It's dark without a parent
And alone.


5-29-14

Amen


Welcome to America.
Oh say!  Oh say!  Oh  say!
Where we arrest a man who's black.
And we kill a man who's gay.
And to hell with the disabled.
God bless the USA!

Denny's Late

Meaningless Pictures

A morning is a massive undertaking -

A mute colossus standing in my mind.

There is stands, a boulder in a stream.

I must wait til water wears it down,

Washes it away and cleans the flow.

I can only image shallow things.

The stream and my imagination stop.

The Lines

A running commentary in my head

Of a poem while I wrote each line -

“At last you found another thing to hate” -

“Another gripe you almost overlooked” -

Kibitzed – through these briars of the truth

I continued writing. Now they're gone.

The anger resubmerged into the fen

And with it went the censor. I'm not free.

5-28-14

 

Fragment

I'm slowly falling asleep.

Is consciousness a dream?
Day to day, less sleep, more dreams.

Where is reality?

Mixed with dreams, reality

Is never quite asleep.

 

Denny's Late

I want to write a poem

But I don't know what to write.

I've written til

My guts lie on the table.

It's very late.

My car is gone.

Denny's is a bore

Except a couple people

Who're like friends.

Two of whom I've

Turned to enemies,

With a cruel joke that

Wasn't funny,

And then repeating it

To someone else.

An old man with his

Dismal sense of humor.

I can't get old.

Other people do.

The Oscar died at 50,

Keats at 26.

All my heroes dying

Or are dead.

If you like my poems, there are some collections of them on Amazon - both paperbacks and Kindles.  Most of the paperbacks are $10, and most of the Kindles $1.  To see them, go to Amazon, click on books on the drop-down and then type Joseph Hart Poetry on the address bar.

Mod

The Artists

Too much talent and too many books,

And all of them in print. But poetry -

The ordinary man can never fake it.

Shatter rules and puke his boring guts

Into words, it isn't poetry.

Rhythm, rhyme and metaphors and music -

That's the art. Does anybody have it?
Though like happy cats they groom each other

And coo superlatives and elegies.

5-27-14

 

Two Waitresses

Of all the waitresses in Christendom,

The two that I dislike are working now.

One would pull me from the audience

And put me on the stage with her. The other

Real as a seven dollar bill,

Like everybody's notion of a grandma

Would love me til I come. It's 9 p.m.

And I'm asleep with coffee and a book.

Misunderstood at home, the constant villain

I must fight to keep her in the house.

He loves her and I'm driving her away.

I have nothing anyone would want

Anymore, and once I had it all,

Needing only love. My poesy

From childish plastic phrases to a bland

And pointless cynicism, all my verse

Is changing in kaleidoscopic madness.

4-27-14

Confession

Confession is a cagey kind of verse -

A line twixt poetry and masturbation -

Nuts and bolts, people and events

Or something that is accurate and human.

I won't go home again. I'll sit in Denny's

Like the homeless, waiting to be fed.

5-27-14

 

Mod

I seldom shower. I'm sure I stink.

I live in the USA

(Hoop-la, wars and rinky-dink),

Where all the people say,

“If I want to, it's okay.”

They're human, not humane today.

Don't puzzled pause and think.

Pack and run away.

5-27-14

 

Passe

One day he fell to earth.

He's climbing back to heaven.

Climbing since his birth,

He's 37.

My poems once were magic,

But that was long ago.

To me this loss is tragic,

Phrases once like Poe.

I wrestled and adored

The glory of his sweets.

I couldn't get aboard.

I'm never was like Keats.

5-27-14

If you like my poems, there are several collections of them on Amazon, both paperbacks and Kindles.  The paperbacks are usually $10 apiece, and the Kindles $1. You can find them by going to Amazon, clicking books on the drop-down and typing Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.

Bonnie

Bonnie

A malicious psychotic at Denny's

Just will not leave me alone.

She sticks in the knife to the hilt,

Then twists til it scratches a bone.

She looks like a made up cadaver

With a false little bloom in her hair.

She rocks side to side when she's walking.

She's a waitress who'll give you a scare.

A dead disinterred Pollyanna,

Too long above ground she will rot.

She helps with your life or your supper,

Whether you like it or not.

5-26-14

 

Alone Tonight

Ensconced in my seclusion,
How can poesy be fate?

I have music when I want it,

No one at the garden gate,

Stars when it is midnight

And a moon that stops my breath,

Hidden in dark clouds that are

A replica of death.

