Story

Smiles

Rituals and phony smiles

When no one feels a thing

Irritate the public if they

Aren't at once forthcoming.

Strangers, clerks and therapists

Who do not know a thing

Light ersatz candles in the dark

And think they show the way,

Go home and rest in double darkness,

Drowsiness and love.

4-22-14

Pictures

He wants to stop me hating other people.

Once I didn't. Once I loved . But now.

I keep writing poems of complaint

And retrospection. In the past enow.

Him I love. The rest I don't forget -

Like seldom blooms that hang the briars.

Did they survive unchanged? Are they the same,

Unfaded photos in my memory?
Though these flowers beckon to the sky,

They do only what they once did before.

4-23-14

Story

I wrote a poem. And its fragile ashes

Swirl inside a breeze. And angels catch them

And make them one again, and give the whole

To a god that doesn't want to read them,

And lays them on a shelf with other books.

God is not a reader. Art is dead,

And so corrupted with absurdity

That any eager mountebank today

With a pen or brush can fool the foolish.

Put them in la Scala for a year,

Then remove them and remove the artists.

Without a head, a rose has only thorns.

4-23-14

Aunt Gail

Aunt Gail is dead, the best of all my kin,

Bright and well. Aunt Mary was insane,

So we had a good and odd rapport.

I've never been to any funeral,

Not my grandpa's, not for anyone.

But when my sister told me Gail was dead,

Something like a soul flew from my body,

I knew at last that somebody had died.

4-23-14

"Let's Do It"

“Let's Do It”

(a parody on Cole Porter in 5 choruses)

(well, Noel Coward did it)

1.

White mice with rapturous squeaks do it

Plumbers after plugging up your leaks do it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Great thinkers sit and ask why do it

Often maiden aunties on the sly do it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

The penguins far out at sea do it

They're so properly dressed

As Portnoy why didn't he do it

He was very repressed

Fat fleas in feverish fits do it

Television preachers at the Ritz do it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

2.

Some folks before shoes and rice do it
Using every possible device do it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Marcel recalling past times did it

Mariners while sucking on their limes did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

What is Clark Kent on the prowl for

When he's wearing his cape

And Batman puts on a cowl for

A clandestine escape

A. Graham Bell on the phone did it

Solemn Nietzsche sitting all alone did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

3.

Poirot who's no Provencal did it

Sweet Miss Marple straightening her shawl did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Medieval monks just for Lent did it

Hammerstein with lots of sentiment did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Big bumble bees with such class do it

When they're buzzing along

Rich T.V. preachers en masse do it

To the clamoring throng

Hermaphrodites maybe twice do it

People that you think are very nice do it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

4.

Old Johann Bach yessirree did it

In between cantatas constantly did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

The Barrymores and the Lunts did it

Maybe God and Mary more than once did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Some fussy prostitutes cuss men

And give nothing away

Although some others like busmen

Take a nice holiday

Soft pussy cats when they must do it

William Buckley can but only just do it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

5.

Great men in each former age did it

Lady Chatterley on every page did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Fat Santa Claus in the snow does it

With all the little elves he – ho, ho, ho does it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Miss Murdoch in every book does it

And she's very profound

But Sherlock Holmes says one look does it

If your logic is sound

And Casanova you bet did it

With absolutely everyone he met did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Rhymes

Everyone who writes in rhyme

Has to have a paradigm.

Whether it is a-b-a-b

(Consequently maybe baby),

Or whether it more loosely lies,

For instance in “The Bridge of Sighs”.

Or the pattern of the sonnet

(Which I cannot write dog gone it!).

Sometimes rhymes are repetitious

And occasionally vicious -

Oh, there's nothing so invigorating as a little rape

By a motorcycle gang from which you can't escape

With six or seven passersby to stand around and gape.

Oh, there's nothing so invigorating as a little rape.

Or it can be clever, smart

Like the rhymes of Larry Hart -

I'll get brown and sunned un-

Less this town is London.

