A Sad Case

Stream Of Thought

Stark night and emptiness

Of everything -

No memory or presence -

Odious, ridiculous -

Neither fish nor fowl

Nor a man nor bug -

The Leader of The Band! -

Followed by the humble

Wishing to be led -

No one needs a leader -

There's nowhere to go -

Camus was right -

Your life's completely pointless -

Paradigms, examples

That would help to solve a problem -

Waiting to be recognized

I didn't say “goodbye” -

Two lost souls

Both wanting to be noticed -

Neither says a word

So neither is -

5-12-14

Picking Up

Twigs on a tree

When the leaves are gone -

An icy sea

In an early dawn -

No more the fluff

Of poetic thought

Making a mind

Seem what it's not -

How much is other

Than what it is?
Poems of language

Are best I wis.

When music was pleasant -

It isn't now -

And lyrics intelligent,

Not a cheap

Adolescent

Who thinks he's deep.

5-12-14

Freedom

Who was it who sternly said

That I'm an avaricious Red

Who cares more for the money

Than the goodness of the heart

Of the crook who took it?

I am bankrupt once again,

Poor but I don't look it

Due to psychotherapy

And military horrors,

Though I never crossed the sea.

I mowed lawns and painted halls

To keep my country free.

5-12-14

The Ridiculous Doctor

In a haughty voice she said

Most people think since he's a doctor,

He would know. I did not doubt

For a moment that she knew.

That's why I was there.

And puzzled by her attitude

I listened to her talk,

And disappeared completely.

I was barely 30,

Very very young.

I believed the doctor

And I listened to her talk.

In 10 months I was terrified

And totally insane.

I am 67 now.

My attitude has changed.

Doctors don't know anything.

Why was she credentialed?

You've got to tell the truth at once,

Or else you will be smothered.

The doctor she referred to was herself.

4-12-13

Hopeless

So this is what is left of life -

To do as you are told,

Keep your mouth shut,

Never ask a question.

Too old for therapy (that farce!) -

And much too young to love.

If only someone felt the way

That bitch in Jersey talked

About my poems – no one ever will.

Shakespeare, Keats, Millay -

Would they sink breathless in the sewage

People feign to like?
More horrible – to think

They really like it!

5-12-14

A Sad Case

The most that a psychologist

Can do is nothing wrong.

But salubrious or helpful?
That will never happen.

Yet he continues hauling in

The money like a preacher.

Television preachers

Make the biggest bucks of all.

People need with desperation.

The lonely and the crippled

And the sick. And bigots who

Want Jesus on their side.

5-12-14

Wooden Hearts

Wooden Hearts

The sacrosanctity of friendship,

Difficult to come by,

Gives the unabused another

Chance to be in love.

But those who don't believe there's more to

Love than fallen leaves

Stirred by random passing breezes,

Never fall in love.

Whether they feel love or only

Think it's what they see,

Love's an animated dummy

Back of Macy's window.

5-11-14

 

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

Identicals

The loneliest man in the universe

Stands on Olympus and wishes them well,

Sees that the earth is a tenant of hell,

Chipping its rent from the shards of a shell,

Found on the beach in the wake of a swell.

The loneliest man in the universe

Bathes in the water splashed up from a well,

Drawn from the bottommost oceans of hell.

Life is a carney, a pea and a shell.

Bodies that perish where rivers swell.

10-1-13

Idioms

A poet doesn't use the idioms,

He makes the idioms that people use.

Clever phrases like a child's delight

Pass a generation. Some remain

For another century or two.

Shakespeare made cliches that stitched themselves

So thoroughly into the English cloth

They warm the baby sleeping in his crib,

And thereby fill a mind without a Shakespeare.

4-24-14

The Sphinx

Triumvirate

Some of the short poems,

None of the long -

That's what I like in Keats.

Ah, but they're beautiful,

Rich with song.

That earth did such magical feats!

How can I separate

Keats from the earth?

Keats is his verse is the dawn.

Burgeoning all,

To each other gave birth.

At his death only Junkets was gone.

5-7-14

Honesty

He gave me permission -

I needed permission -

To say, “I don't like you.

Don't call here again.”

