Love Love is sweet when it is young

Love

Love is sweet when it is young,

But leaves a bitter aftertaste,

When it takes it all and doesn't

Care but only walks away.

Regardless of the wealth it costs them,

Lovers don't regret their loves.

How quickly do they change allegiance

When they fall in love again.

Love distorts or doesn't care

What it sees, or just forgets.

Precarious! And lovers go

Mad. It's better out of love.

 

The Goons

I woke up at 5 and saw the

Goons in my back yard,

Coming in as I went out.

The goons in my back yard.

While I'm gone, what will they take?

And when will they go home?

Oh the anger in my venom!

And I lost it all for love.

Censorship

Yankees will not lock you up

For saying what you think.

They will just make sure

That no one reads it.

And the wars go on forever.

Private voices do not speak.

“Tell the truth and shame the devil.”

Christians never tell the truth.

Bush, Obama, Clinton, Reagan

Didn't win because they're nice.

Big guys dominate and triumph

In the home and universe.

And the truth is paranoia.

Big guys are not nuts at all.

They take and keep and spit the seeds out.

What is love? How can they sleep?

Untitled "Network of death"

Bonnie

People who are crazy

Don't see themselves as fools.

For centuries, millenia

Breaking common rules

Has been the way to brilliance,

Innovation, art.

Then they die like everyone.

Even gods depart.

However it's not such esteem

For everyone who's mad.

Most of them are only just

Ridiculous and sad.

Trust

Trust is the issue,

In that you trust

She won't smack your head

For saying it wrong.

Mothers are loving

And Jesus is just.

Thus my ridiculous song.

 Untitled

“Network of death” -

Did Madison Avenue

Come up with that one?

“Iraqi Freedom” -

Now where is Iraq?

America gets a

Geography lesson

When a new president

Takes the throne.

Every eight years there's

A war with a country

Nobody here ever heard of before.

“Iraqi Freedom” - yes,

That was a good one.

Iraq was just fine until

Bush got there.

Trust Trust is the issue

Trust

Trust is the issue,

In that you trust

She won't smack your head

For saying it wrong.

Mothers are loving

And Jesus is just.

Thus my ridiculous song.

 

Morning Song

I love you now and I always will.

I just woke up. It's morning.

An editor of a magazine

Said never say forever.

Are feelings as legitimate

When you just wake up

As they are throughout the day

Or when you go to sleep?

12-9-13

Morning Poems

They are flocking into Denny's,

All well-dressed, aloof (ah money!)

For a meeting over breakfast.

And they stoop to tell the waitress

What they want, then disappear.

If they're so rich and classy

Why the hell are they at Denny's?

He is crazy. And the country

Lets him walk around at will,

And his very precious freedom

Is protected by the law.

Every day he's getting older,

Dirtier and sicker.

What's a better way? The doctors

Don't know what to do.

Denny's is so dull

As it gets later in the morning.

No one talks or laughs or jokes.

They eat their breakfasts and they go.

And driving home of course, a dozen

Patriotic Yankees

Run red lights and hit the gas

And they are gone.

The day begins.

 

Worlds

Facts about the universe

Contradict each other.

ISIS and tsunamis; or

A cat becomes unable

To walk the day his owner has stroke,

And then recovers when his owner dies.

Or just a tabby that befriends

A lover who's been jilted

And hasn't found a way to be alone.

Then the world is righted

And the two are back together,

But still the cat remains

And recognizes no one else.

And people who have visions from the grave -

About as understandable as god.

Does god want understanding?

Or just to be despised.

 

Thought

A person with compassion

Is going to hate god,

Whether he believes in god or not.

And a person with a mind requires

Something more to do

Than watch a 49er break a knee.

Worlds Facts about the universe

Worlds

Facts about the universe

Contradict each other.

ISIS and tsunamis; or

A cat becomes unable

To walk the day his owner has stroke,

And then recovers when his owner dies.

Or just a tabby that befriends

A lover who's been jilted

And hasn't found a way to be alone.

Then the world is righted

And the two are back together,

But still the cat remains

And recognizes no one else.