Though in my flat I boil tea

And entertain like royalty,

My life is just a riddle.

Don't play upon your fiddle.

I won't hear its squeak,

My spirit's weak.

And though he did the Latin Quarter,

Something can be said for Porter -

In the apse

A couple of chaps

Will sing us a rhapsody.

Perhaps they'll get a fee.

You're the fruit

That is in my yogurt.

You're the suit

On a Humphrey Bogurt.

Rhymes were once the talk o' fellers

Like the thrifty Rockefellers.

I do not like the present age.

Stupid poets think they're sage.

And now at last it seems betimes

The world will be fini with rhymes.

Submerged

Why Beauty?

Why should poems be beautiful?

Keats had said it's so.

I didn't think of beautiful

Some 50 years ago.

Rhythm, rhyme and phrases,

Sensations, feelings too

Stirred gently in a cauldron

Often come out true.

I didn't aim for beauty,

I didn't think of truth

When I tried for poesy

Somewhere in my youth.

4-7-14

Submerged

Beneath a sea of love,

Don't break the surface.

Everything you need is under water.

You can love.

The medium's the ocean.

Too much coffee gives me indigestion.

I cease to strain to keep myself consistent.

And whim the nature of my conversation.

Reach for air and grasp it and

Discover Lamia.

4-20-14

Easter

The Eastern Orthodox

(Oh my, such words!)

Are celebrating Easter.

Little horns

To blow at midnight,

Paper and balloons

Falling from the ceiling. And the band.

Everybody laughs and sings and hugs,

And everyone forgets where he was born,

His dialect and language and the wars.

And all the colors dancing in the air.

4-20-14

 

Styles

Nothing to my former hero Keats,

Better than my current, like the sea

In which she would be drowned. And that completes

My heroes. Brooke and Poe. And poetry.

Linear, explicit. Undisguised,

Articulate. And warm because of Keats.

Lilting rhythms coming unsurprised.

Every stanza regular repeats.

4-20-14

 

Roses

Only with the vicious do I shut

A heavy, oak and metaphoric door.

Or when on feelings does my conscience glut -

But you – I wish that you would love me more.

The day is overcast. A gloomy bummer

That I like. A chill is in the air,

Although on the threshold of a summer

Where breezes toss stray paper through the air.

My poesy is gone. The Muse has fled.

I'm digging in the rocks to find a theme.

The Muse that kissed me once perhaps is dead,

Looking back, an island in a dream.

4-20-14

Camus & Sartre

Camus for his absurdity,

Descriptions, and one novel -

“L'etranger”. I read it,

Twice in English,

Several times in French.

The French is very simple,

Stacked with cognates. Then to Sartre -

I've read so much so many times,

Relaxed and interesting.

A writer to remember, failing that,

To read again.

4-19-14

 If you like my poems, I have several books on Amazon.  Paperbacks are usually $10, and Kindles are usually $1.  To see them, go to Amazon, click Books on the drop down, and type Joseph Hart Poetry on the search bar.

Questions

A Place

Too many words and not enough sensations.

Too many to make desperation rhyme.

Too phoney on ridiculous occasions,

Songs that serenade another time.

I write my thoughts in rhythm. What's the good?

The bookstore owner said if one believes,

It obviates the meaning of the poem,

And he who doesn't, will just slough it off.

In amber, I've preserved his simple wisdom.

Sleep's a treasure but it disappears.

Room for gorgons, shrinks, a dozen gods

That live unknown but active in the mind.

4-20-14

Thoughts

Perhaps because I'm happy

My tendencies relax

And I am feeling sleepy

And nodding off in Denny's.

I'm reading in a book

I wrote 3 years ago

And recently I published.

I see the suppositions

And opinions that are mine -

Rather fine opinions -

I believe them all -

But have no need to see them

Come back to me again.

But were the older poems

Much earlier than now

That touch and yet embarrass

Such heresies of thought?

