Rebecca

Patterns

Ever since I was a boy,

My bedroom painted black,

I've hated other people's things

In my sanctuary.

Selfish as a troglodyte

Who dwells beside the sea

In a cave and loves to listen

To the coming waves.

The sea's a repetitious thing.

All the earth's redundant.

War and death. Since life began,

Blood was always red.

9-19-13

 

Youth

A Raiders fan got in his car

And turned the rock up loud -

His noises and his violence -

A very happy man!

9-19-13

The News

I know the world is horrible,

And I don't have to know

Anymore of it than that.

I'll hide my head in Keats.

Keats! Who cuts off people's heads

And waters them with tears!
Laments inexorable age,

And dies for love of snakes!

9-19-13

George

Whether time or money,

In a state of need,

Affection or assistance,

Whether word or deed,

A friend will be beside you

In space or on the phone.

If you have a friend,

You will only die alone.

9-19-13

 

George

Love and fear are separate.

They do not commingle -

Not dyes that mix and make a paint

Of another color,

Except in verse – an alchemy

Of paradox and madness,

Every phrase an oxymoron,

Oddly beautiful.

Insanity and death are the

Result of this collusion.

They cling and linger, even when

The person goes away.

9-19-13

 

Jordan & Rebecca

Little Jordan, gentle Jordan,

Gentle and sarcastic Jordan!

Years ago you're with Rebecca.

I cannot see your face.

Do I like you? Did I like you?

Was it love? Who cares?
You caused a couple pretty poems.

Is something else important?

Rebecca is a friend of mine.

Slowly she's becoming.

And I think she is your lover.

Two good things in one.

Could it happen through Rebecca

All of us became

Friends? It won't. I know it won't.

It simply cannot happen.

I'm an old and ugly man.

Embarra

Rebecca

I liked Jordan very much.

I liked to hear him talk.

I told him in a letter,

And blew my world awry.

Sarcastically he went away.

And now he lives with you.

And every day – discreet and kind,

Reserved – you talk to me.

Paradox or irony?

It's very very strange

Two ends should come together

That have so much in common.

I'm not an evil person.

Well, I am, but no one knows it

Except a lot of helpless shrinks.

And Aristotle's right.

What you do – not what you dream -

Determines how you stand with god.

And anyway, there is no god.

The sun is burning out.

I really want to ask you

Why you're being nice to me.

But I'm afraid to mention it,

Or you might go away.

9-19-13

 

Rebecca

Does she like me?

Is she lonely?

I am ugly, she is young.

My little Persian angel.

When the seraphim are hung,

She will rise above them

Like a single shining star

In the blackest night of heaven.

And I don't know who you are.

9-19-13

ssment would kill me.

And I know for writing that

I'm 27 fools.

9-19-13

Poems

George & Jill

He's my love and you're my friend,

But I was born to be alone.

What a maudlin thing to say!

But like a fish in water,

By myself I swim.

With people, I just hold my breath

And flop upon the sand.

I read somewhere and many times

There's solitude in genius.

One soul only, maybe two,

Neither of them me,

Thinks that I have talent.

I crossed Death Valley since my youth.

Verse was my oasis.

No. It was my water.

Music was the shade.

16 years out of water,

Again I am alone.

9-17-13

 

Mental Health

I never met such heartless people,

Rotten and deriding

In all my life (except my parents)

Til I went insane

In New York at 24.

Downhill all the way!

And every goddamned one of them

A therapist or patient!

I think about them every day,

Drawn like flies to shit.

But that's the past. Today is new.

Maybe I will live

Another 30 years or so.

But I won't fall in love.

A cold and arid thing to say!

That I won't fall in love.

9-17-13

Jill & Me (Rambling)

Did we meet a year ago?

Has it been that long?

Or has it been a lifetime?

Perhaps when Jesus died.

Allowed to be an Atheist

Just as you preferred,

I had god for breakfast.

I've puked him up for years.

50 years I waited -

Without anticipation -

For you – and only you – to say

My poesy is good.

It's been said before by some -

Not many – by a few -

But never with such staggering abundance.

How can I believe what I

Have never seen myself?
So goes their god and Jesus.

So goes my poesy.

