In The Waiting Room

In The Waiting Room

I cannot imagine being

Friends with anyone

Other than the person

I am friends with.

And now the clouds are separating.

I can see the sun.

Night will soon be here.

It will be cooler.

Insanity, like love,

Is for the young.

4-30-14

 

Sketch

Another noisy night in Denny's -

Peter Pan in black -

Animated -

Jesus! What's she on?

George is gone – his

Father's funeral – Utah -

Back tomorrow -

Give me him for her -

It's not that easy -

Sick and nauseated – took

A pill for pain – a new one -

Every day my life turns

More oblique -

Obsequies and getting sicker -

Denny's slowly calms -

Peter Pan just asked me how I'm doing -

I just grunted -

5-2-14

 

Quitting

As my verse improves,

I want to quit it.

I read a recent book and

Really liked it -

Passive, calm and subtle,

But alive -

Fifty years and

Finally I found it -

Release it – let it

Back into the water,

After having hurt it

With a hook -

The same except

The 60s didn't feel -

Childish – but

A crystal without velvet -

Just a little,

Pictures from the 60s

Were nice to think -

But phrases without import -

Now I think

I'm on a new plateau -

Without the motive

To go higher still -

But if I cease to write,

I'll go away -

5-2-14

The Dream Master

When dreams become extensions of reality

Until my dreams are real as the earth,

I dream I reach my hand and wake up reaching,

My equilibrium will totter

Til I am awake.

I'll ask the doctor whether there's a need

To be concerned and he will stare unspeaking,

Or whether there is something I should do,

And if he doesn't jeer like I'm ridiculous,

He'll charge a mint to say, “Now what do you think?”

4-30-14

A Tale

A Tale

He didn't spend a dime

Of what his mother willed him.

When he saw the truth,

It practically killed him.

She has a lot of friends.

Her family is legion.

She just got back from hell

And settled in this region.

Is reality the same

For puppy dogs and ducks?
Love is only temporary.

Everybody fucks.

40 years a celibate,

Happy in the rain,

Someone made a play for him

And he went quite insane.

4-29-14

 

People

A world of loving mongrels

And just a single bone.

None of them is happy,

And each of them alone.

Each a different story

And all of them are odd,

Alone or in a bar,

Crazier than god

4-29-14

 

Therapists

To change your personality

Will break your mind in two.

The person that you want to be

Was never really you.

Consider it in poetry.

Keep the world at bay.

They'll murder you in therapy.

At last you'll go away.

And perching like a chanticleer

And wise upon a roof,

They'll crow and everyone will hear,

And they remain aloof.

4-19-14

 

Songs

Only music makes me cry.

People never do.

And just the more exciting songs,

Unless they're very sad.

“Danny Boy”, Roberta Flack,

“Among My Souvenirs”,

The trio from “The Tales of Hoffmann”,

The gypsy song from “Carmen”,

But only sung by Callas -

A few that I remember.

Maudlin words and chintzy tunes

Go across my shoulder.

4-29-14

 If you like my poems, I have books on Amazon, both paperbacks and Kindles.  The paperbacks are almost all $10, and most of the Kindles are $1.  You can get to them by clicking on books in the dropdown, then typing Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.

Normal

Today

I've hated Yankees since I was eleven

And all their little world pretends to be.

Guns and gods and bigotry and heaven,

And blacks and faggots yearning to be free.

Contempt for anything approaching art,

With make believe and phony prosody,

An icy dagger in the living heart

Of beauty, music, truth and poetry.

4-28-14

 

The Old Woman

Sick and old and lonely. What's she got?

She sits in Denny's with the daily news,

Eating something, but I don't know what.

Then she leaves. No reason to enthuse.

Will anybody care when she is dying?

It's horrible to think of her as dead.

Some know her name. She shuns the blatant prying.

She leaves behind some pages. Are they read?

4-28-14

 

The Bigot

A bigot has no country and no color.

He's everywhere, like excrement and death.

Life is short. So little of it pleasant.

Death long. The only thing that has no end.

4-28-14

Love is blind

Love is blind to what's in store.

Don't wish him disenchanted.

Though treated like the garbage,

He continues to adore.

He certainly won't like you

For telling him the score.

