Thursday's Observations

Jay

They said he was depressive.

With a streak of bravery.

I said I had no friends.

He answered, “You've me.”

Such a bolt of terror -

The terror of the sea -

Ripped my mind and body

Inexplicably.

I did not understand it,

Nor understand it now.

Forty years a puzzle

Sleeps behind my brow.

 

On Keats

Everyone likes Keats

But no one gives a jot

For his sense of beauty

Or the villainy of thought.

They're giving PhDs

For trenchant monographs

On Keats and his opinions.

Is this done for laughs?

I used to worship Keats

And his poetry.

But I had to cease

To continue to be me.

Millay and Brooke are perfect!

Every line's a gem.

Has anybody written

A monograph on them?

And what about Bukowski

And his foray into sh-t?

He is very popular.

And Sondheim is a hit.

 

The Poet

I read about a Chinese

PhD in lit

Who wrote a monograph on Keats.

And quicker than you spit

On a summer afternoon,

Had more than just a few

Books of poems published.

It was really quite a slew.

He had seven nominations

For a Pushcart. I've had two.

So many people published!

What am I to do?

Give up altogether?

It's no good to try!

His latest publication

Is a poem just called “y”.

If I wrote such a poem

It would just be words

Floating disconnected

Like flies adrift in curds!

There! I shot him down.

He didn't print the verse.

Another man's successes

Are a loser's curse.

Revenge

Pretty Steven! Football star and such.

Failed in school, which didn't matter much.

Homely Micki! How she yearned for Stephen,

But unlike all the others, couldn't touch.

In grammar school, in basketball I clowned.

I couldn't play it. Anyone could see.

So pretty, perfect, maladjusted Steven

Pour le sport humiliated me.

So to myself I swore next year in high school,

I'd be in plays, on stage and I'd excel.

I did exactly that. The next four years

I had the leads. Let high school burn in hell!

 

Thursday's Observations

I don't want a house with chummy neighbors

In the corner of a cul-de-sac.

I was raised like Jesus in a village,

And I wouldn't dream of going back.

There's a van parked stupid outside Denny's.

There it sits all rich and white and blue.

A sticker says, “Pro Family, Pro Freedom”

As though there's some connection in the two.

Amazon reviewers rarely matter,

Just another passing Yankee fad.

Forums are for bored and lonely people,

And just another a reason to get mad.

 

Non-Poetry

Everybody limps when they get old.

Their faces wrinkle and their hair falls out.

Has everyone a homophobic sister

Who will not brook the least degree of doubt?

A person has to have a deity

To wrap up his affairs when he is dead,

To answer all the questions he can't answer,

And hit his hateful neighbor in the head.

Defiance

Yes, you mangy bigots,

This is how I feel!

Not gentleman or Christian,

But absolutely real.

For 60 years or more,

Like Claudius, a bloke

With parents whose own parents

Thought he was a joke.

Even my first love,

We seemed a perfect fit,

Asked me with a smirk,

“Why do you eat sh-t?”

Then several years thereafter,

Good enough to f-ck,

I asked each passing fancy,

“Wanna buy a duck?”

Gathering in herds

Of poem making folks

Exchanging phony praises,

Elegies and strokes.

But let somebody think,

Like chickens in a coup,

They peck him til he leaves.

There's courage in a group.

Your talents are a fiction.

No Jesus in a fact.

The purpose of a union

Is to keep itself in tact.

 

Lines

The undeserving poor

That uses to the hilt

Everyone it can.

It's law: Do as thou wilt.

Its happiness is sad,

And decency a myth,

The suffering of hell,

But it will take the fifth.

Its visage and its teeth

Covered by a cowl,

When someone says, “That's mine”

The culpable cry “Foul!”