Strong and agile, she writes verse

That I can tell is good.

Not my type and not my way

And not my poesy -

Modern – I am still with Keats -

But beautiful to touch.

She is better. Her you feel.

Me you only think.

Intelligence in poetry?
Perhaps if I just had it.

But still with Keats.

I need not think at all.

9-17-13

 

Moving Out

A nearly empty peanut butter jar,

Styrofoam that packed some old appliance

When it was new, and cellophane that's clamped

And holding pasta overflow the trash

And lie in piles and scatters on the floor.

Is someone moving out or moving in?
Someone has displaced himself

And life is readjusting.

Loneliness is over,

And the world has yet to die.

Bach is on the stereo again.

New pictures from the past are on the table.

The cats need litter. I'll buy that tomorrow.

The day is ending. And this house is mine

Maybe. Nothing's positive as that.

Yesterday he said he won't come back.

Probably. He's said as much before.

Now he said it in another state,

On a ward where he can talk it over.

9-17-13

 

Becoming

Breaking through the barrier

And saying what I want

And will not do -

This will put an end to fear,

Regret without emotion,

And all the little horrors

That the passive suffer through.

9-18-13

 

Patti

An aging woman misses work

Two days, maybe three,

And suddenly she has no job.

SSI is shit!

The system must continue

Without hitch, delay or stopping.

The machine is more important

Than a single living wheel.

The whole is more important than its parts.

9-18-13

 

George & Me

You brain's more competent than mine.

You get along with people

When you are alone with them

Better than I do.

All the world is happiness,

Misery and hate.

Life's a game. Some people have to work.

My poesy is changing.

My soul is changing too.

I've got to to survive. I could

Be here for 30 years.

Honest and reliable

As Lincoln in the rain,

You live for love.

So little comes to you.

Ersatz love from faithless friends!

Vultures on the lonely!

They take it all, give nothing back,

And sit in pews with god.

Come to me when you need love,

Crippled and encrusted

With blood and semen. I won't lie

Or try to take what's yours.

But what I give

May not be adequate.

9-18-13

Crazy Poems

I've stopped writing crazy

To my verse's detriment,

No oxymorons, paradox

Or complicated thinking.

Have my songs diminished,

Not provocative, profound,

If they were,

Or even interesting?

I don't know what's crazy.

I've an inkling what is right.

Knock me off my track and I
Will clamber on again.

I am mold and putty, and I

Go back into shape.

And when I die, I shall go to heaven.

What a thought!

How easily it's said.

9-18-13

Einstein

Einstein

Oh no! Another member of

The Einstein Was Stupid League.

He needed help to get through school -

Another turn – his family

Did his homework. Einstein

Was lazy. Even though he was

Undoubtably a genius.

Einstein was brilliant although

Practically retarded.

9-16-13

 

Music

60 years – no 67 -

Never once felt contact

With any person but my mother,

And she liked to hit.

The free, fresh, open air of Keats -

Native health – unrepealed -

And the desert of Death Valley -

Reddish, sculptured Gothic cliffs -

Now I'll write what pleases me

Without the fear of censure.

Gods and Jesuses be damned!

The truth cannot be wrong.

9-16-13

Rambling

Gone or changed, I shall be free

To savor my autonomy

And write my truths in poetry,

However truthless – with the sea

Preparing to wash over me.

16 years that won't grow back

Were hardly altogether black.

Jesus washed my sins away.

What a stupid thing to say.

I look 70 today.

My pristine happiness restore,

And I shall go and sin no more.

9-16-13

Circle

A little clutch or coterie

Of people whom you trust

Who wouldn't hurt you anyway,

Not even if they must.

People who are more than just

A friendly Yankee smile,

A Christian gesture in a church

That aren't worth a pile.

Young there were the fellows who

Meant happiness to fuck with.

Older men make Syria

And cops seem like a myth.

9-16-13

 

Air Without A Stone

I am air without a stone

To stop the moving sea.

Like passing through the sunlight,
It passes over me.

Rivulets and puddles ring

My temples and my feet,

Never altogether there,

So never incomplete.

9-16-13

 

Lace

Black lace, woven with gold -

The fabric's in tact, but very old.