Still since I believe them

The are not new to me.

But in this open cedar chest

I lift and raise the lid

And see the same intentions

Of colors, songs and myths

And perfume of the cedar -

And let the boring feeless thoughts

Return to whence the came.

Sensation doesn't end,

But pertinent opinions

Are kept alive by relevance,

Repeated by the crowd,

And no one knows the author,

Nor whether they are true.

When even sense seems true.

4-20-14

Ending With Cats

Gout is not poetical.

But doubt which is heretical

Is quite a most refreshing

Way to see.

Gullible, naïve and shy,

Preferring to believe a lie

Than challenge someone else's

Verity,

He feasted on the sedge of life,

Existed on the edge of life

And dwelt beside the water

Of the sea.

And watching with eternal calm,

The swells and breakers were a balm

That soothed him like the touch of

Poetry.

And in his house unfairly set

Upon the shore and always wet

He lived alone. There's nothing

Wrong with that.

But fifty feline cherubim

Lived beside the sea with him.

And people love a kitten,

Not a cat.

4-19-14

Love

In some ways we're alike,

The human race and I.

Unrequited fancy

Makes everybody cry.

But it's no fantasy.

Torment is a grip,

And measuring your words

To avoid a slip.

She told you resolutely

She will not let you in.

Gored by indecision -

To go back again?

To go away alone

And let your feelings chill -

Impossible! Your heart

Can't leave, and never will.

Everything you say

To her is like a prayer.

What you can't conceive

Is that she doesn't care.

4-19-14

 

An Opera Concert

The singers in this concert are
So fucking arrogant!
Huggy, huggy! Curl your lips
And keep your noses up!
Their voices aren't that wonderful,
Subtle and subdued,
Gentle, warm and peaceful
And inaudible.
After every number
The conductor turns around
And claps his hands. The singer smiles.
The orchestra applauds.
This is all so nauseous!
Did they all take lessons
From Callas in unqualified conceit?
The women show their boobies
And the men are dipped in grease!

8-31-11

Questions

What should poets write about?

Beauty is passe.

Polemics. Things to fight about.

Art has gone away.

Where do old crusaders go

When their flag is down?
Where immigrant invaders go -

To someone else's town.

Before the caged canary sings,

Take some free advice.

Americans are lots of things,

But none of them is nice.

4-18-14

A Long Jingle

Americans are very cute

And hideously happy,

Good as gold and gold is god.

But if your hair is nappy,

Or if you shun the ladies and

Go ga ga for a chappy,

They won't be very nice to you

(The cops won't like you either -

Cops do what they're told to do),

And congress for a breather

In several states and just because

The right has rights and Santa Claus,

Will dig up some archaic laws

And put them back in force.

The blue laws? But of course.

4-18-14

If you like my poems, I have several books on KIndle, most a $1.  On Amazon, I have about 100 paperback, most for $10 apiece.  On Amazon, click on Books on the dropdown, and type Joseph Hart Poetry.

WWJD

WWJD

Every night at Winco

From midnight until 5

A bunch of singing bullies

Stock shelves to stay alive.

Then they go to Denny's

To live it up and jive.

We went one dawn to Denny's

And happened to arrive

As they were getting ready

To blow that chintzy dive.

My friend began to holler

And cuss these aging goons.

Perhaps it was the crossing

Of several distant moons.

These little macho workers

Now out of servitude

Didn't take it kindly.

Abandoning their food

They came toward my buddy

Looking very rude.

The cops were called. We managed

To get out and free.

Clearly they intended

To do us injury.

They could have hollered back,

Which would have been a mess.

They could have called the cops,

Which someone did, I guess.

They could have called the manager,

Or done nothing. I suggest

These possible solutions.

My buddy was a pest.

And also very sick.

Clearly that was true.

And they were strutting bullies.

What would Jesus do?


4-18-14

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.

