Truths

Misgivings

I will only give away or sell

13 books – the good ones – and the first.

The rest of them – like feces – have a smell.

13 books. The others are the worst.

Even things I'm writing while I sit

At night in Denny's – only pass the hour.

Rimbaud and Keats – one by death – both quit.

I didn't die or cease – I just went sour.

But 13 books. I wrote them. They delight.

Though style and sentiment are both passe.

I don't care what other people write.

If all of them are better than Millay,

I'll trade my books at Denny's for cafe.

Suppose I'm right. And those 13 books

Are excellent, as I suppose them so.

If just someone at Denny's ever looks

Inside the covers, who will ever know?

Lines

F-cked from birth. That family!

He never liked to kiss.

The shrink he told that problem to

Said he gave his all to love.

And other sideways sayings

That were no help at all.

But poesy! A raft

That floats upon the ocean

In which people swim.

The sea is very calm tonight.

The ocean's beautiful.

And when I die and in a grave

Say I was no better, only

Able to write poems.

I was not Keats – a bulwark.

Nor gentle like Millay.

Life

I don't want to live. I want to think,

And manage my best notions in a song.

Life has nothing for me. In a song

It's beautiful. But ugliness and death

Some asses like manure shovel out.

The real stuff smells bad enough.

Then verse! Facsimile.

Don't people wish for happiness and love?

Death is hell. And happiness is love.

Age

Is age a horror everyone ignores

Until it's theirs? And death a consummation?
The breaking down of bodies. The regret

When beauty passes that it cannot touch.

Beauty comes in many different guises.

The arrogant and pretty. Affectation!

The love that makes a kind one beautiful.

Truths

I'm writing truths. My, yes! And everyone

Knows some truths. Republicans

Know truths that even Jesus didn't know.

Madmen have some trouble finding truths.

Change

The naïve believe that something's going to change.

It never does. And only god or bombs

Can change the world. In 80 billion years

It only changed from algae to a man.

When a child, I tried to kill myself.

When I woke, my father said, “Don't think

Anything will change.” It never did.

I hadn't thought of change but of demise.

But until I left, my mother said

To my father and to me, “I've got to change him.”
People who are beautiful like you

Sit and think, assimilate and learn

(All done privately, without a sound)

And so change, but do it consciously.

Otherwise they only want a friend.

If you like my poems, I have several collections on Amazon, both paperback and Kindle.  Type Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.  Thanks.

The Symbol

The Symbol

The symbol of psychiatry

Is The Centipede

Lying on his back in grass

That grows inside a ditch.

A hundred senseless legs

Flailing helplessly at last.

The centipede was asked

How he walked and he

Because he didn't know

Watched his feet, became confused,

Stumbled, tripped and fell

Into the ditch,

Where he's discovered now.

And in his head unweeping -

Too confounded now to weep

Or think at all –

Mill a million pieces

Of misbegotten thoughts

Criticizing every

Near-completed act,

Snuffed in action.

Hell for therapists

Is a pit of burning words.

And every clause is theirs.

Criticism kills.

And shrinks kill absolutely.

 

What Happened

Once I was a poet,

Mellow and naïve.

Genius though inchoate.

Strangers don't deceive.

My psyche blew apart.

My thinking went astray.

The feelings in my heart

Simply went away.

The verses I wrote then

Now I can't create.

My poesy is gone.

I'm living out my fate.

My poesy is gone.

With much too much to say

I keep writing on.

What crap I write today!

The Gift

He handed me his heart

And all that appertained.

I could have answered yes

And had it for an hour.

Instead I fell in love.

I'll have him til I die.

 

Bukowski

The youth adore Bukowski -

The beauty of a fart -

Almost like Genet -

Beaten by his daddy,

He took it out on art.

The art that is today.

Tout le monde

Everyone in town

And on the north side of Visalia

Can tell you just exactly where I live.

Day and night for years

They've come in legions to my home,

Many tattoos marching,

And nothing is forbidden.

Sartre's right.

This is hell.

Anyone who reads my verse

And doesn't weep for me

Has a heart of stone.

My heart is dead.

