Renaissance

Lines

The common man does nothing now.

He doesn't even change his sheets.

True to gall, but not a vow,

He murdered Turning, Wilde and Keats.

Modern artists ruin life,

Make hollow noise, discourage light,

Wake from death to stick a knife

In the bosom of the night.

 

Renaissance

I guess I will be dead when I am older.

I looked a bit. There doesn't seem to be a

(Not even half asleep on someone's shoulder)

More plausible, believable idea.

No matter what it touches, poetry

Makes even ugly things seem beautiful.

Some magic of the soul, some alchemy.

God loves, and people scr-w, the dutiful.

I changed. Like hacking coal out of a mine.

I may go mad again, I'm crazy now.

I'm writing like I did, by sweet design!

Again the words occur. I don't know how.

I've been writing hours and I'm glad

That once again the pages seem inspired.

But what I'm writing now is flat and bad.

From midnight until 5, and I am tired.

How long did I just blatantly forsake

What I love in verse – for the morose?

Art was just asleep. It's now awake.

The Muse I feel was only comatose.

Noel Coward

Coward was a wit. At times

He could write a melody,

With lyrics rife with solecisms,

And his poetry.

He was one with Wilde's injunction

Handed down to you and me:
Be as artificial

As it's possible to be.

Us

It's obvious that cats have senses

Very fundamental.

They live and love and sleep and play

And eat and wander round the earth

Like every other animal,

And just like people too.

No more understanding does

A single creature need.

And use excess intelligence

For science and for art.

The First Five Book

My first five books were made with love.

I leavened a sixth with gall.

It's rarely sweet and I like it less,

If I like it at all.

The other five were filtered through

A hundred winnowings.

And they were written in my youth -

When the soul unbidden sings.

I'll never equal those five books.

I did my best. They're done.

Though later books can equal them,

With a bit more truth than fun.

A man may love his mother

Who nurtures him with heart.
His father gets a bored respect

Who tries to make him smart.

Two Sayings

Never was a poet taught,

Not even by himself.

What he knows, he learned from writing,

And at that, he only watched.

To get the things you want, then you

Must do things you don't want to do.

To climb a mountain's a hell of a feat!

But oh! The air aloft is sweet!

 If you like my poems, I have collections (both paper and Kindle) on Amazon.  In the search bar type Joseph Hart Poetry