Watching Cziffra Cziffra's spidery fingers

The House

In a house of silence

No one ever speaks,

No greeting of affection.

Make one, if you dare.

We sit in our perfection,

At peace with god and life.

And Jesus! We are honest.

Like an M-16.

A Joke

He looked at him sincerely.

He had even read the books.

“Tom,” he said, “the poems

That you love, the early books,

Gentle and naïve, foretell

Better things to come.

They're good. And I assure you

They'll be here a hundred years,

Maybe two.

But these your later poems,

The pieces you detest

For reasons you don't say

Are deep and warm and true.

They are of genius.

They'll be read in languages,

And last as long as Homer,

Chaucer, Shakespeare, Sappho.”
Tommy reached a letter knife

And stabbed his benefactor in the heart.

Then he wept and watched him slowly die.

 

Parole

The horror of the gutter and parole!

Psychos who attack you in your sleep!

Nothing safe or sacred. No one cares.

Or can. It isn't in the Constitution.

Living in the night. At every step

Policemen want to put you back in jail.

The need for love remains and some affection,

Manifest as sex. And fisticuffs

Your only pride. And you are getting older.

Tomorrow – just the pain of nothingness.

5-28-12

Mad As Hell

He smashed into the planet

Like a swift and sudden comet.

He's so fucking cute, I want to vomit!

Baseball cap on backwards,

Gutter slang and hoodie.

Would he bust your mandible

If he got angry? Would he!

All his friends are like him.

A jet of dirty piss!

God created life -

And also this!

4-20-12

 

Watching Cziffra

Cziffra's spidery fingers

Walk across the keys.

Then at last they suddenly burst

Into rhapsodies!

Looking into the distance -

Heroic Polonaise -

Eyes closed and eyebrows lifted!

Well deserving praise.

7-5-11

 

Mendelssohn

Alone with lots of poetry,

And nobody is talking.

Perahia's playing Mendelssohn,

But Mendelssohn is dead.

Perahia is the medium.

A séance of sensation – only sound.

Fragile figures, colored, made of glass

Are sitting on the counters and she shelves.

And I'm a wrinkled woman with no love,

A granny, a Victorian

Who sits among her lace,

Looking at her treasures,

And trying not to die.

Alone with lots of poetry,

Many stacks of poetry,

All of it is beautiful,

And all of it is mine.

3-26-12

 

Chopin

When I think of Chopin

I don't think of virtuoso.

I think of purple ladies

Smelling heavily of rose.

I think of lacy parlors,

Fragile curios on shelves,

Shut and heavy curtains

In a room with china lamps,

And emanating mildly

From the rugs, the scent of musk.

12-1-12

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