A Christmas Song

A Christmas Song

Art is not immortal,

And the world is dying,

Finishing in chaos,

Anger and confusion.

Another Xmas passes

Backing up the traffic,

As the planet perishes

In ersatz happiness.

What will come tomorrow?

A half-polluted ocean,

Animals and fishes

All dead upon the shore.

But not a human being

Except perhaps a savage

Spared the crucifixion

Of the verdant globe.

12-24-13

 

Labels

My barber is a racist.

My barber is a Christian.

My barber is a jingo. And

It keeps him very busy.

I said, “He's not a racist.”

I said, “He's not a Christian.”

I said, “He's not a jingo.” And

My barber said, “What is he??”

12-24-13

 

Modern

Disfigurement and wars,

Cutting people's throats -

More meaningful than Porter,

My generation gloats.

The ego of Colossus,

A repertoire of cant,

Declaring that a rhyme's

Inferior to slant.

This poem is a rant.

Nothing more will matter

Or be of any worth

When Christians and Republicans

Dominate the Earth.

Nothing for the sick.

Nothing for the old.

Prayers and an M-16,

And the streets are gold.

The cops do what they're told.

12-24-13

 

Were everyone born

Were everyone born with empathy,

Life wouldn't hurt so much.

Religions are totally selfish.

And unbelievers are shot.

This Christmas is almost over.

The traffic has ebbed at last.

A day for the kiddies, then silence,

And all of it is past.

12-24-13

Fiends

If you're crazy and you're small,

Policemen will not come at all.

If you're beaten by the road

And left alone to die,

And call the doctors, you're afraid.

The shrinks just say “goodbye”.

Little kids in Africa

Conscripted in the war,

Have no lives, no homes, no love,

Not ever – any more.

This is Man! He has a god.

He has one of many.

In the ruins and the slums,

Gods do not go, not any.

If you're sick or if you're old

And ask for help abjectly,

It isn't what Man will not do,

But what he does directly.

When the villain's got you down -

No force on earth will check

His progress into victory.

Talons in the neck!

12-24-13

 

A Sleepy Cat

A little bit of life

That sleeps for 20 years,

Then disappears forever.

No one ever hears

The story of a cat

That lies upon your lap,

Purrs and licks your fingers,

Then takes a little nap.

12-24-13

 

Jumping Beans

Why should I write poesy?
I am going to die

And be absorbed into the universe.

If I have great talent,

Then my poesy will last -

In a certain culture

For a certain length of time.

Limited! It's all so limited!

Shallow flippant pieces

That will make somebody laugh

(Like me) – and never try for deeper stuff -

This should be my goal

And my ambition – but it isn't.

There is a worm inside a jumping bean.

12-24-13

 

Cats

Cats recover quickly

From a psychiatric injury -

Face against the wall in shame -

Then purring in your lap -

Terror at a touch, and then

He's licking you. A kitten

Is blind at birth. From gentleness

A germinal affection.

12-25-13

Three Little Rants

All Souls

The way the mind works, sonny boy,

You go into a vicious rage,

Crucify your enemies

With no remorse, then turn the page.

Gentle people do not last

Long enough to play their role.

Nature and your deity

So constitute the human soul.

12-24-13

 

Stanzas

Sitting alone with some coffee,

Ridiculous, sullen and cold,

I watch the world pass to religion,

And fight like 7 year old.

Though I've nobody to love me,

I couldn't reciprocate too,

I stay by myself in my chamber,

In horror of somebody new.

12-24-13

Joshua

I remember my friend Jack,

Victim of your crazed attack.

Banished, he did not come back.

Gentle, honest, kind and true,

He named his baby after you,

A very fat and psycho Jew.

After you had thrown him to

The snakes, you left him with a kid,

Namesake of a hateful Yid.

12-24-13

 

A Sad Tale

She stole two hundred dollars.

Excuse me if I scoff,

But now she's pissed

Because it pissed me off.

A crazy little lesbian -

What more can nature do? -

Who left her lover yesterday,

And now she's after you.

What's more, if she's successful -

And you and I are through

And you go off together,

I'll go crazy too.

12-23-13

Music

European music is fair.