And people who have visions from the grave -

About as understandable as god.

Does god want understanding?

Or just to be despised.

 

Thought

A person with compassion

Is going to hate god,

Whether he believes in god or not.

And a person with a mind requires

Something more to do

Than watch a 49er break a knee.

 

The Loser

When I was a boy, I dreamt that

I would be a singer

Like Lanza, Jolson, Garland.

Then I planned to be a preacher.

Then I aimed to be an actor,

And that horrified my parents

(Actors have immoral lives).

Now I'm nothing but a mental case

(At that a very old one)

That tries to be a poet

In a nation that hates art.

I think I am a good one, but

No one will ever know.

F-ck It!

“Network of death” -

Did Madison Avenue

Come up with that one?

“Iraqi Freedom” -

Now where is Iraq?

America gets a

Geography lesson

When a new president

Takes the throne.

Every eight years there's

A war with a country

Nobody here ever heard of before.

“Iraqi Freedom” - yes,

That was a good one.

Iraq was just fine until

Bush got there.

Morning Poems

They are flocking into Denny's,

All well-dressed, aloof (ah money!)

For a meeting over breakfast.

And they stoop to tell the waitress

What they want, then disappear.

If they're so rich and classy

Why the hell are they at Denny's?

He is crazy. And the country

Lets him walk around at will,

And his very precious freedom

Is protected by the law.

Every day he's getting older,

Dirtier and sicker.

What's a better way? The doctors

Don't know what to do.

Denny's is so dull

As it gets later in the morning.

No one talks or laughs or jokes.

They eat their breakfasts and they go.

And driving home of course, a dozen

Patriotic Yankees

Run red lights and hit the gas

And they are gone.

The day begins.

Stanzas Now we're bombing Syria

Stanzas

Now we're bombing Syria.

Iraq (what's left of it)

In sympathy with Syria

Soon will bomb us back.

Europe (Paris, London, Rome)

Unearths the undead spectre

Of the hateful anti-Semite.

Europe only had

Cathedrals, beauty, art and cities.

When those things are gone,

The earth will be a globe of dirt

Swirling round the sun.

And the ones who made the cities

And the art were not the ones

Who are glad to blow it all

To nothing – like the Sphinx.

Beauty, death – war and art -

Are incompatible.

An Image

Withered and slimy – umbilical cord

Attached to the monster from hell -

A mocking, laughing caricature -

Cleft foot and puckered lips.

Grotesque and misshapen, a psyche of love

That slept in its father's arms,

Then woke to death and a life of pain,

Without a sense of love.

What is an infant? Most women can screw.

The illness was just a spark

That steadily grew to a conflagration,

Blind upon a beach.

TA

It's been over 40 years!

Gone and left behind

Confusion, grief, regret and tears,

And still it's in my mind.

Transactional Analysis!

The devil's therapy

For the brain! Paralysis

Is what it did for me.

Wisdom

To hell with those who understand

The world and all that's in it.

Autonomy and therapy

Won't hesitate a minute.

Argue with them. You will feel

Your mindless frigate sink.

You'll dismiss the way you are,

And what you thought you think.

 

Vanished

Raw bones and broken skulls -

Ancient ships with rotted hulls -

And overhead grey mottled gulls

Dip toward the sails -

Had I wrote the thesis

On Keats – or anything -

I'd be rich as Croesus

And my world would sing.

I might live in Britain,

Alone and mad, but free,

Where once my heart was smitten

With English poetry.

I'd see the mist, each building,

The cobblestones, the air,

Though it would take some gilding

To like the people there.

Kitty When I feed the cats

Kitty

When I feed the cats

I wash their water bowl

And pour two scoops of food

In a couple dishes.

Three of them come in

And hurry on short legs.

But a cat is missing,

Though I can see him there.

Kitty died last month.

His ghost walks in with them,

But Kitty is in heaven.

I don't want him gone.

Sick

Do not touch the status quo.

It won't fall, but you will.

Your momma will not fail, but

Everyone you ever knew will.