Yet the strings and delicate strands

Woven by four uncertain hands

Lie like fleece on the back of the chair

Where I've slept, and you were there.

You are gone, and farther away,

Obsidian will fade to grey.

The gold (for happiness and trust)

Will never disappear or rust.

9-16-13

Poems

Don Pasquale

When youth turns up its nose at age

And men like Don Pasquale

Suffer sadly – best alone

Than with unloving spouses -

Used until there's nothing left

And gratitude's a phantom -

Beauty is the thing that counts,

And only young men have it -

9-15-13

Tiny Angels

Tiny angels round my head

When I'm cold and lying dead,

Signal Jesus in the sky

That I'm coming when I die.

This is just a fantasy

Ridiculous in poetry

That at least two thousand years

They have used to still their fears.

Now they have a world aflame

For every god that you can name.

9-15-13

 

Like My Father

A man of god who's hardly human -

And American as Jesus -

Omniscient and garrulous

On topics mortal and divine -

Like my father, prejudiced

Against each race except his own -

Where does self-survival end

And gratitude begin?
Yet compassionate and kind -

A temper and a camouflage -

9-16-13

Caustic

How remarkably unjust

Said two kind souls who never cussed

On a trip – Pahrump or bust -

Is the country they call home -

“To the ocean, white with foam” -

Said I, “Next year in New York town

The opera is shutting down -

Deceased, defunct and moribund -

The customers don't wish to fund

The opera. But tattoos, rock

And rap can make the money talk.”

Tattoos in towns in every state,

Manhattan to the Golden Gate,

On every torso, limb and pate,

Show the people hang together.

That's what makes the country great.

9-15-13

Poems

A Song

It would be nice

Never to die,

Four soft cats

And he and I.

Lying abed

In a barren room,

Dirty windows,

An unused broom,

And quietly listen

To music play,

Bach or Haydn;

And there to stay.

9-14-13

 

Technology

The same technology -

Brainy young men -

Who give us Audioslave

With every deafening nuance of sound,

Resurrected Jascha Heifetz

From 78s, perfectly.

Choose your brew!

The world is dying.

Come! Let's all die with it!

9-15-13

Society

We have stores that sell things,

Repairmen that fix them

And locks that protect them from thieves,

Firemen that put out the blaze

When they're burning away like leaves.

We have preachers to tell us we're holy,

And put us away when we're dead,

Shrinks who will listen and listen,

Or frequently zap us instead.

We have mommies and daddies who love us,

Assuming they do that is,

And grannies as fat as a whale

Who insist on a hug and a kiss.

9-12-13

I'm a crazy person

I'm a crazy person

Thinking I write verse,

Who really never thought so.

I could think something worse.

Battered on a reef,

Floating out to sea,

Listening to “Tosca”,

Tiny as a flea.

Tried to make a friend

15 years ago.

It wasn't in the cards.

He split. That's all I know.

Now I'm all alone

Sitting on my tuff.

I tried to make it work.

Ya basta! That's enough!

9-13-13

 

The Hour

Counselors laugh at their patients,

(Ridiculous asses and fools!),

Give them attention

(The nice ones are gentle),

And out when the hour is up.

Kindly don't dawdle.

A client is waiting.

I got a diploma for this.

9-13-13

 

The Crazies

Every mfing person

In the mfing world

Is mfing crazy.

That's a fact.

Especially psychiatrists and cops.

Celibates and saints

Who live secluded in a room

Could be the sanest citizens of all.

People who give presents

Wanting nothing in return

Except perhaps a sign of happiness,

Are very rare, started young,

And probably they're old.

9-13-13

 

Poverty

There is no hope.

There is no help.

And Jesus! There's no god!

Poor men have each other.

Rich men have a wad.

Someone isn't planning

Or I don't know the score.

Why are rich men rich?

Why are poor men poor?

9-13-13

Poems

Larkin

Larkin's poems have no warmth,

Just icy English chill,

Cynical and bittersweet,

As the Muses will.

Poignance, sense and perfect form

Exactly as they seem -

There's madness there. Or so oblique

They're useless as a dream.

8-25-13

The Story

“The Sphinx Without A Secret” -

Did Edna ever read it?

Did she know the story

When she wrote the “Bluebeard” sonnet?