Far away the ocean

Beats the shore. I cannot hear it

Except in memory. And I have

Never been less near it.

From the dregs of time

The dragon lifted from its throes,

Suddenly in air, and laughed

Like a pink-lipped rose.

Sequestered in my solitude,

No hope and no remorse,

Like the tale of Nietzsche,

I'll run out and kiss a horse.

10-4-12

Longtemps

He said I write too fast

And so my verse is lousy.

How long should I take

To make my poems good?

Should I sit at the desk and ponder

Before I write a word?

Until the phrase that came to me

Already is forgotten?

Should I proof a song for an hour,

And at last take out a comma?
Then proof an hour longer

And put it in again?

Keats scribbled pages of notes

For the Nightingale,

Then went to his room and assembled them.

And now the ode is famous.

Couldn't he think it through

While sitting in the garden?
The comment about the comma

Came from Oscar Wilde.

5-25-14

Happiness

An Action Movie

A lot of sweaty people dodging

In and out of trains

Shooting at each other

To tense musical refrains -

The writer, the director,

And the actors all at pains

To entertain the masses,

And they haven't any brains.

5-24-14

 

Your Neighbor

You can get some money. Only ask.

Americans are mad to think they're good.

Then in unemployment you can bask,

And love your neighbor as your neighbor would.

Importance

The day began auspiciously -

A couple jokes with Tina -

Lots of coffee – nothing that's

Significant, important,

Nothing much that matters,

Like a song by Larry Hart.

And that is all that matters.

5-25-14

 

Hart & Hammerstein

Hammerstein wrote it

And everyone likes it,

Even a rapper who jives.

Larry Hart

Is forgotten by all

But the tipplers in Manhattan dives.

Where is the justice?

Where is the truth?
God killed Larry Hart and his songs -

Clever, intelligent

Happiness, youth -

One of god's infinite wrongs.

5-25-14

 

GWL

There's not a thing on earth we like

Together but each other.

And I'm not altogether sure of you.

Do you like me (16 years)?
You're angry when I ask that.

I don't like your friends, your music,

Habits or your god.

Your habits I've adjusted to -

Comme il faut – I have to.

Your friends I'd like to see in jail.

Your music makes me scream.

Your god – but that's much better left

Unspoken. You I love.

And when you speak,

The rest is unimportant.

5-25-14

 

Happiness

Death makes all things unimportant,

And the pains of age.

Larry Hart was ugly looking,

Oh but what a mind -

Someone to be happy with -

That you seldom find.

Most people are afraid to be

Happy. I'm inclined

To cease to write important poems

Or meaningful. Except

Poems that are serious,

Not consciously designed.

5-25-14

Together

Marriage

Lover's notes and valentines

Become in later years

Rubbish in the bottom of a drawer.

Sentiment withdraws and in its wake,

Disinterest, disgust, and not a trace

Of any thought but curiosity.

A suitor's pawn, like rubber or elastic,

Is bent to meet the lover's expectation.

And people who write poems such as this

Assume the river water's going to freeze.

5-22-14

Eel-Grass Cove

I wasted 50 years with Keats.

I could have read Millay.

This damned eternal loyalty!

I will turn away.

No nuances, no thought,

No gentle subtlety,

Cardboard, concrete, cold -

Is this poetry?

But how I can I renounce

My only source of love

Before I read Millay

And the rain in eel-grass cove?

12-10-13

 

Giving Up

I hate my poems! Damnit how I hate them!

Thoughtful, mellow and a dismal bore.

How can people who are worse than me

Take such darkling pleasure in their crap -

Believing when they die they wrote a poem.

With Keats in constellations in the sky

They will hang throughout eternity.

When I was young my verse seemed very good,

Aroused a little interest. This is gone.

Still I write, madder but with hope

Poesy will make a home in me.

67 – let the flame of hope -

Only now delusion – gutter out.

5-21-14

Caring

He cared. I never did,

So I was saved.

My dog was killed at 6 while I lay

In my grandpa's arms.

Not to care

Releases you from life.

You may go insane before you die,

But given the right medicine

You'll live.

Even though the monster of a

Mother hates your grandpa

Because he loves you.

Both of them are dead.

5-23-14

 

Together

Happy and content together.

This is what I like.

Two strands of thread together

Weave a cloth in memory,

That naturally will warm us when

The night is cold in winter.

Though we're not together,

Different places, different psyches.

Now while you are working,

I am typing into dreams,

And dream of odd familiar things

That breach the wall of sleep.

