The Decision
Chief Justice Roberts, what do you
Perceive the prime objective
Of the First Amendment
Ought to be?
Not to lessen homicides,
Assault, melee and riots,
Clearly. And efficiency
Would – in the vernacular -
Just make these things less likely.
Not for nine great justices
To weigh in their decision.
But all that their decision should
consider.
Embarrassment
Sixty-seven years and suddenly
I'm awkward and embarrassed -
Not embarrassment for anything
I ever did, but what I'm doing now,
Which is nothing – sitting in a
booth,
Scratching on a pad and drinking tea.
They talk to me. I crumble. What is
this?
I was better when I was insane.
And perhaps I wasn't until now.
Ceaseless verses coming out of me
Like drool upon the paper. Let it
rain!
I almost do not want to write another.
Sixty-seven years. I never did.
The Laugh
I'm easily embarrassed.
I thought she looked at me.
I didn't understand it
So I gave a little laugh.
She still continued looking.
She did not laugh with me.
I turned a little.
She was looking passed me.
Crazy In Denny's
The second day. I went into Denny's,
Took a seat and suddenly I'm crazy -
Silly, mad and selfish -
Foolish and embarrassed -
My mind like roofs of churches is
collapsing
At the onslaught of the infidel.
My mother's dead. My father went
before her.
Their parents and their siblings –
all deceased -
Now I am alone – be born again -
Or take the first one and go on from
there -
Go on to where? I'm getting old and
older -
I have a friend and maybe he will stay
-
Otherwise – there are the ones at
Denny's -
They don't talk as much as he and I.
Trevor
Trevor – very wacky – long ago -
A wild man – an angry man – and
handsome -
Told me once that he was very shy.
Trevor shy? I didn't understand it.
The most outgoing person that I knew.
And his love – an ogre from a swamp -
Very ugly – Trevor was a child -
Not the master of his fate he seemed -
That's a stupid thing to say – but he
-
His lover – seemed in charge -
And Trevor stammered -
When he was with him and not at Denny's
-
In The Daylight
I was in a subway train,
Romantic and passe,
Darkly in a tunnel going
Underneath a bay.
Keats is very beautiful,
And Rupert Brooke, Millay.
Are they read or much less written
Anywhere today?
Finally Rimbaud,
A very ugly beauty. There
Are pimples on the asses
Of the ladies. You may stare.
Keats shaped poetry for years.
Millay and Brooke just wrote.
Rimbaud inspired millions -
The fascination of a goat.
Or the wrestling of two lesbians
That all your reason wrecks -
Neither work nor college
Nor getting old – just sex.
I will not stand in church
With Browning and the cherubim -
And Rimbaud is just disgusting -
And I will not follow him.
Middle Brow
Classical enthusiasts
Have sneered at me. They have!
Have sneered at me. They have!
Because I'm drawn to Broadway.
What a lowbrow guy am I!
Bernstein the conductor
Of the New York Philharmonic
Also liked a Broadway show.
He wrote a few himself.
Movie Versions
Marilyn was beautiful.
I loved her. But oh my!
Standing in for Channing
In the role of Lorelei
Was an awful blunder.
Having Russell singing Rose
On Broadway in Manhattan
Would cause better shows to
close.
Harburg
Most of Harburg's lyrics
Are radical and say
Things about the country
That could be said today.
But that is not the end
Of what this lyricist could
do.
He deftly bridged the gap
between
The beautiful and true.
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