Worship at the synagog

Or chapel of your choice.

Americans are good. They say it

With a single voice.

They don't say “shit” in Denny's

Or get ribald in a bank.

For this you have your parents

And the status quo to thank.

Yankees live for ever. Like

Egyptians never die.

And gays can never marry, though

There is no reason why.

America is good,

Just divinely good.

Either an American's

Religious or a hood.

To make this statement forthright

The middle class is loth,

But religious or a villain?

Some Americans are both.

A college teacher told me I'm

Completely without class -

Like a clown on Mooney

With a tattoo on his ass.

The Barracks

The sweetest men I ever met

Were hired to be killed.

Today they call them warriors.

Many voices stilled -

For necessary purposes -

Oh my yes. Bet your life!

Too young to vote for presidents,

Drink or take a wife.

The sweetest men I ever met -

We knew each other well.

No one like the others.

Dangling over hell.

Adams

So Adams is a genius said

Somebody at the Met,

The glory of America

And opera and art.

Tunes – what tunes? -

Nobody will record.

Adams is as glorious

As Ives, another Yank.

Music is passe until

Somebody can compose it.

Kissed By Charlie

Lying on the upper bunk

I saw beside the bed

Charlie Dance, completely drunk

As usual. He said,

“I want to kiss you.” And he reached

Upward to my face.

Stranded like a frigate beached,

I lay still in place.

So beautiful was Charlie Dance,

Could this thing be true?

I thought as I lay in a trance,

“I want to kiss you too.”

Wishing for permission

I leaned to him my prow,

And without inhibition

He kissed me on the brow.

The Kid

Born rich perhaps and educated -

Well cut and put together -

He sits alone at Denny's

With tattoos and a bag.

Staring at the napkins -

Dead, inert and lifeless -

Did drugs destroy his reason?
Very, very young.

He seemed at first to be

Furiously angry.

He isn't. He is dead.

Not angry, but he's mad.

Now that I have seen

He's lifeless and not angry,

I wish he'd go away.

He's going, walking briskly.

Bandana on his head,

Music in his ears,

Jawline beard and handsome,

I wonder where he's going.

5-29-14

 

The King

The king deposed, depressed, deranged -

His woman is determined

To work because she wants to.

Man the only worker,

Like his dad before him

Reaching back into a cave.

The king aggrieved is seeking

The world that he was taught

By his dad and mother.

But the king believes he's gay.

To be allowed to happen

In Kentucky with the black folks,

Trampled in the tangles

With all the other truths.

And now approaching death

Initiates the madness,

Incipient, intrusive.

It confiscates his mind.

At the lawn that he admired

By the home he built and paid for

He stands snapping cigarette

Butts. It doesn't matter.

Now he is as crazy

As the son he never liked.

Mistakes Obama's going nuclear

Mistakes

Obama's going nuclear.

I voted for him twice.

Like fiddling with a gun

Or throwing loaded dice.

Romney only wanted

To tell us when to scr-w.

Obama wants to blow us

Far beyond the blue.

To impeach Obama

Before the bombs begin

In a war that Reagan

Said that we would win.

Midnight in a store gvies me a scare

The News

In Russia you are beaten

If you tell the truth.

In America you're murdered

If you're gay.

Blacks have gone through centuries

Of death and degradation

Til now they scorn themselves.

The war continues.

All heaven-bound, and Jesus

Or Mohammed is the lord,

Now armed in bloody combat.

And the dinosaurs were right.

 

Futile Response

Life is very peaceful

For the simple and deranged,

But nobody believes

That she has changed.

Nothing ever changes.

Only thunder in the night,

And blinding lightning

Turns the mountain white.

And Putin beats dissenters

With Obama building bombs.

And Reagan up in heaven singing,

“Open all the tombs.”

God is very glad. The heathens

Thought it was a bluff.

Open all the tombs. There is not

Nearly dead enough.

 

Midnight in a store

Midnight in a store gives me a scare,

Like Halloween, and everybody's there.

The preacher on a pension says to share.

People need. And I no longer care.

Save the pets when no one gives a damn.

