The Fairy Prince

Differences

True and simple poems like Millay -

Or grandiose like Keats, with big emotion -

A paper cup that's caught and pulled away -

An undertow, a vortex in the ocean -

Questions

Donizetti – over 70

Operas in 50 years

And most of them performed

In Italy today -

And Bach is legion -

Three days on a cruise

And Coward wrote

His most successful play -

About a ghost -

And Murdoch's novels -

There are 26 -

And I have read

23 – and they are wonderful -

And also books of true philosophy

I'll never read -

So many gifted people

Who simply wrote -

And wrote until they died -

Have I a gift?

Or have I only

Prolificacy?

 

Buck

I guess Buck was crazy.

With very little doubt,

He gave up on the world

That he'd completely figured out.

Aloof from other people,

With a warm and selfish glow,

He wanted to have sex.

Am I sorry I said no?

He was like a St. Bernard.

And I loved his looks.

Myopic, fat and soft,

Your more adorable of crooks.

 

The Wise

Sh-t deliver me from perfect people -

Who know their feelings

And the world as well -

Who do not talk unless it's necessary -

Meaningful and personal and deep -

Who bluntly tell you you are not like them -

As though that were as bad as you could get -

And then go off and live in hibernation

And don't come out until they fall in love -

These bastards always fall in love with me -

And every one of them both vain and selfish -

Or shrinks – who got their wisdom from a book -

And have diplomas proving that they got it -

 

The Minotaur

The Minotaur is dead! The thing that

Eats my childish thoughts

And leaves me dumb and inarticulate.

I'm talking like a person.

I am human now.

All of earth and life is just

Communication.

It means I'm going to die.

As if I were a rocky gargoyle head

In the Middle Ages

From between whose lips the water flows,

A clear and steady stream of crystal words.

The Fairy Prince

The Fairy Princess slept below the thorns

And briars in the darkness.

From the distance she could hear the sea.

Its glorious sounds slipped

Subtly through her sleep.

Slowly with a ponderous step

The ugly ogre strode

On heavy feet to ravish the sweet fey.

The Fairy Prince, aware of this,

Swiftly flew and hovered

Over the tangles under which

The Fairy Princess slept.

“Awake!” he cried

In earnest agitation.

“The ogre is approaching!”
The Fairy Princess slept oblivious,

And she ignored him.

“Rouse yourself and flee and fly!”
He continued shouting.

And she continued sleeping.

She could not hear the sea.

So sad, distraught and helpless,

Her lover flew away.