Water Wings

Glum

There's nothing left to write about in verse.

Bukowski's got a corner on the toilet.

Green bowers and a poet's death are Keats.

Hatred and confessionals are me.

I lack imagination. And the world

Has nothing that I want but solitude.

I have a sense of meter. I can rhyme,

Though it takes a happy mood for me to bother.

Everyone is writing poetry.

And everyone's the laureate of somewhere.

When I write it's obvious to me

That all of it is automatic writing.

I took my Keats to Denny's, and I read

Several sonnets that I used to love.

They seemed old and tired just like me.

On Imitating Keats

I never once decided to write beauty.

I only read that Keats decided that.

Nor considered whether I could not.

“Robin Hood”, “The Mermaid Tavern”

“Lamia” are not

What I like in Junkets, and are not

This that I consider beautiful.

“This Living Hand” and “To The Sea”
Absorb my very soul,

And I could read them selfishly,

Like listening to Haydn.

When I want to be like Keats,

No human hand can copy

The sea, the magic, the mortality.

 

Bittersweet

I think one day he'll love me.

He almost loves me now.

Though other people pass away

And I remain aloof.

I survived my family

And dog fights are a horror

And Jacqui went to London

And believed she understood.

Europe's very cool and it

Has grates and fireplaces.

There is art in Europe

And a reason there to love.

The Perfect Ones

Everybody has a life plan

Which includes what people are -

Who to hang and who to love,

Reject or keep or just not notice.

None of this makes any sense.

All my life the people like my

Relatives and shrinks and cops

And socially the perfect ones who

Fart on those they disallow

Have followed like an Albatross.

I guess I'm now too old to scorn.

And they are old as well. Perfection

Never was a cure for aging,

Though still they move in perfect circles,

Often have a lot of money.

Hopefully (is nothing decent?)
None of them writes poetry.

Water Wings

Thankfully throughout my life

My sole and only interest

Was writing poems. Otherwise

I would be insane.

I'm 67. Did I write

A poem worth the effort?

I think I did. And many times,

I've been told I do.

But how can I aspire to

Longevity like Keats?

So many billions in the world,

And each of them a poet.

Lost To Millay Again

Again I lost my touch with Edna.

Her lines are bent and crooked twigs

On dusty grape vines in the heat.

Where's the magic that I thought I saw?
A startling closing line to nearly

Every poem I read,

Fitzgerald's “snappy ending” to a story.

Touched by poignance, moved, delighted,

So again I read the poem.

Like waves the incremental lines

Will carry me to shore.

But Keats is thick with pleasure, start to finish.

 

The Covers

Of all my books, the ones I like the best

Are not the best.

I think I like the covers.

The covers are my father's favorite color.

Brown.

And that's my mother's maiden name.

I did not my like my parents.

I don't want them back again.

Do some Freudian dynamics

Make me like these somber covers?

Would Jacqui have an answer?

Bet your ass!