Even that turned out to be a scam.

Writing poems is a way to grieve.

What is true? Whatever you believe.

If you can't be personal, be witty.

Schizophrenics roam through New York City.

Disinterest. What is reality?

My life is too much in my poetry.

If you like my poems, I have some collections on Amazon, both paperback and Kindle.  The Kindles are better.  Type Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.

"Transformer" I just watched a movie

“Transformers”

I just watched a movie

About dinosaurs and Bots.

They blocked the bridge

And caused a traffic jam.

Lots of Bots and people died.

In Jersey, just one person.

Damn but everyone was late for work.

 

Heaven

Heaven is for people

Who try to do what's right.

A thousand butterflies

Very gently light

On a field of clover

Standing in the rain.

Hell is for the vicious,

Heaven the insane.

Heaven is for people

Who have a care for peace,

Love and maybe someone

Before the people cease.

A Song

“Does anybody want you?”
The raucous radio

Asks. And I can answer

Yes, and mean it.

“Does anybody need you?”
Sit in my position.

Answer yes. Then ask,

Do you deserve it?

Anybody can

And will be loved by someone.

Not everyone's entitled

To such a precious thing.

A precious thing and heaven -

It happens all the time.

The Warriors America has turned into a hawk

The Warriors

America has turned into a hawk,

And the people love it. Little wars

Happen on their television sets

In their little Christian living rooms.

Jesus said a lot. What he did not

Say was never hard to improvise.

Another hawk in office. Warriors

And their deaths and injuries are all

On the walls in hospitals. More death.

As though it would not happen soon enough.

Locked with the sea In the plastic outer world

A Question

Is this the way it goes,

A liberal in youth

That ages and accepts

Bad poetry and truth?

Wishes

A world without an enemy.

And honesty starts fights,

Republicans and Christie,

And people run red lights -

Where paradise is mortal,

Insanities accrue,

The universe is gentle,

And every friend is true -

11-14-13

 

Locked with the sea

In the plastic outer world

Everyone's the same,

But in the sordid inner world

Nobody is tame.

To fade into the crowd

And be forgotten.

Sweet relief!

The people go away.

Sitting in a Russian bar

Looking nondescript,

To see but look at nothing,

Blank, sincere.

Hypnotized and hooked.

What is my persuasion?
I have no persuasion

But lying in a crypt,

With the tides enlocked.

If you like my poems, I have some collections on Amazon, both Kindles and paperbacks.  Kindles are better, the paperbacks are just everything.  Type Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.

A Story First you take a child

A Story

First you take a child,

Beat him til he's blue,

Tell him he's a shi-tface,

Completely worthless too,

And he will not be more

Than what he is today,

Which clearly isn't much.

Then he runs away

And goes to Jacqui who

Indifferent to pain

And never in a stew

Drives him totally insane.

The Operation

She went to have some stones

Taken from her bladder.

Welfare wouldn't pay.

What made her even madder,

The surgeon said that he

Proving he was smart

Would operate for free

And give the broad a heart.

 

Rescue

If someone has a breakdown,

There's nothing you can say.

Help him to his feet,

Then firmly walk away.

But what you do or don't do,

No matter what you think,

Let the judgment fall on you

If you take him to a shrink.

A Dog's Life She raised them on the north side in a house

A Dog's Life

She raised them on the north side in a house

Filled with roaches, feces and a dog.

They lived on welfare. No one really cared.

Once a month the mother got her check.

Frequently republicans made speeches.

She didn't hear them, and they didn't meet.

All the children, just as many fathers,

And the fathers gone, and day and night

The house was filled with villains, fights and drugs.

The years went by, and as they passed, the children

Grew wise and frightened. Finally the wisdom

Had turned into a blind insanity.

 

My Cousin

They killed my cousin selling drugs.

The put him in a sack

And beat him til he ceased to breathe.

He's never coming back.

A pretty blond I never knew.

Our grandmother preferred

Him to me. Like Claudius,

I was just absurd.

Hip and traveled, clever, quick

In everything he did.