A person I know

Better far than the people

I knew in my youth.

Did they go somewhere else?

We're told to be honest. But

What good is honesty?

Everyone knows what
Is true, so why bother?

Unless he's a person

You're longing to love.

5-7-14

Old

Arthritis, pills and therapy -

I am getting old.

Yankees do not age,

They only die.

A hundred books of poesy -

A couple people liked -

The old, the recent

And the yet to come.

Reading in a book of mine

In Denny's earlier,

I found the poems

Don't make any sense.

Larkin was an Englishman

Who seldom makes much sense.

Which of us is better -

Him or me?

Constantly comparing

Characteristics - good or bad -

Measuring my verse to

International renown.

5-7-14

Names

Everything I hate, my father hated.

Everything I love, I love alone.

I changed my name to rid the loathsome past,

And passed into an anonymity.

I don't know who I'm. This is not rooted,

Only different from all before.

Nothing's sacred to the artisan.

All is raw material.

And just the art is good.

5-6-14

 

Not John

Twenty personalities are burgeoning in me

Like channels on a television set.

I recall the past – some 30 years -

And in it John – rejected and forgotten.

I'd hated him forever since we met.

I lived alone. And then I met a man

Who had an odd peculiarity,

A habit that reminded me of John.

On top of that I fell in love with him.

The power of a similarity.

4-6-14

 

The Sphinx

Life without music

Is death, and the Sphinx

Never tells anyone

What it thinks.

Those with a purpose

They want to conceal

See in the Sphinx

What they don't reveal.

There's nothing to see in the Sphinx

But a face of stone and sand.

4-6-14

The Street Person

Shopping carts, blankets and sacks and cans.

On top of them sits a dog.

Where do they go?
Have they checks to god,

Destiny, death?

Anyone who

Can't alter his destiny lost it.

He gets along without feelings

To enable himself to endure.

4-6-14

Conformity

The world may disagree with you.

That doesn't mean you're wrong.

Look how many thought the world was flat.

Or hang you from an olive tree

Because they disagree.

Galileo nearly lost his head.

5-6-14

Sleeping Cats

Fin

The era of my poesy is ended,

If that era ever was at all.

A man who can't direct his destiny

Really has no destiny at all.

Where's the feel of dislocated magic

That comes from putting words together right?

Many people try and few achieve it.

I'll die in an asylum and alone.

The little bits of hidden understandings

That come to me, whether they are true,

Go nicely in a poem, just what Proust

Said he almost read a novel for.

Once again I am astride a stallion

Waiting for the bell. Below, the waves

Splash up toward the cliff where I am standing,

And down below the thrashing ocean waits.

5-5-14

Two Women

I think what makes her happiest -

And something does, god knows -

Is saying that my rhythms suck,

My poesy is prose.

She came on like a super mom

Out to bolster me,

Dropped her drawers and took a walk

Across my poesy.

An English teacher in her day,

A druggie in her youth,

She spent a year in Italy,

And now she knows the truth -

The truth of man, the truth of art,

The truth of English lit,

Of grammar, life and poetry.

And I am going to quit.

Like her friend Victoria,

She told me I was great,

Until the game grew tiresome.

You simply have to wait.

And now instead of brilliant, she

Finds me overrated.

Victoria was quite the same,

So I was vaccinated.

4-13-13

 

Sleeping Cats

Cats don't blink.

Seldom do they smile.

Princelike on a pedestal,

Unmoving like a Sphinx,

Front legs tucked beneath their chests,

They're calm and sweet as rain.

The perfect little person is a cat.

5-5-14

 

If Everybody's Doing It

Millionaires who give away their money

Are called philanthropists not mental defects.

If everybody gave away his money

To someone low – there's always someone less -

They would not be handled with a chain.

They'd be normal. Everybody does it.

The only litmus test of sanity.

5-5-14

Trying To Help

Americans aren't open, they're just mouthy.

Bigots have an equal right to speak.

A bumper sticker I would like to see:
“I'm not a veteran of any war.”

Perhaps a little thought that no one's thought of -

Arm the Pope and make the planet free.

A gift for every newborn and its mother -

Bukowski's poems and an M-16.

