Flies

Saturday

Another day spent half asleep!
I sit by the computer.

No book I want to read except

Some poems I have written -

Not for pleasure, just to judge

Their merit one more time -

Haydn on the stereo

But in another room -

Beautiful – the same ones keep

Repeating – I may change it -

Don't expect a person to

Be kind because you love him -

I was kind but once – no twice -

No three times – this is endless!

I can hear an English teacher

Talking to his class

About my poems – telling them

What I did, what something means,

Or something indicates -

Like in all the criticisms

That I read of Keats -

At Cathexis people worry

How they come across -

How they seem to other people -

I once worried too -

I'm 67 now and I'm

Not worried anymore -

Haydn's big like Mozart,

But I like Haydn better -

There are questions I would like

To ask a therapist -

But one who's not a phony,

And one who won't say,

“Puzzling, isn't it.”
For this he's paid a mint

And went to college!

This is all the shit I got

For – god! How many years! -

Or else they looked disgusted,

Threw a book or yelled at me.

Improve your self-esteem -

Knock off a shrink!

You'll feel really good about yourself.

Love

Deep in the undergrowth of my

Personality

There must be a need for love,

But I have never felt it.

When my grandpa died I cried -

My only loving parent -

And yet I feel no fondness now

Especially for him.

Nor did when he was living. Stillborn,

I was on the earth,

In the way and awkward. Only

I just loved to talk.

My grandpa gave me money, nickels,

Pennies, dimes and quarters,

And inexpensive presents. These were

All I really loved.

I felt obscene and guilty taking

Money from my grandpa,

And daddy called me bad.

Eleven dollars in his life.

Some go out and look for love.

To some it simply comes.

Some find it at a party unexpected.

Others sing sad songs and live alone.

 

The South

The values and the morals

Of the patriotic south,

Eulogized on Broadway.

I was there once.

Hypocrisy and bigotry

And Jesus Christ forever -

The hangnail on the Union

And the death of liberty.

 

Simile

No one dresses up today -

America's their house -

I must look like Fauntleroy -

The only praise I got.

How like paper to a fly,

I stick to what he told me -

And my penchant for a simile

Came probably from him.

His were nasty bitter things

Intended to be cruel.

Mine are only poesy.

The last from he who sired me.

Grammar is my nemesis.

“Like he -” “Like him” - I'm baffled.

I aced a course in grammar

In college – and forgot it.

 

On Not Dying

I can't die. And I won't die.

Until I'm recognized

And famous just like Keats -

Or see it in the offing.

God's gift to Keats was typical,

Uncaring and obscene.

He died before he saw success

But in imagination.

And I have four cats – one dying -

Until they die themselves

They'll need water, shelter, food,

Fresh litter, daily love.

I write a hybrid poetry -

A modern cynicism,

Confessionals in simple form -

The form itself passe -

 

Nuskey

Nuskey wasn't crazy said the shrink.

Every feeling whether it was nice,

Fair or just unreasonably selfish,

Nuskey showed. For showing it he paid.

He lived alone and ridiculed my manners

And discomfort. Nuskey was a charm,

Sane or crazy. And he said he was

Like everybody else, waiting to die.

Nuskey has his moment in my book

Whether it is published or forgotten.

Like Nuskey I am waiting – just to die.

But I am writing poems while I do.

 

Flies

I was crazy – most likely insane -

And certainly naïve -

Just before I ran aground

I was stormy, but not the sea -

I was human – a virgin life -

No psychology -

Clinging to the bannister -

Descending endless stairs -

I suddenly slipped and slowly fell

Into a deeper sea -

I grabbed a raft and thrashed around -

Then on a foreign shore

Transactional Analysis -

It is the devil's game -

To confuse and baffle

And tangle darkling minds -

Never again will you know yourself,

Be yourself or feel yourself -

And the words you can't explain

Attach themselves to what you think -

Like flies in an aquarium

That float defunct forever -

To rid my mind of psychology -

Especially TA -

No so much the words, as those who said them -

The edifice collapses in the night!

7-17-13