Memory – a masquerade.

The phantoms are not me,

But figures from the dream. I move

In sweet accord with them,

In dreams beneath a sleep.

5-22-14

 

Memorial Day

The honest man does what he wants to do.

You adapt to him, not him to you.

America! Bombs and war and rockets.

Her music jars your molars from their sockets.

Tattoos, pizza and a jug of beer.

Where's the freeway getting out of there?

5-23-14

If you like my poems, I have some collections on Amazon, both paperback and Kindle.  The paperbacks are mostly $10, and the Kindles are mostly $1.  To see them, click Books on the dropdown, then type Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.

Kissing Fred

Marriage

Lover's notes and valentines

Become in later years

Rubbish in the bottom of a drawer.

Sentiment withdraws and in its wake,

Disinterest, disgust, and not a trace

Of any thought but curiosity.

A suitor's pawn, like rubber or elastic,

Is bent to meet the lover's expectation.

And people who write poems such as this

Assume the river water's going to freeze.

5-22-14

Strong

Weak when there's no reason to be strong.

Something stronger than the universe,

But not a god and not a trace of love.

People who do not know how to fight,

Naked in the daylight,

Brilliant in the night,

Weaker than a poem or a song,

Where the strong and frightening belong.

Gladiators reek with pain and sweat.

A purring kitten's soft and warm to pet.

5-21-13

Poets

Now I like my poems. They are fine.

Or seem it now because the verse is mine.

Another poetaster in disgust

Will see his sacred poems in the dust.

Brooke is fresh and free

And he is pretty.

And glitters like a colored lamp in darkness,

Coruscating with the life of youth,

Impelling him to fight a war with love,

Unreal as “The Soldier”. He will die,

And death is not poetic on the field.

Millay makes poesy – a gentle ditty -

A skeleton of structure in each song.

Keats was gifted

And a bit absurd -

Bouncing apples off a fellow's head.

He lives with his contemporaries dead.

5-21-14

 

About Poesy

Make your poem real, but make it pleasant.

Pleasure is as real as agony.

It seems that every day another state

Capitulates to fact and fairness, knocks

Away the law preventing gays to marry.

Despite the truths my parents and my sister

Receive from god. And every day I look

And find my verse less dull and odious.

Despite the feeling, I just like the phrases,

Happy, sad or angry. Now I wonder

Would Dr. Simons curl his lip at me

As he did at Keats? How in a bundle

Time lumbers by, but does it very fast.

I really won't dispense with all the facts,

Of god and man and earth and prosody.

I am not a burst of ecstasy -

Like ocean swells exploding on big rocks -

But rather like the calm but splashing water

Over stones. This is my poesy.

14-21-14

 

Kissing Fred

Freddy is cat,

Fluffy, small and black.

I just stole a kiss from him.

I think he's want it back.

5-21-14

Poetry Magazine

Miss Jean Brodie

Brodie was a trip.

However I don't think

Smith deserved an Oscar.

Only rage, denunciations,

Triumph.

Mary died

And Brodie could not rise again -

Maggie did not show the changing tide -

From hubris into absolute defeat.

Maggie Smith – Alive, completely human.

5-20-14

Charming Lines

Jerry half and the flatness myself.

I love him very well.

I am going down.

My single sorry issue.

“He'll be very welcome.”

“Sorry” said unmoving.

Sorry is unmoving.

And has no chains on me.

Probably he'll strata

Into the first I offered.

Perhaps the heart is blind

When it accepts a present,

Even from a president.

He shall be quiet one.

If you risk your love,

You'll lose it. Shoot him dead.

Barbie and diminutive.

All Barbie's. They'll love all.

Barbie told the grudge.

Barbie and the ogre.

Playfulness and love.

Now he'll be refused.

He needs a tank of gas.

I love him very much,

Not his progenitors.

5-21-53

 

Eyes On All-Enclosing

I believed the preachers

Til I was 17,

Then I stopped believing

In anything all.

The seraphim are hovering

In the smoke above Manhattan.

Now I'm writing poems

Like modern poets do -

Some like Gertrude Stein,

Others paint like Dali –

The soul of art is gone.

Both fled long before.

The soul could be the painter,

And you left with the stone -

7-22-14

The New Talk

Rules

Pontificating rules

Like a dozen reeds

Standing in a bog -

What a poem needs, -

Supposing they are true -

How poets ought to write -

Willows in the wind -

Shadows in the night -

All of them correct

For any certain song -

Until another time,

Another poet comes along.