 

The Demon There

I am 67 and

Beginning to observe

People that I pass in public

On the street aren't looking

For any provocation

To jump out and me

And hit me.

That is me.

A Song

Really down inside of me I'm dead.

Jacqui killed me many years ago.

Still a little happiness comes through

When we are relaxed, and I'm with you.

All the poetry I never read

Will wash away with things I'll never know.

My verse is good again. But I am old.

My songs are soft to touch, like purple mold.

Contracts

Contracts

Cats do not form contracts

To save each other's feelings.

Their crafts on water blindly sail,

No guilts and no repealings,

And yet aware, indifferent.

However, if they choose,

They'll react. To chase the strings

Loose on someone's shoes.

Did people who enjoy their lives

Indifferent to others'

Wishes have neglectful or

Have very doting mothers?

7-14-13

 

Contracts

Security and certainty and love!

Freedom is for birds that fly in flocks.

Therapists would tell me I am sick,

But oblique and sly, an implication

That only therapists would understand.

Poetry! The refuge of the lone

Who are not lonely in their poetry.

Poetry is joy. And music too.

As it was. Creation has miscarried.

Everyone composes, no one well.

Their songs are loved. Like violence and god.

For no reason. Just because they're there.

8-18-13

 

Doubts

A long time ago when we met

He said (or believed) I was good.

The tide has gone out.

Still I don't doubt

I write poems – or would if I could.

Poems, A Metaphor

Poems are like life.

A stanza stops. It's done.

Followed by another song

Tomorrow.

Soon there are a hundred books

Of poems yesterday,

Forgotten, but in covers

To open once again.

Life

I knew that I was honest

When I thought, “It's George's money.”

I felt it. I was worried. It was his.

She is waiting, ready

To grab some bucks and run

Like she did before.

Such things are done.

A barber in Delano

Who was generous they said

Was murdered. He was 88.

Now he's only dead.

Bruce is our mechanic.

He is good to us and kind.

He trusts us.

But he always looks behind.

 

Wish

I want to be a poet who is read

And remembered after he is dead.

Not because he spat into a sink

Like Bukowski when he took a drink.

Not for burning temples. But because

He is very good at what he does.

I see two books beside me by the cup

Of coffee, and they lift my spirits up.

I know they're good, although I don't know why.

And who is going to see them when I die?

In youth there were sweet stories to be told.

Now I write with meaning for the old.

The bards of love – beautiful and sage

Died early or died old, but didn't age.

Victoria

Wish

I want to be a poet who is read

And remembered after he is dead.

Not because he spat into a sink

Like Bukowski when he took a drink.

Not for burning temples. But because

He is very good at what he does.

I see two books beside me by the cup

Of coffee, and they lift my spirits up.

I know they're good, although I don't know why.

And who is going to see them when I die?

In youth there were sweet stories to be told.

Now I write with meaning for the old.

The bards of love – beautiful and sage

Died early or died old, but didn't age.

Contrast

Millay made gentle and beautiful things.

Bukowski made a mess.

The guy in Athens

Who torched the temple

So he'd live in fame,

Because in all the realms of art,

He couldn't do anything better.

Misgivings

I will only give away or sell

13 books – the good ones – and the first.

The rest of them – like feces – have a smell.

13 books. The others are the worst.

Even things I'm writing while I sit

At night in Denny's – only pass the hour.

Rimbaud and Keats – one by death – both quit.

I didn't die or cease – I just went sour.

But 13 books. I wrote them. They delight.

Though style and sentiment are both passe.

I don't care what other people write.

If all of them are better than Millay,

I'll trade my books at Denny's for cafe.

Suppose I'm right. And those 13 books

Are excellent, as I suppose them so.

If just the folks at Denny's ever looks

Inside the covers, who will ever know?

 

Victoria

Victoria said to her shrink,

“Doctor, please teach me think!”

But her doctor, half shot,

Was a horrible sot,

So Victoria bought him a drink,

Which he threw up in the sink.

That was a mean thing to say.

And limericks now are passe.

But Victoria's nice.

And flowers and rice

Very soon will be coming her way.