I've heard it all before.

There's nothing to listen to anywhere.

Summer time, winter time,

I declare,

Genius is rare.

12-23-12

 

Three Little Rants

Then there was John -

Earnest and serious,

Didn't like jokes at all.

Said to my face what an

Asshole I was.

Died of AIDS last fall.

Belinda, the maid of the thread,

Doesn't have much in her head.

On a cushion she sits,

And her grammar's the pits,

And she's older than god, and he's dead.

But Tobi (kiss kissy and pooh!)

Is nuts for Belinda (aren't you?).

And Tobi, the queen

Of her own magazine,

Would like to write poetry too.

12-23-13

Cat Smarts

Cat Smarts

Intelligence should never die

When it's in a cat.

Whatever made the universe

At least should spare us that.

Loving paws that kneed and prod,

Little eyes that dart

After things that quickly move,

Cats are very smart.

Hearts that love are very eager

To be loved the same.

They learn, they sleep. And Freddy comes

When I say his name.

12-23-13

People on a forum

People on a forum

(Bringers of the light)

Only go to forums

Because they want to fight.

Anyone who's decent

And hasn't lost his grip

Hurries from the forum

Like a rat abandons ship.

12-23-13

 

Music

European music is fair.

I've heard it all before.

There's nothing to listen to anywhere.

Summer time, winter time,

I declare,

Genius is rare.

12-23-12

A Truism

A poem that is rich

In language only pleases

The country it was made in.

But poetry of thought -

The only human language,

Like music - lasts for aye.

12-22-13

 

Memorial

There is no immortality -

Not even for a clock.

The sun and sea will pulverize

In time the biggest rock.

The halls of Man – in bushy caves,

Ere that arboreal -

Departed like an ocean dry,

And immemorial.

So goes time. And little Man

Whose gods are very grand

Thinks six thousand years of earth

Were not at all unplanned.

12-23-13

A Genius

Every sixth or ninth

Or seventh century

Nature makes a genius

Come walking from the sea.

It wasn't Keats or Mozart.

It isn't you or me.

His art will be received

Enthusiastically.

He'll have a temporary

Immortality.

12-22-13

 

Immortality

Civilizations in Asia

Thousands of years ago

Had their cultures and poets

I shall never know.

Shakespeare is only Europe,

Five hundred years or so.

Where is the rush to achieve

Some immortality?

Even the cosmos is mortal,

And on earth, the sea.

Grandiose and empty,

And only death for me.

And finite poetry.

12-22-13

Like a magnet, sleep

Promises

Bukowski and Sondheim – American dreams!

More like the end of life it seems.

Lovers for months – then in a day,

All their promises go away.

Lloyd Webber lost in a quirk of fate

All the genius that made him great.

Beautiful music – then like dawn,

For no good reason, the gift was gone.

12-20-13

Like Ayn Rand

Rand who like an angel wrote

Disliked to read her writing.

Except the Noel Coward chatter,

She was sculpt in stone.

And also I don't like to read

The poems I have written,

Except upon a rainy day

A little light slips through.

Does this mean I'm good or bad?
A world that does not love

Any longer love or art

Or government, just god.

12-20-13

Like a magnet, sleep

Like a magnet, sleep

Pulls me into dreams.

My brain's a graveyard.

Winter's come at last.

The cats are curled in circles

And sleeping in the chairs.

There has to be a way to understand.

11-9-12

 

Happiness

Why don't you want to be happy?

Is it the fear of death

Unbuffered by heavens and angels?
But not an ersatz joy.

Have therapists ruined your thinking

So that remembering them

Hurts you? Or is tomorrow

Reminding you of today?

Or are your memories painful,

Even innocuous ones?
Why don't you want to be happy?
Is paradox enough?

12-20-13

 

Old Men

Old men cease to care.

Beauty is no longer fair.

Nothing's deeper than the night.

Former treasures don't delight.

They belie the myth that age

Is gentle and profound and sage.

Soft in youth, then older mild.

Keats was written by a child.