America: A better way of life,

Where every citizen salutes the Bible.

4-5-14

The Good Man

The words of god flow smoothly from his lips

Like feces from the rectum

Of a dying man.

No race or country but his own.

No love except the straight.

More Jesus Christ than any child of his.

When he and god discussed it,

God told him what to do.

And damn the man who dares to contradict him.

5-5-14

 

Encouragement

All the wrong people support me

When I'm writing verse.

Down to the dock they escort me

And help me into a hearse.

The one in New Jersey equates me

With Ginsberg! A time for distress.

The sister who probably hates me

Said verse is my hobby, god bless.

5-5-14

 

“Oklahoma!”

Hammerstein in “Oklahoma!”
Outshines all the others.

A bawdy human sense of humor

No one else approaches.

And Rodgers' music!

Heavenly as gods.

It's not the integration of

The songs. It's not verismo.

It's just that “Oklahoma!”
Is a better show.

5-5-14

 

Facts

He's usually sweet

On the telephone.

He always was since 99.

The river never changes.

How can I be Shakespeare if

I disavow old notions?
Genius doesn't “make it new”

Except in its expression.

Old truths, new truths – a single set

Of truths to fit all times.

So it was since earth began,

And since continued on.

5-5-14

A Man In Denny's

A Scene

Autonomous fantasies

Flick through my brain

Whenever I shut my eyes.

Colorful butterflies

Slip through the rain

That fills the autumn skies.

Birds in trees beneath the drops

Spread their wings and shake the dew.

When precipitation stops,

And half an oval sun comes through

The shadowy leafless branches and a cloud,

A place on earth with fragrance is endowed.

12-7-13

“Oklahoma!”

Hammerstein in “Oklahoma!”
Outshines all the others.

A bawdy human sense of humor

No one else approaches.

And Rodgers' music!

Heavenly as gods.

It's not the integration of

The songs. It's not verismo.

It's just that “Oklahoma!”
Is a better show.

5-5-14

 

Encouragement

All the wrong people support me

When I'm writing verse.

Down to the dock they escort me

And help me into a hearse.

The one in New Jersey equates me

With Ginsberg! A time for distress.

The sister who probably hates me

Said verse is my hobby, god bless.

5-5-14

Facts

He's usually sweet

On the telephone.

He always was since 99.

The river never changes.

How can I be Shakespeare if

I disavow old notions?
Genius doesn't “make it new”

Except in its expression.

Old truths, new truths – a single set

Of truths to fit all times.

So it was since earth began,

And since continued on.

5-5-14

 

A Man In Denny's

I just saw a man in Denny's,

Older, loud and nice.

Possibly he's hard of hearing.

Here he dines alone.

Does he know the right truths

The street wise seem to know?

I doubt it. He just tucked a napkin

Underneath his chin.

He possibly has money,

A wife and grandkids too.

Warm and dull, he's not the type

To have been in jail.

No, I guess he's sexless,

A bore but to his wife.

These fantasies in Denny's

Beguile an empty life.

5-5-14

 

Nusky

I was nervous so I thanked the waitress

Several times for every thing she did.

You were getting angry, then you mocked me

With contempt the way my daddy would.

I stopped talking and we ate in silence.

You paid the check, your social obligation.

Then we left. You drove me to the depot,

Put me on the bus. And I was gone.

I never phoned again. And it's been years.

I am in a diner. I just thanked

The waiter too much. Suddenly I thought

Of you and Jersey. I still overthank

And tip too much. But now it doesn't matter.

Because these people never were my friends.

4-6-14

Denny's At Midnight

Metaphor

A house where everybody stores his stuff.

Stuff is there from many years ago.

No one has so far come back to claim it,

Or simply take it. I am always here.

A poem with a conscious metaphor,

Instead of with a conscious inspiration,

Is no more intelligent than I.

I have no personality but love.

The worst of parents can't take that away.

Upon a horse I'll sit and ride to Yonkers.

That's New York. I won't go there again.

Another window closed. The room is smaller.

Music comes from my unconscious soul.

5-4-14

Denny's At Midnight

Puberty is sweeping into Denny's.