But right here at Denny's she'll stay!

Theories

The foolishness that poems simply come

In one unconscious rush – like sh-t and vomit.

They often do. But sometimes need some thought

Mixed with this to make the poem right.

Revisions in the making. What did Keats

Mean – that if a poem doesn't come

As natural as leaves come to a branch,

It had best not come at all? And now

With industry I'm trying to create

Songs as good as what I wrote before.

Mellow poems filling 13 books.

Now forged upon an anvil with a stone.

Victoria


After working all night for her pay,
It's too early for hitting the hay.
But funny and bright,
In Denny's last night,
She traded me books for cafe.

Changeling

Changeling

Diamonds in a pile of sh-t

Glitter in the night.

Diamonds! The precious few

Poems I got right.

Has my gift evaporated,

Talent gone away?

When I was in love with Keats

I could have been Millay.

 

Crowds

Too many people are making me crazy,

Though all of them are nice.

Several of them came by,

And two or three came twice.

67 and I still

Am bogus in a crowd.

Thank you god for insanity,

And all I am allowed.

 

Jacqui & Mary

Hounded and stalked by a vixen.

I could not stay aloof.

So I told my deep confusion

To a salivating wolf.

 

Relaxing

I was crazy in Denny's tonight -

Too much, to fast, too soon.

I'm still crazy at home in bed.

I cannot see the moon.

The methods in the songs of Millay

Follow to the end.

Mine are quilts of patches.

What do they portend?

But still I think they're pretty,

Each surprising riff.

I wish that I were diving

Into the ocean from a cliff.

If you like my poems, I have some collections on Amazon (both Kindle and paperback).  Go to Joseph Hart Poetry.  Thanks.

Self-Destructive

Needs

He wants her for pot.

I only want love.

Pot I haven't got.

And love – there's nothing better.

But when old men lie withered

And grandmas lose their brains,

Love is dead, and just a little

Cartilage remains.

Perhaps it isn't love.

Love is just for two

And simply leads to pleasure.

Really, happiness will do.

 

Self-Destructive

Self-destructive men

Unhappy with their lives

Are usually nice

And marry vicious wives.

They can look behind.

They see what went before.

God only knows the reason

They go back for more.

Frequently they're happy.

Often they are kind.

Nature, god or mommie

Does something to the mind.

And if I had the power
With just a single touch

I'd show you that you're worth

Much more than this. So much.

Francis

Francis

Francis was my first love.

It wasn't Charlie Nance.

And he would be my lover

If I had the chance.

They told me he was funny.

That's when it began.

They said his name was Francis.

Francis was a man.

This is all I knew.

I hadn't seen him yet.

The final consummation

Occurred the day we met.

His visage was a blur.

His attitude was soft.

I loved to see him laugh.

Never have I scoffed

To love unseen a person

From just a couple facts.

Nature is insane.

Who knows what attracts?

 

Advice

I am not a doctor.

My view of life is hazy.

But you loving her

Is absolutely crazy.

The barracks cynicism

Apparently you've heard

Is false. I have known women -

Gentle as a bird,

Reliable and pleasant,

Thoughtful, happy, kind,

Who'd smile to be your lover.

Seek and ye shall find.

Goodness is passe.

But some women still are good

Like you. You could have any

If you thought you could.

Taste

They nailed Millay in later life

For anti-fascist poems.

Pro-fascist would have

Made them happier.

America has got no taste -

The critics never had it.

Forgotten now for Robert Frost,

Sondheim and Bukowski.

No one's ever published me,

So I must have no talent.

But I don't sing of blood lust

And my toilet backing up.

 

Nature's Friends

Cats know when you're sad.

That's when they befriend you.

They lie upon your bed,

Walk across your lap,

Nestle in your arm,

In the crook of it,

Cuddle there and sleep.

Their presence and affection

Are all they have to give.

Is it intuition

Or something in their souls

That tells them you're unhappy?

What advocate of heaven

Makes angels out of cats?

Writing Poems

Cynical or trusting,

Nasty or benign,

I must continue writing

Poems til I die,

Or I shall die.

