Kaleidoscope

Writing Too Much

A novelist may turn out thirty pages

Of a chapter in a single day,

Or more. It would have taken Proust a decade

To write “Swann's Way”. Is poetry the same?

I compare myself to Noel Coward

And Donizetti in embarrassment.

Do I write too much for it to be

Worth a damn? Yet Donizetti was

Excellent, prolific. He was dull,

Though Italy adores him. He went mad,

And do did Berg – A nightmare and a death.

 

Daytime

The night is gone. Another night will come.

More stifling of emotions barely felt.

The nightmare will resume. No where to go.

Ugliness and cruelty prevail.

I've been told before that I am wrong.

Many times. So where do I begin?

She'll wake up, the comedy continue.

Even cops consider me a pest.

Take me far – so far away

Take me far – so far away

From the Yankee shore

I'll never hear of Yankees anymore.

That will never happen.

I do not have the dough.

And a world immune to Yankees

The earth will never know.

Yankees are ubiquitous.

And Mourdock nearly tied

With the guy who won.

And an angel died.

Electoral! Obama

Blitzed the august voice

Of god. But nearly tied

With the people's choice.

How many thousand years?

So old, no longer odd!

The people on this planet

Do not deserve a god.

11-7-12

The Ass

“A Sea of Stones” I thought the title heaven,

Lifted from an old forgotten poem

I wrote then rediscovered. And the poems

Before I had them printed seemed divine.

I got some copies yesterday and thought

The songs were homely bastards. Though I sent

Another book called “Bookends” to the printer,

Thinking that those songs were just as good.

Another cheat? Do I resemble Brian

Who praises his own verses which are bad?

I don't praise my poems. I just write them.

I am as Brian's friend defending Brian

Said, a hater. Christ! What silly crap!

Brian is an ass who can't write poems!

And if I can, then I am just an ass.

 

Lines

I'm a fool who writes too many poems.

Are any of them good? I have no plan.

An oyster with a bucketful of sand

In his shell, are any of them pearls?
In Jersey she declared I was a genius

When we met, then bringing out the dogs,

Said I was mundane. I went away

In the wake of her attacks (and there were several).

She didn't write again, or ask me stay.

Was this foreseen by her? I know I'm guessing.

I don't care. Her letter's were complaints

About New Jersey's governor and weather.

And flattery for verses that I sent.

And little else. She had too many friends.

Although I didn't mention this conceit,

I dreamed we were Tchaikovsky and his friend.

The lonely dream imaginary things.

The staff at Denny's make a better friend.

Lines

Why can't I crawl into somebody's head,

Spread litter on their brain, and go to sleep?
The few who said they wanted to be friends

Didn't make me feel. The ones I loved

Were little people, little like myself.

Some sang songs. The one with an umbrella,

David, is the nicest I recall.

I have loved. I doubt I will again.

Although since him, it's mad to be alone.

He is here. I don't know what he's thinking.

Guess at minds? A useless undertaking.

Some people never tell you what they feel,

Get angry when you ask. And then like Buck,

Just make it evident they want to scr-w.

In such a case, one pr-ck is like another.

Young boys will do obeisance to his beauty.

You're slipping like the ocean from his prow.

 

Mother

I never had a relative.

I never had a friend.

My screaming mother gave this house to me.

Too afraid to speak

Since Jacqui silenced me,

Sixteen years ago I fell in love.

Never tell the truth.

They'll crucify your ass.

Just go along, love god, get old and die.

No. I had a relative.

A grandfather. He died.

My mother sabotaged the whole affair.

My mother took the reins.

And when she was asked,

She didn't say she wanted me alive.

 

Writing Too Much

A novelist may turn out thirty pages

Of a chapter in a single day,

Or more. It would have taken Proust a decade

To write “Swann's Way”. Is poetry the same?

I compare myself to Noel Coward

And Donizetti in embarrassment.

Do I write too much for it to be

Worth a damn? Yet Donizetti was

Excellent, prolific. He was dull,

Though Italy adores him. He went mad,

And do did Berg – A nightmare and a death.

 

Not Libel

Let her go, a shuttle from the ship,

Into the sea of space, into the sun.

She'll strangle me if I don't let her go.

She drove me crazy once. Don't make it twice.

She murders people. So did Jack the Ripper.

He was never caught. She won't be either.

So I should write some poems about him?

Did he die old? And happy? So will she.

I lose. She wins. Another game I lose.

A game I wasn't playing. Tell me why

I sat there seven months before I quit.

It's all completely crazy. I'm insane.

She'll drag me down again if I don't stop.

There are bad people in the world. She's one.

 

A Wish

I just spent the morning writing poems.

As Jill once said, I just “crank them out.”
Christ! Another fan like her, I'll quit!

To hell with Jill. I'm thinking now of you.

I can't believe that you don't want my love,

A gentle word that only wants affection,

Not your money. Not your transportation.

Not your body. But a love that's shy.

A love that gives is ready to receive,

But only wishes. Poor men wish for free.

You already told me I don't love.

And some time later, said I love too much.

Which is true? As far as your concerned.

Your parents, her. You love them. God know why.

I culled my family. And I threw them back.

I'm not Shakespeare. This is not a sonnet

Kaleidoscope

Keats' thinking is in letters to his brothers.

Mine's in poems.

Jill compared my letters to her sister -

“Loquacious and self-centered”. Junkets said

He'd read his favorite passages until

They sounded vacuous to him. And I

Can read a book of mine and in my soul

Celebrate that I could do such magic.

Then read it once again – abysmal trash.

Or start with trash and wind up on a throne.

 

The Book

She wrote a book, alone in secrecy.

She wrote about her husband,

And everything he did

In infinite detail.

And lo! The book was published.

Not only published, read,

Translated and then spread

Through the literate world.

Her husband read it.

When he saw himself in her description

He exploded into rage and shot her dead.

And he was convicted. At the trial

The judge before he told the man the verdict,

Told him that his name would be immortal,

And everything he'd ever said or done.

 

Every night while he's asleep

Every night while he's asleep,

My love comes back to me.

Then he awakes

And life goes on from there.

When he's happy, when he laughs,

Heaven's at the gate.

I walk through,

And paradise is mine.

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