The Immortal Ones

Lifestyles

A life of pot and television,

Beer and loveless sex -

Nether Coward, Wilde nor Kaufman -

Television isn't funny -

Never Kafka, only King -

When you've read a hundred stories -

La Scala or the Great White Way -

Interesting anecdotes -

No one you can tell them to -

No one who can tell you others -

But the freedom to discover

What you love and make it home

Before the preachers and the people

Tell you what you ought to love -

Love what everybody loves -

Get tattoos and get in step -

To be someone else's poet -

Millay and Brooke and Keats are mine -

Nothing lower than a license

Plate will tell you what to do -

Get tattoos and go to Jesus -

No one's funny anymore -

Who?

Who has ever told you

You are odious and wicked?

Do your sycophants

And lovers and your friends?

The sea would be a desert if

Your lover were Poseidon.

You would siphon up the water,

And you'd never pour it back.

The sky would have no stars.

You'd gather them in baskets,

Leave the midnight in a darkness.

Even Hades has some light.

But hell is where you came from,

And it's hell you will return to

When all destinies are over,

And the fate of Man is death.

 

Various Psychos

First are the psychos

Who murder and kill,

Do what they want to

And do what they will.

Then are the psychos

Forgiving and shy,

Wouldn't say no

If it meant they would die.

Psychos like Elwood,

Gregarious drunk -

Psychos like Stanley,

Inarticulate hunk -

Or psychos like Cato's

Malevolent punk -

The Immortal Ones

The false conviction – immortality -

A name, a face and notwithstanding wrinkles -

Oblivious to life's finality -

Like a star departed that still twinkles -

Sensitive sadistic little creatures -

Anything is better than alone -

Self-observing players in the bleachers -

Believe until the final shovel's thrown -

10-2-12

The Chalk Garden

A garden sewn with chalk

Or salt, and verses carved

From the poet's bones

In intricate designs

That stand upon a mantel

Warm, but from the hearth.

The room is big and empty.

The grate's aglow at midnight

In winter. But it's summer

Now. The fire's gone.

6-17-13

 

The Castle

Is anybody ever all that free?

The drawbridge down, the battlements stand high,

And a ghost will exit cross the moat.

Clouds appear, the dark is nigh

And rain incipient. A wooden boat

Floats toward the castle from the sea.

Madmen who have wept no longer cry.

5-27-13

The Carnival

The dreary similarity

Of everything I write,

Like going to the carnival

Every single night

Knowing that the Ferris Wheel

Is shut completely down.

Nothing is as boring as

A repetitious clown.

Should I go back and resurrect

The ones that I did best,

Or leave them in the past to be

Forgotten like the rest?

3-19-13

The Castle

We are living in a castle.

We can hear outside the taunts.

Denying himself anything

Except the things he wants.

7-10-13

If you like my poems, I have some collections on Amazon, both paper and Kindle.  On Amazon, type Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.