Whether I am good it

Or it's an avocation,

I have to think that

Somewhere there is beauty.

 

Our Interests

Americans have interests

All around the globe
Which require several wars

In each administration.

With so many interests

In other people's countries

(Ridiculous if bullets didn't hurt)

Why are Yanks

So very much alone?

The End In Denny's

Taste

They nailed Millay in later life

For anti-fascist poems.

Pro-fascist would have

Made them happier.

America has got no taste -

The critics never had it.

Forgotten now for Robert Frost,

Sondheim and Bukowski.

No one's ever published me,

So I must have no talent.

But I don't sing of blood lust

And my toilet backing up.

 

Rhythm

I hope I have a knack for rhythm.

For me it's practice, not innate.

And since the poem of my youth

(Like the “Fairy Queen” for Keats)

Thus caught, it was the love

Of my poetic life.
Meter always was inborn,

Coming fluently and flawless.

But rhythm is the burden of my soul

Though difficult.

 

The End In Denny's

How sweet to be alone and quiet.

He's asleep

At home. We had an argument.

The argument is over.

I'm in Denny's. And I'll leave

In just five minutes more.

It's 2. The bars are closing.

The drunks are coming in.

Saturday and I forgot -

Forgot and came to Denny's.

How bleak the morning started out,

And now I cannot sleep.

The poets that Americans

Embrace, then disavow,

At last embracing no one.

The end of art is now.

Changing Trains

Asleep In Denny's

You only want love,

A brother, a friend.

Underneath the wing

Of darkness like a death,

Cool and warm, a shadow

I'm lying in your arms.

Could this be just a metaphor?

A poem without rhymes.

 

Pending Death

My days of writing poesy

Are at an end. Now what?

I figured when I finished

I would die.

I am finished,

But I am not dead.

I think I read that Junkets wished

To write for several years -

Enough to make him famous -

And then to stop.

Death stopped him sooner.

I am 68

Thinking

Had you as many faults as I,

I'd criticize you plain -

Like something fallen from the sky,

More sweetly glad than rain.

Gently on the phone you spoke

From a drowsy blur.

Had you only just awoke

You would have sounded sure.

When we talk and sit and laugh

There's something to be had

From life, not plotted on a graph,

And not always sad.

 

Intelligent Art

All that recommends my songs

Is I'm supposed to be

Really quite intelligent,

And I'm not sure of that.

Also I am not convinced

Intelligence has much

Bearing on the output of

Human works of beauty.

 

Here

My books are dusty. The record shelves

Are scarred and scratched and old.

The records and the movies too

Now are rarely played.

Sometime during ever day

I make the bed and fold

The afghan. On the windowsill

Lies yellow cat puke crust.

Every morning first at dawn

I change the kitty litter,

Scoop new food in two large bowls

And fill the water fresh.

 

Our Interests

Americans have interests

All around the globe
Which require several wars

In each administration.

With so many interests

In other people's countries

(Ridiculous if bullets didn't hurt)

Why are Yanks

So very much alone?

American Poets

Dickinson and Poe.

Poe for just a small

Volume of strange lyrics,

Strangely beautiful,

But not enough to fill an afternoon.

For Dickinson a myriad

Of little malformed pieces,

And of the lot the few of them

Whose charms can make me love

I can memorize in half an hour.

And Whitman just a hairy formless

Bumptious bunch of words

That only reach the real folk

Who don't like poetry.

After that – 200 years -

Who else wrote poetry?
Yankees have a skewed and jaded

Sense of liberty

That may keep expanding til

There is no freedom left.

Edna Millay

One American poet -

Edna St. Vincent Millay -

In the 20^th Century -

Whose fame was spun like a weather cock

By the fickle breath of critics -

As Keats' was only once.

This one American poet

Stood not on the shoulders

Of giants;

The giants stand on hers.

Every line quintessence -

Every melody sweet

However bittersweet -

True rhymes and flawless rhythms -

And every song germane.

Like Sappho she'll be loved -

Plato's other wonder -

But not for just three thousand years –

Now Libraries abound,

And she's in everyone.

 

Changing Trains

I was in a fen

Fiddling with Millay.