4-28-14

 

Guru

I'm not pompous, brilliant, wise or witty.

The Oscar was, but he was bred to that.

I'm not even clever. It's a pity.

Though Yankees with their gods are dead to that.

I learned my love from Keats. Though he and I

Are not alike. Did some enchanted dust

Like on the wings that lift the butterfly

Fall off on me? It has to be. It must.

4-28-14

 

Normal

Either I'm a genius or a fool

Or both.

No one's written down a golden rule

Wherewith to gauge the thing -

But Proust and Poe are living -

God and death and Stephen King.

And every morning since the start of time,

Fools have put a face on the sublime.

And other fools

Alike of lesser rank

Dissect the face

And take it to the bank.

4-28-14

 

The Gift

I bought two bracelets from a Mexican

On a blanket at the door to Denny's -

One a string of shells. The other many

Colored threads all woven in a plait.

I meant them as a gift, although I knew

The odds were narrow he would even like them.

He made me feel obscene for wasting money,

As did my mother 60 years ago.

The one he loves who lies and steals and mooches

To stay alive, but will not take a job

Has his heart and treats him like a beggar.

And I've lived on the government for years.

His disposition changes like the weather.

I do not like her relatives or friends.

He loves them all. The least deserving poor

Are saints to him. It's evil to have money.

4-28-14

Love

Love

You're not supposed to love the GOP.

God does that. And helps the NRA.

It's everybody's right to own some guns

Wherewith to blow the grammar school away.

4-28-14

Broadway

The Smart Gun

The Smart gun's much too smart. The NRA

Wants a phone that anybody may

Use to blow a grammar school away.

4-28-14

Broadway

I can't stand Hammerstein and Hart was crazy.

Hammerstein and arrogant conceit!

Sondheim said that Larry Hart was lazy.

Who the hell is Sondheim to repeat?
Larry Hart was brilliant in defeat.

Death came early. And for god, complete.

Broadway once a proving ground for songs,

Called golden, died in 1943.

All the human blemishes and wrongs

Were put on stage for anyone to see.

Broadway now where everyone belongs

Has given up its happy dancing feet.

4-28-14

Le jeu

I did a lousy thing and lost his love.

So many lousy things were done to me.

Why them, why him, why me? Why must I pay?

Where was my mind? In penury and need.

Where was my heart? I was ridiculous.

Like the jerk in Jersey, where was love?

She held the ace, though anyone could play it.

Thank you for your love and flattery.

The jury nods for that in approbation.

Up the righteous jury! Next time let

Her love someone who warrants her approval.

I did not kill Christ. So go away.

The lover is the sympathetic role,

The hero. The beloved has to play.

God bless the victim, and a lover's game.

I'm sick of coffee, poetry and love.

4-28-14

Art

Like the man who slaps his brow

And cries, “I have a thought!”
Involuntary – whence it come?
And also – what is art?

11-21-13

Americana

Art

I shall be forgotten in the morning,

And they will be remembered until dusk.

And then beyond, a massive night abysmal,

Amorphous, like a cloud or mist or haze.

What is art? Not every man pursues it.

Every culture has a different taste.

Painters on the walls had many talents

In Herculaneum and in Pompeii.

And on the walls of caves, imagination.

Or failing that, to capture what they saw.

What is art? Another child of nature,

That fangs and talons will reduce to flesh.

12-26-13

 

Awkward Writing

I'm writing but its awkward.

Not the flush of months ago.

I think my day is over. I still

Happen to be breathing.

Carefully the verses come,

Now better the results,

Though standing on the threshold

Of infinity and death.

I was always in infinity,

Whether dead or breathing.

Shelley was divine and true.

Byron was a phony.

And Keats sang to the gallery in death.

The Puzzle

A mind destroyed by life

Beyond repair.

Pegs have fallen out and blocks of wood

All lie scrambled.

Desperate consciousness

Struggles to assemble them in time.

The pieces will not fit again,

A loss of what's important

And what's not.

Once the structure's broken

It will never work again.

4-27-14

 

New Poems

The words do not come easily

Like vomiting or diarrhea

When lines came altogether

In a rush.