But structures do not change,

Immutable like time -

The motion of the ocean,

Association of the rhyme.

5-20-14

John

Many years ago

He fell in love with me

Because he'd found a person

A weaker soul than he.

And following relief

And temptation – we were gay -

He headed us in tandem,

He bravely led the way.

But after several years

The clock and hammer fell.

I ended the affair

And wished him into hell.

5-20-14

 

Crazy Love

I love him. He is kind.

He's crazy and he's shy.

Love is caused by Jesus.

There's nothing in the sky.

He's loved a dozen others.

And really so have I.

Love must have dynamics,

But nobody knows why.

No one understands it.

Just the mad and lonely try.

Love is something given,

Not something you can buy.

Man is a Samaritan

Who'll leave you there to die.

A lunatic is standing by

My booth. So go and cry

Like everybody does

Except the knowing, who just lie.

I used to love the crazy.

Now I wait til they walk by.

I learned to leave the crazy

All more loveable and knowing

In a hospital than I.

5-20-14

 

The New Talk

Yankees like their slang

Right up there with god,

Tattoos and “experience”
Where the saints have trod.

Yankees aren't original,

Just extremely odd.

5-20-14

 

A Brief Era

In a great society

Of good and proper prigs,

You must restrain your lexicon

Or be asked to leave.

Not that your voice is loud

Or aimed with some rebuke.

Just that those words are naughty,

And virtue must prevail.

5-20-14

The Names

The GOP

The GOP is at it once again,

Like trading votes for guns, the guns for gin.

And making sure each school is full of prayer,

Just to ascertain that god is there.

And sure as god is there, that fags are out,

Ten years old, and damn sure not a scout.

Though good republicans are like a gem,

It takes so little to be one of them.

4-28-14

An Aria

When at last you make amends

With your past, you miss your friends.

Over 40 years ago.

Even recollection ends.

Gentle friends, just a few,

Who'd never think of hurting you.

The rolling mist in places clears

Revealing moments in the years,

Happiness you lost somewhere,

Or so it seems, then disappears.

8-31-13

Aphorism

People who say “thank you” are polite,

Like a tiny candle in the night.

They're the kind who always fall in love,

The easiest to take advantage of.

5-16-14

The Soldier

“We were soldiers once”

Is sewn across his hat.

He tried to read a battered book -

Nervous as a cat.

His lips moved slightly while he read -

Military tan -

Jerky to the waiter -

A sad well-meaning man.

In civilian diners -

Ah, but with the men!

Members of the infantry -

To be at ease again.

He can hardly talk.

A busboy stopped and spoke

And shook his hand, his smile was grief.

Then his heart awoke.

Did he hear me say

The waiter's name? He stayed

To leave a couple bucks

After he had paid.

5-18-14

The Names

Talking to the waitress -

Quite my worst affair -

I mentioned I had changed my name.

She clearly didn't care.

It meant a lot to me.

I'm in a double-bind.

To be or not to be their son?

What has god designed?

I called the cat by name -

He's a clever little chap -

He ran across the room

And leapt into my lap.

He's sure and knows his name.

I remain a myth.

What is there on earth

To buy existence with?

5-18-14

Describing

I write describing people -

I'm Isherwood, a myth -

Poems high school teachers

Can bore their students with.

5-18-14

Jesus Cried

Morning In Denny's

Surrounded by the books

And all of them are mine.

Were they more poetical,

And less a thing for swine,

Happier – or neutral -

Birds and earth and brine -

Sweat and blood and semen -

Secular, divine -

Reaching for the earth

Looking at the sky -

Every poem true

Unless it is a lie -

5-16-14

Jesus cried

Jesus cried. Jesus was a man.

All men cry. Most men cry a lot.

That's the only proof there is a god.

A rain of sparrows. Are my poems good?
If they are, who will publish them?
They're making ammunition out of god.

God! The most relentless of them all.

When the sun comes out and weeping ceases,

Someone makes a joke, and life is new,

Though a little older. Carry on.

5-16-14

 

Puss In Boots

The giant was an ogre.

He hid among the wheat

Seeking tender Englishmen,

A lovely thing to eat,

A ripe and juicy treat,

Succulent and sweet.

Pussy mocked the giant

From whom all others fled.

“You do metamorphosis.

At least I've heard it said.”
“I can grow enormous.

Larger than a house.”
“Piffle!” snorted Puss.

