Unknown

Nobody

A malicious psychotic at Denny's

Just will not leave me alone.

She sticks in the knife to the hilt,

Then twists til it scratches a bone.

She looks like a made up cadaver

With a false little bloom in her hair.

She rocks side to side when she's walking.

She's a waitress who'll give you a scare.

A dead disinterred Pollyanna,

Too long above ground she will rot.

She helps with your life or your supper,

Whether you like it or not.

5-26-14

 

Mrs. Dobson & Mrs. Wharton

No one's good. Although some men are bad.

The saintly ones – like widows in their houses -

Live alone and love. Or try to help,

To put a friendly kiss on open wounds

On lonely kids with only hurt at home.

Though gentle when it's done, it doesn't heal

The hurt, the home. But she will be remembered.

Evil doesn't wish to be remembered,

Except to glory in its vanity,

But with no love. Perhaps the bad want love,

But only get it from a sycophant,

Like Wagner with his little lonely king.

Aside from this, the nearest being good

Is doing nothing bad. And rituals

Like empty greetings strangers give each other,

Never knowing who they gave them to.

 

The Kitten

To see a kitten dashing through the rain

And dive among the garbage by a can

For shelter. And you lean and pick him up,

Wrap him in your coat and hurry on.

His little clocklike heart and sodden fur

And tiny warmth inside your coat,

And love has found a home.

End Of The Fourth

The 4^th is over. Finally it's done.

The fireworks that really sound like bombs

And staggered made me jump are finished now.

People crowding people after melons,

Flags on t-shirts, baskets filled with chips,

Buns and beer and hot dogs stand in line.

While from the parking lot and through the doors

Come waves of people, after that another,

As if from the ocean. Ceaseless sea.

The 4^th is over. Nothing but the night.

Facts

Men don't change beliefs because of facts.

They catch the one who brought the information,

Bind him fast and toss him in a pond.

If he drowns, they dredge him up and pray,

And bury him in consecrated ground.

But if he floats they tie him to a post,

And burn him til his ashes fall apart.

Echoes

I reach, I touch, I grasp,

I jerk back quickly.

Nothing's there.

Again I'm only dreaming.

Four cats and each of them has found a place

To sleep if not to sleep on. In the silence,

I'm waking, and I wait to take the car

To Denny's where I may continue sleeping.

Death and life, and sleep and waking – one

Would think they were a true antipodes.

It may come deeper,

May not come at all.

Halls and empty rooms. The ocean rises.

The coming water muffles every sound,

And all the echoes in the hollow castle

Resounding, bounding off the granite walls.

And I'm still dreaming,

Now of ancient things.

Half asleep, but still I cannot wake.

I stretch on the elastic, then recoil

To a sweet uncomfortable sleep

That I cannot get free of, like a glue.

 

The Disappearance

Could the edifice be cracking?

I see alabaster dust

Floating in the sunlight.

It may be so. It must.

The jackal ate the lambkins.

But the lion on the prowl

Will recognize the jackal

With a pained and angry howl.

And the forest will be peaceful

Through a calm and endless night.

Agony is over.

And happiness is right.

 

Unknown

Anyone who writes some poems flaunts them.

I write poems too, but no one wants them.

Will anybody see them when I'm dead?
Will they decay unnoticed and unread?

My life is nearly over, I am still

Like a trolley scaling every hill

In San Francisco where the beauty lay

Among the flower mongers by the bay

In the early dawn, as safely then

As the chicks beneath their mother hen.

The Defeatist

Like Keats who sat and read

The negative reviews,

A priest who gives his love

To a church of empty pews,

A lonely cat that's sick

In the woods at night,

A guru who laments

Nothing in the world is right,

So I fashion poems,

A miserable romance,

Knowing in advance

They do not have a chance.