One Christmas in his sister's house,

He chased and hit his kid.

A cherub in the modern world.

Wisdom where he stood.

It was a horrid way to die.

None of them is good.

 

Cziffra & Wild

Cziffra, Wild – and Hamelin?

I don't like what he plays.

Everything is dissonant,

Brilliant as a starry night,

And tedious to hear.

So saying brings innumerable

Hates upon my song.

But Cziffra, Wild – and no one else -

Let them play forever!

Sweeter than the cherubim

Ever tried to sing.

Wild and Cziffra – buried now.

But there's recorded sound.

How cold to care for just the music

Rather than the men.

Cave Paintings Fifteen thousand years ago in caves

Cave Paintings

Fifteen thousand years ago in caves -

The fingers of the artists long decayed -

On the walls are paintings. Man the artist!

It's in the soul. The nature of the soul.

The caves will be destroyed, but not forgotten.

The Parthenon. The Sphinx. Can art be gone?

People don't want art. Nor do they have it.

When music was a thing to be enjoyed,

The singers sang like nightingales. And poems

Were things that could be treasured in the mind.

Architecture – sole remaining virgin -

A tower built – to take it all to god.

There are no gods. Neither are there artists.

Many would. But all of them cannot.

Or else there would be art. And there is not.

Hog Tied

To walk with her in public -

An embarrassing disgrace.

Once I had a home until

She commandeered the place.

She eats my food and mocks me.

Without a thing to sell

She'd living very nicely.

And they're serving beer in hell.

He treats me like a brother.

He's gentle and he's nice.

But he's the one who's making

My world her paradise.

Trust

So few friends. So long a life.

A friend who will not hurt me

Even when he can.

A friend who will not go away.

Jay and Gary wouldn't.

A relative I like.

All of them departed.

Tell me whom to trust

When you're old and lonesome.

40 years of silence.

I have been alone.

Tell me can I trust you?
Will you go away?
I'll be here forever.

You will go away.

Jay went back to India.

I wouldn't go along.

And Gary? I abused him

Like an enemy.

And relatives? A Grandpa

I couldn't care about.

The only gentle person

In a family.

And I was told his daughter

Was terrified of him.

Kitty Dying He told me Kitty gasped and couldn't breathe

Kitty Dying

He told me Kitty gasped and couldn't breathe,

Shuddered, then relaxed. And so was gone.

It's horrible! We gave him medication

He didn't like. He fought it. And I shoved him

On the floor because he bothered me.

Life is ugly. Death cannot be thought of.

A gentle cat, turned dingy when he aged.

His teeth were yellow. At the worst he loved me.

I wish him back, my nemesis in hell.

Hog Tied

To walk with her in public -

An embarrassing disgrace.

Once I had a home until

She commandeered the place.

She eats my food and mocks me.

She takes the car as well.

She's living very nicely

And they're serving beer in hell.

 

Weary, sad, depressed

Weary, sad, depressed -

So much that I can hardly keep

Myself alert. I close my eyes

An instant, I'm asleep.

Anything she wants, she asks,

Or else she merely takes.

I'm living in a nightmare

That only he awakes.

Apparently he loves her.

He sees that she does well.

The revival of a spirit

From the poverty of hell.

He treats me like a brother,

A friend. And he is nice.

However he's the one who makes

My world her paradise.

 

The Tenant

But does she own the house? Or is it yours?

Propriety that kind of thinking blurs.

“It is an ill wind -” Well, so much for that.

This wind blows wherever there is fat.

Does she eat a lot or just a smidge?
She eats what someone puts into the fridge.

Where does she work? Oh heavens what a thought!

She doesn't work at all. And can't be bought.

At least a tenant pays a little rent.

Four months and she has yet to pay a cent.

Well, what's she got? Or else who does she know?

Nothing. But she's real. She told us so.

Biblical You are very Biblical.

Biblical

You are very biblical.

You ask and you receive,

Which obviates your bringing in

A solitary sheave.

Neither do you toil or spin.

Just smoke beneath a tree,

Like godly Charlie Dickens who said,

“Butterflies are free.”