“Change into a mouse!”
“Are you mocking me?”
Incensed the ogre roared.

“Only just a little.

You make me very bored.”

“Bored?” the hapless ogre

Roused himself to say.

And of a sudden hidden

Beneath a stalk of hay

Where the giant stood,

Stood a mouse that ran away.

The mouse was very grey.

“Don't run so fast!” cried Pussy.

“You're such a tiny mite

That I could eat you up

With just a single bite.”

And that is what he did.

And for the clever few

I'll add, Before he swallowed him

Puss bit the mouse in two.

Lest the little mouse

All whole inside the cat

Turn back into a giant.

No. I can't have that.

5-13-14

Bad Poems

“Mr. President”

Berlin went out with a

Wonderful whallop!

The glory of his career.

The culmination of all that had gone before.

Characteristic of all his songs,

His particular style,

And every song and lyric

A pleasure just to hear.

And then an Indian Summer -

A last and final song -

For “Annie Get Your Gun”.

The people cheered.

5-15-14

 

Bad Poems

I wrote a sheaf of poems

In three days, over night,

And most of them upset me,

Whether they were right.

And then I just went back,

Reread the status quo.

The happiness was sweet,

The comfort that I know.

The poems are not odd,
Or particularly bright,

The sentiments not alien

To what I like to write.

To what do I attribute

This frenzy of despair?

Just make it go away.

I don't really care.

The vocabulary's clear,

The rhythms very clipped.

Standing on the seaweed

On a rock at sea I slipped.

Poems are not meant

For a common truth.

Or any truth. And Keats

Is by and for the youth.

There! I wrote a truth,

The kind of truth that's right

The kind that lets me sleep

Tenderly at night.

5-15-14

 

Bad Poems

Did Edna publish all she wrote?

Was nothing left behind?

Did she burn the lesser fare

For nobody to find?

4-5-13

Bad Poems

Over 80 books – well, 83 -

I wish I had in manuscript again,

To rid myself of poems that are bad.

Very bad. Some thoughts are rough and wrong,

And thoughts can very easily be wrong.

9 books and one of prose that make me happy.
And I worked hard to winnow them from life,

Then dropped the stitch and write them as they come.

I wrote the good ones. Something in me did.

And what it was wrote all the bad ones too.

But among the other 83

Are some poems better than the best,

Little moments of maturity.

The good ones, if they're ever seen at all,

Are my promise of longevity.

And all the good ones written long ago.

Like Lloyd Webber, I did not die then.

3-23-14

 

Bad Poems

My poems must be very bad.

No one wants to read them.

Even Jill – the last to die -

Puts the books aside.

People who have horrid lives,

Desperate or lonely -

Even people such as these

Write mediocre verse.

Where is god when nations fall

To treachery? And nature

Doesn't care when flowers wilt

Or schoolboys drown a kitten?

Nothing's fair and nothing's right

And very little's good.

In a year you cease to cry

And wait for death to claim you.

Dickinson was very bad,

A basket of bright phrases.

She's the Yankee Queen of Verse.

Bukowski merely silly.

12-10-13

 

Bad Poems

Glancing through some poems

I wrote the other day,

I saw them dull and crazy.

Is everything I say

Muted, bland boloney,

Regardless how intense?

Who would want to read it

When it makes no sense?

The prettiness of poems

(The hell with Ezra Pound!)

Is images and metaphors,

And music in the sound.

The poems that I read

And wrote had none of these,

Not even a slight whisper

From the beach and mortal seas.

9-10-13

 

Puss In Boots

The giant was an ogre.

He hid among the wheat

Seeking tender Englishmen,

A lovely thing to eat,

A ripe and juicy treat,

Succulent and sweet.

Pussy mocked the giant

From whom all others fled.

“You do metamorphosis.

At least I've heard it said.”
“I can grow enormous.

Larger than a house.”
“Piffle!” snorted Puss.

“Change into a mouse!”
“Are you mocking me?”
Incensed the ogre roared.

“Only just a little.

You make me very bored.”

“Bored?” the hapless ogre

Roused himself to say.

And of a sudden hidden

Beneath a stalk of hay

Where the giant stood,

Stood a mouse that ran away.

The mouse was very grey.

“Don't run so fast!” cried Pussy.

“You're such a tiny mite

That I could eat you up

With just a single bite.”

And that is what he did.

And for the clever few

I'll add, Before he swallowed him

Puss bit the mouse in two.

Lest the little mouse

All whole inside the cat

Turn back into a giant.

