A Summer Morning

Perfection

A certain tone of voice can make

An evening warm and loving

Which a slight inflection

Different would spoil.

Some notes of sound create a song

That two notes other ruin.

A single word can end a poem

A different one would mar.

A Summer Morning

Like the surf, sleep pulls me down

When I would stay awake.

This morning like all summer dawns

Reminds me of the past.

A summer morning, 5 a.m. -

The Air Force, basic training -

Everybody's groggy, out in front

And standing stiff.

A hateful feeling, never lost -

Fifty years – indelible -

And every morning since, the same

At 5 a.m. in summer -

But this time not with brogans,

But with coffee and Millay -

Not in Texas on the ground -

In Denny's in a booth -

Now that I have written this

The sleepiness is gone.

Although it's dark and silent still,

It's just another morning.

Claptrap

The age of needs and choice

And responsibility,

Punctured ears and purple hair,

Rings and pins through every part

And orifice, tattoos -

Jesus god! Will every living

Creature have tattoos?
Who among the people

Was the first to try?
He's the individual.

All the rest are sheep.

Music very slowly

Is turning down the volume.

No talent is emerging so

They're turning to the past.

Opera and classical

Deceive the avant guard.

Art is still ridiculous.

(A speedy trip to fame.)

Will poetry come back again?
Does anybody want it?

Well, that's enough for culture.

Now let's turn to war.

The Church & Beauty

Keats my god! My god! Am I entranced?

In love? Deluded? Why do I like Keats?

He's dead. But now Millay and Brooke could write

Infinities of pleasure, goodness love.

Evil milks them. Notify the church.

They must be devils. Follow them to hell

And lock them down. Such beauty can't exist

Anywhere but hell. The church is good.

And that is all the masses need to think.

Poe can stay above. The people love him.

200 years. His words have lost their charm.

Poetaster of a lesser god.

Send those who come from Keats and still confused,

To Brooke, Millay – all riddles isolated,

And heightened to unbearable confusion.

The Inchoate Poet

I wrote a poem with a single flaw.

My teacher said to make it an inversion,

Then the poem would be beautiful.

I said I thought inversions were a goat.

He handed back his fee and said to go.

Adding that in seven months or two,

A day, an hour, or a second reading

Possibly I'd see it. Furious,

Indignant, homicidal and ashamed,

I took my verse and went. Then I returned

Angry. And the pedant showed no fear.

With a fist I bashed him in the face.

His skull cracked open. Birds and feathers flew

From the hollow cranium

Into the silent air.

And from the ceiling came with repetition,

“A day, an hour or a second reading.”

Skinner

Maybe crazy Skinner had the answer.

No dynamics. And the head a hollow gourd.

Reinforcement. If the tactic works.

So dull! So blind! So colorless! Perhaps

To crave for more disproves the truths of Skinner.

Is there something in the head at all

That doesn't bring confusion and regret?
Procrustes! And a true philosophy.

Leave out any part that doesn't fit

The theory you've concocted. Then get published.

Once in print, you're qualified to teach.