What occasion keeps it out so late?
Daddy spent a fortune for those dresses.

Hairless boys in cummerbunds and ties.

A psycho drinking soda from the table

Next to him whose customers have gone

Fell asleep. And people passing glance

But no one speaks. They don't disturb his slumber.

In a fastened cage a dead canary

Sits upon his perch and doesn't sing.

Lo! There was a chirp. The room is moving.

A falling drunk just bumped against the cage.

A waiter just woke up the sleeping psycho,

Drinking now from someone else's glass.

A girl in scarlet hoisted up her bodice,

Dropped her jaw and laughed. The peacock sings.

The homeless mix with sequins and chiffon.

The psycho nodded off to sleep again.

Ragged cuffs and backpacks after midnight.

Denny's reeks of affluence and dirt.

5-4-14

Elephants

When people won't cooperate,

What am I to do?

When they castigate me

Every time I talk,

How can I say anything?

Find a place to die.

Elephants have areas to die in.

5-3-15

Cats & People

George's cat but my cat too,

And his one time a cat in lieu

Of people. I had run away,

Down the walk, I'd didn't stay.

Gentle, slow, sedate and old,

A loving tabby George can hold.

The cat detected he was sad,

With love the lonesome wish they had.

And Kitty (our first cat) is just like me

And garners the same anger and contempt.

The only animal I ever hated,

I'm the only person he has loved.

5-3-14

Past Poems

Reading through the chaps that I have written -

The poems are ridiculous and wrong -

And crazy looking through a prismed glass.

Maybe someone finds them interesting.

Intimacy – maybe once I had it -

Making quilts from bits of colored cloth -

My poesy expands in all direction -

Who cares if we were intimate, it's over.

A little less didactic would be nice,

Or knowledge such as doctors think they have.

40 years post-doctoral regime

In a sterile office weighing money.

This is not a poem. It's an attempt.

Like my effort to be friends with him.

I thought I was unable. Now I think

He won't.

5-3-14

 

A Scene

Autonomous fantasies

Flick through my brain

Whenever I shut my eyes.

Colorful butterflies

Slip through the rain

That fills the autumn skies.

Birds in trees beneath the drops

Spread their wings and shake the dew.

When precipitation stops,

And half an oval sun comes through

The shadowy leafless branches and a cloud,

A place on earth with fragrance is endowed.

12-7-13

If you like my poems, I have several collections on Amazon.  Both paperbacks and Kindle.  The paperbacks are mostly $10 and the Kindles mostly $1.  To see them, go to Amazon, click Books on the drop down, then type Joseph Hart Poetry on the search bar.

Another World

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

 

Books Of Poems

Quiet muffled poems, cotton things,

They are not sharp as ice like Rupert Brooke,

A single muted violin with strings,

Collected in a plain and subtle book.

60, 55, or 61 -

So many books! My fantasies preserved

Until the planet falls into the sun,

Time so long the preacher is unnerved.

11-19-13

A Mozart PC

Mozart the music box -

Cracks in the shell let the pearls escape

In perfect sound – heaven captured -

And icy cold like the sea.

5-2-14

 

Kitty & Love

I think I know why I have been despised

By psychotherapists and sycophants.

Kitty who was never hit before

Stands rigidly his face against the wall -

Penance for his having asked for love.

Frightened of the ogre (this is me),

Yet he will not go when he is shooed,

And keeps returning til I want to scream.

The cats take love then go away

And sleep or play and then come back for more.

Kitty is neurotic. Why is that?

This surely isn't love. At best it's pleasure -

A monkey with electrodes in his brain

Which he manipulates instead of love,

Food or water, sleep or recreation.
Kitty is a very ugly cat -

As I when I fall terrified in love.

5-2-14

 

Another World

I have a world. It isn't perfect.

Norman Vincent Peale.

It isn't Mary's notion of the world.

Norman Rockwell.

And it isn't odiously good

Like Edgar Guest.

Longfellow never ate with us.

My mother wouldn't like it.

And a sermon from my father

Would calcify our bottoms

As we sat until it ended.

It has some scars and glitches

And some things I wish were not,

But tapering from 99

To 67 years,

It's the only other world I have.

5-2-14