Broken People

People

Everybody wants to be in love -

Or seems to be and somehow it just happens.

Did someone write a rule that Man must follow?

“Find a partner. You must be in love.”

No one's happy just to be alone.

People seem to travel on a track,

Linear from birth to death, not veering.

When the day is sunny, they thank god.

The tracks washed out ahead – again, praise god.

And death consumes them all without a dime.

The world was built, but now it's falling down.

This occurs in every generation.

Even music's having a rebirth.

Poesy may soon be back in style.

(In time for me? I doubt I'm good enough.)

I look out the window. I see horses

And people who do not appear to see.

6-2-14

Not Alone

I think he loves me. Once again. Or still.

The gargoyle growl I saw when he was angry

He showed me when he wasn't. I don't know

What to say or ask. It puzzles me.

I love him. And for nearly 20 years

Over rocks or floating on a stream

Or lying in green meadows in the sun

We have been platonic and a friend,

And lived together in a single house.

Forever we will never be alone.

What monstrous madness to be by myself?
It did not hurt before, but now it does.

A world of white with sunlight glaring off it.

Too much visible and nothing dark

And warm and cool and moist. To be alone.

Miserable at home, no where to go

That isn't anxious, empty and absurd.

Am I crazy? Pay the check and go.

6-2-14

An Honest Man

If I only knew the truth

I'd be an honest man,

Perhaps the only honest man I know.

But I think folks are honest pretty much,

Because it is the simplest policy,

Nothing to remember or conceal.

But I am no Diogenes. To hell

With the truth in other people's lies.

6-2-14

Faith

Sixty years ago I had a neighbor

Who said he'd make a quiver for my arrows.

He never did. I asked him constantly.

He finally got mad and told me Never!

Is this the basis of my disbelief

In every person living on this planet?
How very silly! Man is just untrue.

6-2-14

 

Splendid

Some people I have known are very special.

It seems they always fall in love with me.

I couldn't handle them. I was not perfect,

Like special people always think they are.

Understand the world through Grecian eyes.

Special people. Marble does not die.

Live with me immortal til we're dead,

Forgetting death a moment while we live.

You are brave, a synonym for splendid.

Physical Therapy

Surely he can see I once was pretty

Long ago. Although my father's mother

Told me that I wasn't. Strangers did,

Pretty men who loved me in effect.

Now I'm old, my legs in therapy -

With children, giggling women who are fat,

Athletes, old men who can barely walk

Helped along by wives in better shape,

Therapists who try to be sincere.

What's the therapy for getting old?

6-2-14

 

Broken People

You have to be broken to care.

Perfect people live perfect lives

With lots of savoir faire,

Too aloft to care

Or even see you there.

But if you're broken too much,

You'll shy from unfamiliar love,

Wince at someone's touch,

Reach for life but clutch,

Or sequester in your hutch

And go no where.

6-2-14

 

A London Magazine

A little London magazine is out.

Articles on Eliot and Shakespeare.

Eliot was brilliant. That is clear.

And educated. But he was no poet.

And Pound – I guess an educated man

Like Eliot – was also not a poet.

Shakespeare was a poet and a man,

Not fussing with obscure and new techniques.

He just wrote verse with beautiful ideas.

A simple task though very few have done it.

Charming notions beautifully expressed.

In this issue are some other poets -

I read the blurb. I didn't buy the zine.

Perhaps I should. I don't want to mess

With modern poets. It would make me angry.

A total lack of talent, and conceit.

With Shakespeare in a little magazine.

Nor will I send them something that I wrote.

They won't publish me. And I am sure

The editor will think that I'm a fool.

6-3-14