Johnny Keats was lifeless. I had

Sucked the nectar dry.

Although still his songs were beautiful.

Stranded on a rock,

No inspiration left

To spur me into writing.

Although my poems never were like his.

Then an inspiration came -

Millay – herself a Muse -

A new one I had read

Many times and many years before,

Indifferent.

There's beauty in her songs,

A deep simplicity.

And like a soft sun blazing through

The mist on foggy days,

Millay supplanted Keats

And I was in another train.

The selfsame journey – poesy -

And destination – death.

I won't say either's better,

Or deny they're different.

Or think I understand this evolution.

Nature's Friends

Nature's Friends


Cats know when you're sad.
That's when they befriend you -
Sleep on your bed,
Walk on your lap,
Nestle in your arm -
In the crook of it -
Cuddle there and sleep.
Their presence and affection
Are all they have to give.
Is it intuition
Or something in their souls
That tells them you're unhappy?
What advocate of heaven
Made angels of the cats?


"Our Interests"


America has interests
All around globe
Which requires several wars
In each administration.
With so many interests
In other people's countries
(Ridiculous if bullets didn't hurt)
Why are Yanks
So very much alone?


Writing Poems


Cynical or trusting,
Nasty or benign,
I must write verses
It is clear to me
Right up til I die,
Or I shall die.
Whether I am good at it
Or it's an avocation -
I've got to think that somewhere
There is beauty.

Lines

Lines

People who liked rap and rock
Really do like rap and rock
And simply will not hear a bar of Strauss.
Moreover they're the very ones
For whom the little junkie runs
The dirty tattoo parlor in his house.

Asleep In Denny's

You only want love,

A brother, a friend.

Underneath the wing

Of darkness like a death,

Cool and warm, a shadow

I'm lying in your arms.

Could this be just a metaphor?

A poem without rhymes.

 

Pending Death

My days of writing poesy

Are at an end. Now what?

I figured when I finished

I would die.

I am finished.

But I am not dead.

I think I read that Junkets wished

To write for several years -

Enough to make him famous -

And then stop.

Death stopped him sooner.

I am 68.

Had I died when Keats did

I would have written nothing.

When he is has gone away,

That's when I'll die.

 

Syd

I offered Syd a copy of my poems

When she leaves.

She's going in October.

I could tell she

Didn't really want them.

Syd is not a critic, she's a person,

A very nice one,

One that I would reach.

Another soul who doesn't like my songs.

Fifty years – I've been writing verses,

And I failed.

Another fan of Keats.

But Sondheim made it.

Sondheim is a clown

Who showed the world

He can't write tunes.

Although he wins awards for writing songs.

If you like my poems, I have some collections on Amazon (paperback and Kindle).  Go to Joseph Hart Poetry.  Thanks.

Being Good

The Reason

He doesn't understand himself

Or why he does then things he does.

But every shrink will tell you it's

Unquestionably done because

Of spirits, genes or what he was.

He lives in torment, guilt and shame.

And the law and Jacqui Schiff

Say there's just himself to blame.

And all behavior is a game.

Or something else that's just the same.

PhDs keep writing books

That get them temporary fame.

Being Good

If someone steals your saddle,

Let him have the pony too.

This is what your Jesus Christ

Said people ought to do.

No one ever did it.

Only saints. And they got burnt.

And they had to walk to get where

Thieves and villains weren't.

The Rest

Consider them like Eloi,

The Lost Boys of Wendy,

They know no better,

And they will not learn.

Question and rebel

Or grow up like your parents.

Psychologists will hate you,

Normal people sneer,

And you'll be weak,

Hallucinate and fall,

Be miserably unhappy,

Maybe friendless and

An alien to love.

Yet you might discover

There's a craft inside your head.

All great men are crazy.

Maybe you are one of those.

But most crazy men

Don't grow up great.

Him

Him

He was convicted of nothing.

The scandal has died away,

Like the guy who died in the traffic jam

The ambulance couldn't get through.
A casualty of politics.

How does he get to sleep?

My Friend

Can I get close to you with only humor?
I know of love from hearsay and through rumor.