 

“Let's Do It”

(a parody on Cole Porter in 5 choruses)

(well, Noel Coward did it)

1.

White mice with rapturous squeaks do it

Plumbers after plugging up your leaks do it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Great thinkers sit and ask why do it

Often maiden aunties on the sly do it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

The penguins far out at sea do it

They're so properly dressed

As Portnoy why didn't he do it

He was very repressed

Fat fleas in feverish fits do it

Television preachers at the Ritz do it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

2.

Some folks before shoes and rice do it
Using every possible device do it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Marcel recalling past times did it

Mariners while sucking on their limes did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

What is Clark Kent on the prowl for

When he's wearing his cape

And Batman puts on a cowl for

A clandestine escape

A. Graham Bell on the phone did it

Solemn Nietzsche sitting all alone did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

3.

Poirot who's no Provencal did it

Sweet Miss Marple straightening her shawl did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Medieval monks just for Lent did it

Hammerstein with lots of sentiment did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Big bumble bees with such class do it

When they're buzzing along

Rich T.V. preachers en masse do it

To the clamoring throng

Hermaphrodites maybe twice do it

People that you think are very nice do it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

4.

Old Johann Bach yessirree did it

In between cantatas constantly did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

The Barrymores and the Lunts did it

Maybe God and Mary more than once did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Some fussy prostitutes cuss men

And give nothing away

Although some others like busmen

Take a nice holiday

Soft pussy cats when they must do it

William Buckley can but only just do it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

5.

Great men in each former age did it

Lady Chatterley on every page did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Fat Santa Claus in the snow does it

With all the little elves he – ho, ho, ho does it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

Miss Murdoch in every book does it

And she's very profound

But Sherlock Holmes says one look does it

If your logic is sound

And Casanova you bet did it

With absolutely everyone he met did it

Let's do it

Let's fall in love

"Suddenly Last Summer"

Keats

What people really feel

And people really see -

His poetry is real -

And yet it's poetry.

No surrealistic herds

Trample through his words.

His rhythms are arrayed

Like flowers in a shade.

Kandinsky, Klee and Dali

Are victims of the folly

Of loving things insane,

Which flowers can't explain.

4-16-14

A Tidbit Of Denny's

A crazy little psycho

With tattoos across his face

Haunts the aisles of Denny's

Like he owned the lousy place.

It's early in the evening.

I came just after 9.

Why must they seat the lesbians

In booths adjoining mine?

There goes psycho number 1,

Making his egress,

The first of many. We are pawns

In nature's game of chess.

And I'll make mine.

It's nearly 10.

The place is getting loud.

People who have nothing are

Inestimably proud.

4-16-14

 

Free

When I see the trash that comes to

Denny's dishabille,

Up and down the aisles and in

And out from 4 to 3,

I think about the African

And aborigine

In the doctor's waiting room

In magazines I see,

And wonder where the values lie -

With her – with her – with me.

4-16-14

Armageddon

You loved me once. Perhaps again?

Wake up, my love. Be happy.

When the world is worse than this,

And poetry's extinct,

And music is another weapon

In their armory -

Then I don't know what, my love.

I think that time is here.

4-16-14

The Bay

When I essay a poem I'm

A frigate back in dock,

And the sandy shore becomes

A gate I can unlock.

I exhaust my shallow heart

And try to do my best,

Then sink into my soul and let

The Muses do the rest.

4-16-13

Why do I keep writing?

Why do I keep writing?
I can see my talent's gone.

Why should I be greedy?
I was born to 50 years.

Oftentimes I wrestled with

The editors and love.

The editors took every trick,

Except the poems were mine.

I could write another,

They could not.

There is no fun in writing now.

It occupies the time.

The Muses have abandoned me.

I am a little boy

Standing in the Coliseum

In his uncle's clothes.

4-16-14

“Suddenly Last Summer”

“Suddenly Last Summer” -

The plot was just a frame,

The incident the painting

Drawing all eyes to the man

Being chased by children,

Like a passage out of Keats,

But only just a fantasy,

Reality at bay.