12-20-13

Michael

Quitting

Under the rubble of rap and rock,

Jolson and Garland and “Danny Boy” -

Half psychotic and half asleep -

Giving up poesy once again -

How many times in 50 years

Have I given the Muse her freedom?
Early morning and overcast -

The kitten was chasing a stick around

The concrete floor -

And his back was arched,

Ears cocked forward – in little leaps

He pounced on the hapless twig -

Nearly 70 – Keats was dead

At 26 – and on the edge

Of beautiful poems and curried fame -

Bukowski crapped on it all -

12-20-13

Michael

The Archangel Michael was gay.

God sent him down to the earth one day,

Where he met coming out of a bar

A bastard who hollered, “I bet you are

A little fairy.” And shot him dead.

The streets of the city ran with red.

Quicker than what it takes to tell,

God grabbed the killer who ran and fell,

And threw him into the worst of hell.

12-19-13

 

Vernacular

A very funny man,

You'll laugh until it hurts -

The kitten's chewing holes

In all my faded shirts.

No one comes to Denny's

Who has a bit of class.

Appropriate is boring,

And I'm a silly ass.

Once I had a friend.

Now I think she's gone.

Bored beyond belief,

She left me with a yawn.

Shakespeare and The Beats

Were poetry to her.

Shakespeare conjured up

His own vernacular.

12-19-13

 

Everyone

How many million others -

Philosophers and crooks -

Are looking for an audience

And want to sell their books?

Following the herd

Where everything is free,

Bukowski is a slur

On art and poetry.

My generation loves him -

The one the angels bless -

Icon of the crowd,

Prince of Ugliness.

12-19-13

 

Small

Keats was very little.

He wasn't very tall.

Always in a fight

With anyone at all.

If I weren't little.

If I weren't weak

I wouldn't say “I'm sorry”
Every time I speak.

My life would be a much

Sunnier affair,

And dominating bullies

Would know that I was there.

I wouldn't curl and cringe

And fester like a sore,

Savoring my wounds

Behind a bolted door.

12-19-13

 

The Clown

I'm losing all my friends.

Regardless what they think,

I'll keep writing poems

As long as there is ink.

They keep changing lovers.

I watch them. Do they know?

That pretty little man

I loved so long ago

Took an open heart

And crushed it in his fist.

Yesterday I saw him.

In mockery he hissed

And tried to shoot me down,

But his arrow missed.

Will the day arrive

Humanity is through?

Poets play the fool,

And lovers are untrue.

They think my verse is tripe.

I'm foolish. Nothing checks

Their changeable opinions

Except the call of sex.

Regardless what they think

Of my poesy and me,

I still write in Denny's

And get my coffee free.

I'm always making jokes,

The only fool in town,

A small unshaven ass,

A little aging clown.

12-19-13

Hero's Lane

Keats & Shostakovitch

Keats and Shostakovitch -

Opposites immortal

Achieving the same purpose -

Beginning at the end -

Impersonal with beauty -

Sculpture in the water -

The self as it existed

When the music was composed -

However I am baffled -

How can music tell the soul?

12-18-13

 

Man

No one wants a rhythm.

No one wants a rhyme.

Like drunkards in their vomit

Wallowing in slime,

The Oscar put it nicely,

Falling down in bars,

We're lying in the gutter,

But looking at the stars.

A bigot's only vicious,

But bigotry is king.

Christmas in America,

Where the angels sing.

12-19-13

 

Voice

On every public forum

The well-read man appears

Whose adamant convictions

Are boring me to tears.

He'll educate and shoot you

With arrows from his sling.

He's up on all the mystics,

And doesn't know a thing.

12-19-13

Vernacular

A very funny man,

You'll laugh until it hurts -

The kitten's chewing holes

In all my faded shirts.

No one comes to Denny's

Who has a bit of class.

Appropriate is boring,

And I'm a silly ass.

Once I had a friend.

Now I think she's gone.

Bored beyond belief,

She left me with a yawn.

Shakespeare and The Beats

Were poetry to her.

Shakespeare conjured up

His own vernacular.

12-19-13

 

Hero's Lane

Banners line the street -

Every soldier slain

And his branch of service

Aloft on Hero's Lane.

I'm frightened to disclose it

In verses. If I do

The men who made the banners

Will come and get me too.