No. I can't have that.

5-13-14

Fate

Styles

My verse will supersede me.

My life's an also ran.

The statue of “The Thinker”
Is still my favorite man.

The earth is very dirty,

Opinions very crude.

Cover up the “David”!

Indecency and nude.

The country by the prigs

Was always misconstrued.

With me in the gutter,

What true hearts consider lewd.

5-15-14

Secrets

The mountains he is moving,

Pulling heavy stone!

Comment on his blemishes

And plan to live alone.

Sifting through the reasons,

The things you will not say,

None of them is adequate

To have him gone away.

And hope he will be there

At least another day.

Weep for useless Jesus.

Ask god to make him stay.

Then when you are dying,

Upchucked from the sea

Are all the things you didn't say

Still in memory.

Just a little longer

Leave them still unsaid,

And before you talk,

Discover you are dead.

5-15-14

Fate

Adamantly peeking,

Second-guessing fate,

I feel very foolish

Assuming I'll be great.

When I write a poem

That's neither nice nor sham,

I feel very dizzy

And don't know who I am.

And when I write a song

To make a preacher scoff,

I'd better go to bed

And sleep the whole thing off.

Or I add a stanza -

A harried, troubled man -

That puts the poem back

On the place where it began.

I see on leaving Denny's

The circus left behind

Some souvenirs or people,

Distractions for the mind.

5-15-14

Puss In Boots

Poetry

No more writing poems,

Staying up til dawn,

In and out of Denny's.

The dream in me is gone.

What always was a burden

Has now become a chore.

A novelty at 20,

Passe at 64.

I'm lonely and I'm tired,

Though I don't want to die.

The earth may really end,

And heaven's just the sky.

Everyone gives answers,

But no one wonders why.

5-14-14

 

Subjects

I can write a poem.

There isn't any doubt.

It's difficult to know

What to write about.

A little Noel Coward -

Humor in the lines -

Searching for a phrase

In old abandoned mines -

Crack a nasty whip

At misbegotten laws -

Write a pretty tune

On slumber just because -

My head may swarm with notions

Like a comb with bees -

But can I really write

Any one of these?

Quoting Oscar Wilde

In France at last unknown,

“Merci, Monsieur, for listening.

I am much alone.”

5-14-14

Amazon

I said his rhymes were true,

Which I considered praise.

He said I was a idiot

For using such a phrase.

For reasons such as this

No more will I go near

An Amazon reviewer.

The hawk's a chanticleer.

5-14-14

 

Charlie's Poem

Swimming round my skull

Like a school of sharks

Are a lot of voices

Making critical remarks.

Charlie long ago

As much a shark as they

Asked if they were right.
What was I to say?

Nonetheless I'm braver.

Am I getting well?

There's nothing in this country

As ridiculous as hell.

I am very old,

Ignorant and gay.

I make dumb remarks.

There's nothing else to say.

Charlie went to Patton

Crazy as a djinn.

He came out as crazy

As he was when he went in.

Charlie knew the answers.

I never thought I did.

Why can't I wake up?
It's funny. Oh, you kid!

5-14-14

A poem that is pretty

A poem that is pretty

Casts a clever spell.

A poem will retrieve you

From the deepest pit of hell.

A little nursery jingle

My purposes defeats,

Like the inhuman beauty

Of the icy lines of Keats.

A poem that is warm,

Ingenious and true,

Written for the saints

And given just to you.

5-14-14

Puss In Boots

The giant was an ogre.

He hid among the wheat

Seeking tender Englishmen,

A lovely thing to eat,

A ripe and juicy treat,

Succulent and sweet.

Pussy mocked the giant

From whom all others fled.

“You do metamorphosis.

At least I've heard it said.”
“I can grow enormous.

Larger than a house.”
“Piffle!” snorted Puss.

“Change into a mouse!”
“Are you mocking me?”
Incensed the ogre roared.

“Only just a little.

You make me very bored.”

“Bored?” the hapless ogre

Roused himself to say.

And of a sudden hidden

Beneath a stalk of hay

Where the giant stood,

Stood a mouse that ran away.

The mouse was very grey.

“Don't run so fast!” cried Pussy.

“You're such a tiny mite

That I could eat you up

With just a single bite.”

And that is what he did.

And for the clever few

I'll add, Before he swallowed him

Puss bit the mouse in two.

Lest the little mouse

All whole inside the cat

Turn back into a giant.

No. I can't have that.

5-13-14