You had a job one day. And then you

Lost it. But don't fret it.

You've a job.  Just being you.

Nice work if you can get it.

 

In Denny's With Him

The past never changes

Nor memories die.

Resolute soft on the

Shore they lie,

Washed by the water.

The waves lift high.

Thousands of cherubim

Fall from the sky

And into old castles

Contentedly fly.

You deserve everything

Money can buy,

And all that it can't.

When I hear the cry

Of hope in your voice

I know you're shy.


If you like my poems, I have collections on Amazon.  Just type Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.

Iris Murdoch Born with a brain

Iris Murdoch

Born with a brain

Which she used to think.

The flames didn't burn

When she was cast

Down into hell with the likes of Shaw,

Galileo and Oscar Wilde.

In Denny's With Him

The past never changes

Nor memories die.

Resolute soft on the

Shore they lie,

Washed by the water.

The waves lift high.

Thousands of cherubim

Fall from the sky

And into old castles

Contentedly fly.

You deserve everything

Money can buy,

And all that it can't.

When I hear the cry

Of hope in your voice

I know you're shy.

Are my poems good?

Are my poems good? Can someone tell me?

Or will somebody? Once some people did.

Maybe god in heaven when I die.

(So many souls in heaven! Fewer souls

Would ease the strain on credibility.)

I've written songs so bad they make me shudder,

Wince. But some so lovely that I sigh

And wonder how I ever made it happen.

I know some souls who ought to be in heaven.

And a few that like a minotaur

Hell is waiting for. And they're not children,

Though once they were, and I'm not sure of that!

Heaven, hell and poetry! And music.

Even that's entirely disappeared.

 

Her

Your leg is in a trap.

The chain has little range.

She's where she wants to be.

She will not change.

She has the things she wants.

And they are yours.

K's Husband He's in jail for growing marijuana

K's Husband

He's in jail for growing marijuana,

And when that law is taken from the books

(And alcohol must worry for its fortune),

They'll give him back his clothes and say they're sorry

And send him home. Or maybe that's not right.

Is it likely they'll apologize?

Cops don't make mistakes. They're never sorry.

Never did I think

Never did I think

Never did I think

My intellect was smart.

But once I wrote some lyrics

That rival Larry Hart.

Trapped inside a tomb

Like a felon in a cell,

Even Keats could comfort

The sufferers in hell.

 

Not Lost

He has a home with me,

With no where else to go.

He's learning how to lie,

And dying in the snow.

Desperate to find

A group to take him in,

He cast his lot with vagrants

On the side of sin.

Criminals are good.

Sanity is dead.

Anyone who says it

Isn't so is red.

67 years.

Will it ever end?

All he ever wanted

Was solace and a friend.

I didn't like his gods.

I let him slip away.

20 years ago

He used to sit and pray.

12-19-13

 

Not Lost

I'd think I'd be crazy

If not for the few

Very nice fellows

I long ago knew.

All of them gone

Like a whispering sea

That doesn't return.

Where can they be?

 

Two Stanzas

Neither facts nor truths are my opinions,

Though others deal in certainties and doubts.

Swimming through the ether like an angel -

Two images of beauty science routs.

And when the clouds are lower than the earth,

And the oceans blend into the sky,

There is nothing nicer than a smile,

And nothing passed the horror that's to die.

Neglect

I shall write a poem.

I thought that I would not.

A poem to the sufferer -

To the ill, his shot.

While I'm writing poems,

I ignore the truth.

I should have found a publisher

In my fertile youth.

Disregard their storms

Of triumphs and defeats.

Lead me down the gravel

To the garden gate of Keats.

Tell me now. Please tell me.

I'll know before I die.

How did Keats get published?

Also tell me why.

Rights Love and teach your children

The Old Days

How very long ago

The ones I used to know,

Gentle, pretty, kind,

Now left so far behind -

Eons from today

In my memory they stay,

Not a caustic word to say,

Simple boys and men,

We'll never meet again.

How many years it's been!

I don't remember when

I had a perfect lover.

My loving days are over.