Both are very clever,

Poignant and profound.

Genius made them both,

And very much alike.

4-6-13

After he had summoned up

After he had summoned up

A dream out of the sea

And made the universe, - this deity,

What did he then?

He caused himself

Not ever to have been.

 

Pococurante, the sea

Pococurante, the sea

Once was the mother of me.

There in the fog and the mist

By the waves and the swells I was kissed.

Nurtured and warm

By a storm on the sand

I was giving my form

By a hand

From the soul of the sea.

 

A Meadow

I see a summer meadow, sweet with gold

Swaying in a free thalassic breeze

That's salty with the scent of ocean spray.

I see two birds sink slowly in the sky,

And rise again, descend, as of they were

The shadows of two branches in the wind.

To sit upon a stone and see the sky -

A whisper overhead, the sky appears

As happy as a baby's nascent smile,

Without a mist, where random bits of clouds

Like cotton ragged-torn from larger hunks

Without direction wander in the blue.

We're both fumbling in the dark

We're both fumbling in the dark,

Making love out of nothing,

Less substantial than a touch,

You more expressive,

More supportive than I.

I am cold,

But I'll be human

When the ghosts are dead,

And sleep will emerge from my heart

To encompass you.

And we'll breathe together,

You and I.

To – Who Thought Of It

Come visit me, my olden love.

Renew and warmly make an

Acquaintanceship in current love

And gently reawaken

Those tender feelings in my heart

That I have not forsaken.

My love requires no design.

It simply can be taken.

The winter's gone, the flowers bloom

Among the matted clover.

Come sit with me and do not say

That yesterday is over.

Be with me as you were, my love,

My ancient love the same.

And lay a flower on my stone

And sit beside my name.

Somewhere a cat

Somewhere a cat

Rubs its side against a fence.

That's sleep.

Cobwebs between doorless jambs

Are doors.

That's the moon.

Dark purple wine

Splashes down the sides

Of a lead mug.

That's the night.

Poems

Society


We have stores that sell things,
Repairmen that fix them
And locks that protect them from thieves,
Firemen that put out the blaze
When they're burning away like leaves.
We have preachers to tell us we're holy,
And put us away when we're dead,
Shrinks who will listen and listen,
Or frequently zap us instead.
We have mommies and daddies who love us,
Assuming they do that is,
And grannies as fat as a whale
Who insist on a hug and a kiss.


9-12-13


Memories


Could I could remember -
Simply remember -
No iron recollection -
Just gentle voices
Encourage or echo
My thoughts -
The Muse in reflection -
Passive introspection -
I could relax and enjoy the earth -
What men have left in tact -
Even a friend who is gone -
Really not present in fact.


9-12-13








Bach


Everyone likes Bach.  Except the Yankees.
Tattoos, guns and rap.  America.
The opera is closing in New York.
There hasn't been an opera since Puccini.
And now they are performing Charlie Ives.
Music hath no charms.  He sold insurance.
And I'm a fool.  And I write poesy.
I'm Cassandra – pointing at the world!
But Yankees like it just the way it is.


9-12-13

Jill


I have a single friend.
Who needs any more?
Many miles away
Near a Jersey shore,


She writes poetry
With pictures you can feel,
And encourages my verse.
A magic that is real!


She's kind beyond compassion.
Without her I would write
As before – but nothing!
At night, in night, of night.


We've known each other months
But only through the mail.
The ocean won't endure.
Our friendship may prevail.


9-12-13

Larkin


Larkin's poems have no warmth,
Just icy English chill,
Cynical and bittersweet,
As the Muses will.


Poignance, sense and perfect form
Exactly as they seem -
There's madness there.  Or so oblique
They're useless as a dream.


8-25-13


Rebecca


A tiny angel from the sky -
There is no heaven -
I don't know why -
A gentle angel from the stars -
License plates on vans and cars
Assure me there are angels -
If only very few -
There's one in Denny's too -


9-12-13

The Story


“The Sphinx Without A Secret” -
Did Edna ever read it?
Did she know the story
When she wrote the “Bluebeard” sonnet?
Both are very clever,
Poignant and profound.
Genius made them both,
And very much alike.


4-6-13