As the love of Sartre said,

We do in fantasy

What would be absurd or painful

In reality.

Safe death, false pain,

An image of

The sea Millay desired.

4-16-14

Like Bubble Gum Cards

Like Bubble Gum Cards

My books some hundred now are on the shelves.

Collect them all and trade them with your friends,

Like Space Cadets, your favorite baseball players

And Wacky Placks. In fifty years or so

Any set complete in mint condition

Will be worth a lot to rich collectors.

4-15-14

 

A Dumb Mistake

The dumbest thing I ever did

Was major in psychology.

I didn't learn a thing but some

Forgotten voo doo crap.

I spent my money, work and time

While reading Johnny Keats.

The teacher of statistics asked me

Was I dropping out.

I thought I'd learn a lot about

The personality.

I only learned that people who

Are sane don't know a thing.

Nature/nurture. Flip a coin.

But don't forget the twins.

A Jersey high school English teacher

Knows the way it is.

I don't see how her children

Grew up sane.

4-15-14

 

Prolificacy

I write it very easily.

Don't try to be too deep.

Hart could be prolific too.

But Larry Hart was good.

When Sondheim gets to heaven,

Which he will – as Loesser said,

“Remember mediocrity

Is not a mortal sin” -

God will tell him, “Stephen

Prolificacy does not

Mean that you are talented,

But just that you're verbose.”

4-15-14

Three Events

It was several days before I felt it.

Grandpa's dead. Then in and out of days

And nights I cried, unable to desist.

For many days, no matter where I was,

All the tears this body could produce,

Or kept secluded in its cavities,

Erupted. And Vesuvius was still.

One of two events in my existence -

My grandpa's death. And so the death of love.

My mother's death. To pull a rotted tooth.

And both elicited the same reaction.

And Jacqui Schiff and Doctor Kelly

Driving me insane.

They made the ground of Oakland

And then everywhere I went -

A hideous example of black nights and silver stars.

Endlessly drawn deeper into them.

Then I got a shot, and sometime later

All of it turned back to normalcy.

Otherwise a commonplace

Of loss and promiscuity.

Not a song by Dickinson,

Much better than I'm writing,

Let there be a fourth event to me.

Beneath the wing of happiness and love -

My grandpa's gaze – this poetry

Makes a god of me.

4-15-14

Consciousness

The more he is rejecting,

The more my love congeals.

Ambivalence and paradox

And double-messages!

My lines are not so fluent

Spurting from their hidden place,

But consciousness and thinking

Come together. I write poems.

Who am I? The table I can see.

A spot of light like consciousness

Centered in the ambiance

Of things I see around me -

When it goes out, the ambiance

Is gone. And that is death.

An angel in a restaurant

With a cup of coffee

Contemplating death because

He has no where to go.

And many years ago while sitting

In a restaurant,

I wrote a poem identical.

Life (like consciousness) is what I see.

The poem is lost – so many years -

Time is moved like breezes turning pages.

4-15-14

Threshing

Like a thresher constant threshing

While the verse is being written -

A little old, a little new,

A little while it happened

Made my best and early books.

Then I released the string.

Tension gone and lenient,

Too many poems escape

And settle in collections

That are not good enough.

A hundred books. Some are good,

And some in hindsight better.

Except in sweet anthologies.

I gather up good poems

In one book and publish them.

Then publish them again.

I know no rules of prosody.

Just write and pray to god.

4-15-14

 

Consistent

This poem like all other poems

Comes to no conclusion,

But never trust a shrink

Or tell a copper what you feel.

Cops are not infallible.

Their sergeants think they are.

Not according to the morning Times.

When the law says “red”, wear red.

Cops enforce the law.

Tomorrow if it's green, wear green.

Policemen are consistent.

They enforce whatever's on the books.

It sounds as though there are no cops at all.

4-15-14