As I approach December,

Like Proust, I just remember

The songs, the sea, the blur

Of dreams that never were.

 

Not Lost

He has a home with me,

With no where else to go.

He's learning how to lie,

And dying in the snow.

Desperate to find

A group to take him in,

He cast his lot with vagrants

On the side of sin.

Criminals are good.

Sanity is dead.

Anyone who says it

Isn't so is red.

67 years.

Will it ever end?

All he ever wanted

Was solace and a friend.

I didn't like his gods.

I let him slip away.

20 years ago

He used to sit and pray.

12-19-13

 

Not Lost

I'd think I'd be crazy

If not for the few

Very nice fellows

I long ago knew.

All of them gone

Like a whispering sea

That doesn't return.

Where can they be?

Verses

Beautiful poesy! Only the past

Put into happiness that will last.

Beautiful poesy! Gentle and mild,

Cryptic and foreign to a child.

Sitting here next to my poem “On Sleep”,

I'm writing poems for god to keep.

He didn't keep Sappho, lost in the flames,

Or deeper antiquities with out names.

Poems on nothingness now I write.

The final tomorrow is out of sight.

The verses remaining unseen, unread

Will die with my body inside my head.

Never did I think

Never did I think

My intellect was smart.

But once I wrote some lyrics

That rival Larry Hart.

Trapped inside a tomb

Like a felon in a cell,

Even Keats could comfort

The sufferers in hell.

 

A New Impression

My poesy is genius

Not taught in any school.

Not greater tho than Keats.

I'm only half a fool.

My verse was never brilliant.

I do not have the brains.

It is a sleepy fist

Demolishing their fanes.

Inspired by blind Muses

And a flock of cherubim,

It's of the ilk of Keats

Though different from him.

My poesy! The beauty

Imagination paints

Started with my feelings,

And ended in complaints.

But are these early poems

As good as I pretend,

Or seem when I am reading
In a world about to end?

 

Rights

Love and teach your children.

Don't run them round the bend.

The law gives parents rights.

That's where the children end.

Standing on the corner

Naked as a bird

Pissing in the gutter.

This scene is just absurd.

Lunatics have rights

The law cannot impede.

The jealous right of freedom,

But not to what they need.

 

Happy Poems

Something's changed. Today I see -

Not through a lobotomy -

Just the rhythm of my breath

Making pretty poems stay -

And never on the pain of death

Would I approach psychiatry -

Wrestling countless years instead

Of love – life wrestles with the dead -

Some poems that I wrote I read -

Read them just today although

Written 40 years ago.

And they're good. I confess.

Imagination plays,

Little folks like me to bless

For a hundred millions days.

I am little and unknown.

All my friends are gone away.

In my private field I've grown

130 books they say.

On most of them I wish decay.

When I write a happy poem,

I manage to keep death at bay.

The Vampire I have seen my soul and it's incarnate

George

Quick-witted and alert

Since the day we met,

Profound and happy memories

I can not forget.

Now it's 20 years -

Well, almost that, not quite.

Everything is wrong,

But everything is right.

Life

Life is a dark forest.

You cannot see your way there.

The most that you can do

Is find a rock and stay there.

Groping in the darkness

Grab religion, start a fight.

Jesus and the bible

Give you artificial light.

People who run countries,

Invent, write poetry

Are managed by an undisclosed

And secret destiny.

Great men who do not choose

The fortune that befits them

Will carry on for 90 years,

Unless a trolley hits them.

4-23-12

 

The Vampire

I have seen my soul, and it's incarnate

In a dusty coffin made of wood.

A drop of blood is clinging like a garnet

To her lip, her head inside a hood.

Foul the night! The moon in innocence

Hangs behind the clouds, and they are swift,

Black and grey, translucent and intense,

Through the holy darkness where they drift.

Narcolepsy – or enduring sleep -

Granting slumber ever like the sea -

Changing tides and currents rising steep

Beneath the ocean where the midnight be!

3-15-12

If you like my poems, I have some collections on Amazon, both paperback and Kindle.  Just type Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.