High above the street

Like a timeless shroud,

It warms a mother's heart,

And makes a father proud.

12-19-13

Fairy Tales

“Sound & Sense”

There are poems of what you say,

And there are poems of how you say it.

Sondheim drew the distinction,

His contribution to art.

Musical language and magic words

Made Fitzgerald cry.

But cranky old geezers who use their wives

Fuss with alliteration.

When the heart of the once thought dead

Opens and poesy comes,

Merely to mention the sound of the sea

Returns the soul to youth.

But what is the meaning? And must a song

Have a meaning at all?
Of course it must, or you have created

The dictionary again.

12-16-13

Poetry & Music

How could a man as vulgar

And ugly as Bukowski

Want to become a poet -

The gentlest of the arts?
And why would clumsy Frost

Compare it to a game?

Even Joyce

Said “poetry's a game”.

Is that what living is?

A vulgar, ugly game?
And once the underdog,

The black man owns the world?

At least the world of music.

Classical's defunct.

A trip into the past -

Callas, Tetrazzini -

1910 the farthest

Backward sound can go.

All the rest is legend,

And those who never heard it.

But anyone can sing it

As it was sung then.

Music is immortal,

And poetry is dead.

12-16-13

 

Lost Half

Another 16 years -

That's 32 -

I'll be too old to dodder -

I'll be known or I'll be not -

But always writing poems -

And you'll be 53 -

That's not the end of time -

A song I wrote a day ago

And now I cannot read it -

The latter half is lost forever -

Genius battles time -

And verse that's unremembered

And illegible is gone

Into the soup primordial -

The brain's infinity -

12-16-13

 

Threads

Little minds like scorpions

That cannot write a song

Demonstrate incompetence

On every public forum.

Slinging praises at the bad,

Prolific with opinions

As though they'd found the secret truth

That gave them excellence.

When they write in rhythm, they're

Ridiculous and clumsy.

Their rhymes don't rhyme. In freedom they

Have nothing much to say.

12-16-13

Fairy Tales

If you'd become a poet,

There is something you must do.

Learn to live alone. Perhaps

You'll fall in love with you.

Then like every other poet

You will tout your wares

On Amazon where you'll discover

No one really cares.

If you achieve a following

(Bukowski and his ilk),

You'll become a famous worm,

But you won't spin silk.

You'll remain a duckling though

You hoped to be a swan,

Making gold from straw. And when

You're gone, you will be gone.

12-16-13

 

Converse

Tone of voice means nothing

Except a passing mood,

Or it can mean everything,

Whether love or war.

Furtive looks cause intercourse,

In stores or in the nude.

Does irony communicate?

What are inflections for?

12-17-13

 

John

It's really quite important,

Said the psychotherapist,

Who took degrees in volley ball,

Orson Welles and Jacqui Schiff,

That everybody on the planet

Genuflect when they are speaking

Of your friends. And anyone

Who says he doesn't like them

Will thereupon summarily

Be pasted to the wall.

He knew all the rules of life,

And lived for intercourse,

Kept the plays of Shakespeare

On a shelf by Noel Coward,

But didn't like them half as much

As he liked television.

12-18-13

 

Antipathy

No matter what I say it seems

I'm stepping on their laws.

On forums and in therapy

I break unwritten rules.

Other folks it seems can say

Whatever they intend,

God bless me til their tongues fall out,

Or tell me I'm a twat,

Insult me like a block of wood.

But let me answer back.

That's when the coats come off and I'm

Deleted from the thread.

So anybody in the future -

If there is a future -

Who wonders why I hate the human

Race – well, this is why.

12-18-13

If you like my poems, my name is Joseph Hart.  I have about 80 books on Amazon, both paperback and Kindle.  The paperbacks are usually $10 or less, the Kindles $1.  You can find them on Amazon by clicking "books" on the drop down menu, then typing "Joseph Hart Poetry" in the address bar.  The books I recommend are "Ten Chaps" ($12.50 - one of very few over $10, due to its size), "Endymion Awake", "Poems Published In Audience Magazine", "Poems Published Somewhere Long Ago", "Words Without Music" and "Motley Chaos".