Rhymes and words and rhythms

Like segments in a jigsaw puzzle,

Pieces interlocked.

Now I have to think

For phrases that I like.

This makes it no more conscious,

Only slower.

4-27-14

Americans

Americans! Ridiculous and foolish!

Imbecility that does not end.

A mockery of kindness and affection.

The magic words - “experience” and “friend”.

All dressed up in tattoos and religion.

Fighting, killing, pain are what they love.

Gays and Muslims. National obsessions.

And “Right to life”. But none of them a dove.

5-17-13

 

Americana

The rapture and baseball!

What a way

To start an already

Hideous day!

America! Forever the fool!

Rap, tattoos and the golden rule!

The opera's shutting down next year.

No one's left who wants to hear

Music composed in 1810.

Will harmony be heard again?

9-13-13

 

Americana

People seem to me to be

So very off the beam,

Something you would run across

In a drunken dream.

A poem full of idioms

And very trite cliches,

Things the Yankees understand

Indoor on rainy days.

Savoring their destiny,

Manifest and fell,

Murdering the Indians

And wishing gays to hell.

Anybody with a soul

Who sees things as they are

Winds up on a psycho ward

Or hanging on a bar.

4-26-14

Irene

A tiny Jacqui Schiff – she never met her -

Swift and sheer, unscalable – her “no” -

She'll leave you at her window wanting water,

Or leave a feast for seven at your door.

Without the sly and devious endeavors -

Behind a mask inscrutable – her own -

Make a friend – you'll have a friend forever -

Bore her and you'll be the first to go.

Bring her in your house, she'll make a castle -

Up the bridge – the victor in the war -

Her friends are few – her lovers without number -

The clock's a fool – her friends depart at dawn.

She has no secrets, lies without exception -

Does what must be done to get along.

She turned a storage room into a palace,

And only the preferred go through the door.

She makes her way – autonomous and certain.

Her friends are merely people – nothing odd.

In her room and shielded from intrusion,

She's probably awake, but makes no noise.

4-26-14

Heroes Lane

Anymore

Every time I take a chance, I blunder.

Every time with people, I go under.

I reach out and get my fingers bitten.

I will stay at home and pet the kitten.

The cats want gravel, water, food and love.

And I needn't wear a heavy glove,

As when I say “I love you”

To homophobic fools

Who gave up life and feeling

For a lot of plastic rules,

Empty gods and sin,

Phony indignation,

Make believe chagrin.

4-26-14

 

Heroes Lane

We live in the swill

Of the martyrs and saints

Whose major virtue was dying.

All the way down

The lane of the heroes

Are the names of the killers

All murdered themselves

On a field of mud.

Let's sing them a song

Of glory and gratitude.

Visalia's own heroes

Lie rotting in heaven.

4-26-14

 

Aftermath

The facade is coming back,

And I feel better.

Fighting tampers with the status quo.

Did the cats know what was going on?
The blessed virgin got her stack of pancakes

And commanded him to

Leave them at the door.

Always right, the dominating mother,

Good and true, the sole reality.

Sinking back into our proper places,

With the holy mother in her room,

And her minions -

Will they come today?

To leave their love thoughts,

Cigarettes and beer,

Blunts and pot

All scattered on the lawn.

All her sycophants know how to live,

Galt and Roark – all know how to live,

And tower like great redwoods over me.

4-25-14

Poignant Lines

I'm crazy. I can feel it. I can smell it.

Can anybody standing nearby tell it?

Coffee and people and raspberry tea -

There's anymore nothing in Denny's for me.

Farewell to her flattery, something I lack.

She got so vicious, I didn't write back.

Could that be the way she intended it be?

This rhythm's as changeable as the sea.

Nothing's as vital as rhythm to them,

Busted intelligence, such is the gem.

Start to believe every word that is said,

Soon you will lose your awareness instead.

People love strangers, most of them do.

Reducing their number a trillion or two.

Kick in his teeth and he'll lionize you.

Fragment

If I were Keats, I'd feel embarrassment -

A little man to take on giant themes,

Awash asleep in many images.

Heir Presumptive! Used to fisticuffs.

And to begin with beauty as a goal.

Take the artist's self-evaluation

And believe it – he himself has said it.

4-24-14