You are funny. But you want a friend.

I've affection, and you can depend

On me. I've proven that. Is that enough?
Poetry and shadows. Call my bluff.

I'll be here. Will you? The world is mad.

What we have is all we ever had.

Your voice upon my spirit is a salve.

What we had is all we'll ever have.

The Change

The Change

The amulet faded,

Flickered and died.

It lay cross his palm

On a chain. He cried,
“Come back you errant

And changing tide!”

He'd just been reading

His poesy and

It had gone from rough

To polished sand.

“My father, my mother,

My sisters were wrong.

I do have a talent.

I'm gifted in song.

And all the shrinks

Who treated me ill

Will perish and lie

In puddles of swill.

I shall live

Although dead as they.”
A glorious game

To loving each lay

From hating each poem

Until today.

And his genius

Had gone away.

The Rules

Go to school for an MFA,

The only game in town today.

Except the jerk with a brain of bone

Who reads no poems but his own.

He sat in class while the pedant preached,

“Don't write poetry on verse.

Thinking is bad, but this is worse.”

Thus the PhD beseeched.

With a stroke of naivete

He heard what the teacher had to say.

Then stealing lightning from the sky,

He simply asked the teacher why.

The incipient bards who had bought a doom

Drove the heretic from the room.

As he hurried out the door

He dropped a paper on the floor.

The pedant stooped and took the bit

Of paper where some words were writ.

They read the words that glowed like light -

A poem none of them could write.

 

Getting Famous

Part of writing poesy

Is getting into print.

To make the public notice

Takes more than just a hint.

I don't know how to do it

So I don't even try,

Though I may go on writing

Even til I die.

Shakespeare was a businessman

Promoting every play.

If he hadn't done it

He'd be unknown today.

 

The Cat

My wife and I were sitting

Alone at home tonight.

We noticed that our cat

Seemed a bit bemused,

And for a moment sat,

Cocked ears and tilted head,

Very unenthused,

But pensively instead.

We sat and looked at him

And then my darling said,

“He's thinking about things,

The meaning of his life.”
With the genius distance brings,

I muttered to my wife,

“Though quietly he perches

And delves into his searches

For truths in his affairs,

All living things on earth

Have meanings that are theirs.

And he must beware,

Cautiously take care

Lest a passing goat

Shove meaning down his throat.”

MO

MO

Perhaps a package of good cigars

Is more a matter for Father Flannigan

Than a trigger happy racist pig -

Supposing the smokes had anything

To do with it at all.

Alas Not Millay

Alas Not Millay

Poems by Millay

Are candles in the night,

But songs of cynicism

Are easier to write.

I wished to change my style

So when my songs are read,

At least by me, I'll love them.

Those days of love are dead.

There's magic in me still

But not for gentle phrases,

Only for the hatred

That pushes and amazes.

Topics in my soul

For peaceful songs are spare.

But subjects out of anger

Are legion, always there,

Just for certain people,

And just for certain things.

I cannot divorce them.

How the pencil sings

And rushes cross the paper.

I never pause and grope

For words. I hate the poem

When it's finished. Hope!

Perhaps there is a hope,

A black and crystal kind.

Hope is just a corner

No one else can find.

 

Remembered Books

Sitting in the squalor on a

Humid summer night,

I'd like to write some comments

On the books that I have read.

However it has been so long

Since I read anything,

The novels are a phantom,

And the poetry is dead.

I do not like the Sonnets,

Ah but salted through the plays

Are people, moods and insights

And infrequently a phrase.

7-16-13

Charlie, As Was

People who play doctor

And really think they know

Make themselves an enemy

Who finally lets them go.

Charlie, once a patient,

Did exactly that,

A seer of the mortal.

Now I have a cat.

Let me say this right,

Complete, without distortions.

Charlie was a s- hole

Or megalith proportions.

 

A Psychology

It isn't that you're right.

It isn't that you're good.

It's simply that you're doing

Someone else's should.

This is how the brain

In its mystery

Functions on this planet.

God is history.

Not only so for people,

But all of life as well.

You can talk a creature

All the way to hell.

