Pope Francis

Pope Francis

Take the congregation by its ears

And tell it things it ought at last to know!

People are the puppets of the church,

Repeating platitudes and persecuting

Those who fit some ancient prejudice.

St. Francis is a person, not a pope,

Sent by god to soothe a troubled world,

To take the emphasis off ugly things,

And tell the little judges,

Little monarchs to be still.

Will he be shot – like Kennedy and King,

Gandhi, Christ, Moscone, Harvey Milk?

Good men are not wanted in the world.

Like poetry and music, will he die?

Assiduously all the world has worked

For centuries to make a joke of justice,

To choke the good, the beautiful, the true,

And always for the god that it created.

And living hell - a human institution -

Cauldron of all ugliness and death -

Will rise – a new Jerusalem – and stand -

A monument to god's insanity!

9-20-13

“Alice's Restaurant”

I remember Arlo. Arlo's movie

Was natural and true. And Arlo said

That he did not like Bach.

No. He liked music.

And finished up the flick with daddy Guthrie

And several others

Blowing on kazoos.

They put this tripe on celluloid and sent

It round to movie houses. Now the world

Knows that Arlo was an honest man

Who blew on a kazoo. And thought it music.

“Ducks”

From what I hear, and I don't hear too well,

A television program known as “Ducks”,
So popular that packaged DVDs

Of its episodes are sold in stores,

Espouses all the bigotries there are,

And an everlasting love of god.

How'd Obama ever get elected?

 

A Summer Afternoon

He is at his studies.

I am writing poems.

And desultorily we're petting cats.

The air conditioner at last came on.

I'm so hot I had to wipe my chest.

The air upon the sweat is cooling me.

He is listening to modern pop,

That I could go without a thousand years.

Through the earphones Wild is playing music,

Which he would go without a thousand years.

My stomach aches. I'm too full of chicken,

Bread and cheese and ice cream. It is wrong

To be a part time vegetarian.

One should be it always. Chickens live.

And no amount of cold derisive laughter

Will make their lives and feelings less important.

I've ceased to tell the world where it is wrong.

Everybody knows it. No one cares.

There's no need for bibles, gods and angels

To tell a man what he already knows.

If his myths were real, he'd wind up sorry.

They aren't. He'll neither suffer nor rejoice.

He'll appropriate the animals

Adapting them to pleasure – or to food.

 

In Defense Of Opera

Imagine sitting 27 hours

Through the first act of Der Meistersinger.

Then you'll have a glimpse of what I feel

Listening to what you think is music.