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.