"Pleasaunce"

“Pleasaunce”

Hate and cynicism -

Appropriate as hell -

Have come to disappear.

Don't see the world so well.

Something that is pretty -

A place where I can hide -

Translates out of poesy,

And remembers like the tide.

I know the sea remembers -

Violent or tame,

Morning until morning -

Eternally the same.

 

Music

I'm too stupid for classical music.

It doesn't affect my soul,

Except the pieces the Europeans

Chuck at the philistine.

But Connie Francis and Sarah Brightman,

Jolson and Cantor and Jo

Make me happy, I start to sing,

And if I could, I'd dance.

 

Remembered Books

Sitting in the squalor on a

Humid summer night,

I'd like to write some comments

On the books that I have read.

However it has been so long

Since I read anything,

The novels are a phantom,

And the poetry is dead.

I do not like the Sonnets,

Ah but salted through the plays

Are people, moods and insights

And infrequently a phrase.

7-16-13

Remembered Poems

It's a wonder that I wrote

A good poem after all!

I sit and read a book of mine,

Then hate what I recall.

Reading in a book it seems

My bad poems overwhelm me.

I'll live and die beneath a rock.

Sisyphus is dead.

Poems written years ago

No longer written down -

Yet I remember every line,

I guess because I like them.

Morning Update

Morning Update

In a college text he read

That in America,

Now you are supposed to split infinitives.

No law, no art, no poetry, no music,

And no grammar. Now it is a rule.

Sadly I was born about

Two hundred years too late.

But there was music in a way

Even 60 years ago -

Jilted, sad and unrequited love

By the Princess Connie Francis -

Perfect to the heart.

And these emotions put some meat

On the bones of life.

But coming back from Winco

(I am always coming back

From somewhere,

Never going any place)

I touched the dial, the radio

Changed stations and I heard,

“Gimme the money, bastard,

Or I'll stick this knife

In your stomach.” This is what they hear.

And movies. “Chainsaw Massacre”

This is what they see.

In this country anyone

Who isn't paranoid

Already is insane.

 

Pictures

I consider us friends, and I guess we are.

We've been together longer by far

Than I've been with anyone since I was grown,

The only person I've ever known.

The passing glances I had of the rest

Show me pictures I think are best.

Perhaps the focus goes out at last -

And the image changes – unlike the past.

If you like my poems, I have collections of them on Amazon (paperback and Kindle).  To see them type Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.

Ersatz Millay

Bastardized

The question now that vexes me

Has naught to do with gods,

But do the British get tattoos?

And whether English music

Is rap and rock

And filled with homicides?

Do the British like Puccini?
Is Sullivan among the dead?
Do the English still read Keats?

Has Blair been re-elected?

Early In Denny's

This is it. This is all

There is to life and to my world.

Too old for sex, but I can think.

Still pretty faces smile at me.

And at last I have the friend

I wanted in my youth.

Three poets that I love to read -

Especially Millay.

Poesy! I wrote it all.

I think the spring is dry.

Denny's. Midnight. Maybe dawn.

There's nothing much to do.

 

My Friend

Do they think we're lovers?

Once I wished we were.

Twenty years. Well, almost.

Eight of them with her.

She doesn't give a thing.

She takes. She'll have it all.

She cheats and lies. You love her.

Poison. This is gall.

We sit and laugh together.

An ever changing tide

Of how we see each other.

Nothing's bonafide.

Again her ugly visage

Intrudes on what I think.

I will not write her name.

The pen is out of ink.

A coda. I intended

A reflective poem, but

She broke into my reverie.

She's doomed. She's damned. So what?

Charlie Nance

I remembered Charlie

Earlier today.

The sea of time has washed him

Far away.

My first love was Charlie,

Pretty, small and drunk.

He kissed me on the forehead

While I lay on my bunk.

I loved him. I can feel it.

But he moved with a set

That I was not a part of.

It's as though we never met.

At Rest

I could have been a poet,

But I discovered Keats.

He took me from my feelings.

Consciousness defeats.

Now I'm 67

And thinking once again

Of everything that mattered.

My grandpa's name – was Ben.