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WCW

When you're crazy your poetry

Is either brilliant or mad.

Providence looks after drunks

And madmen like a dad.

Drunks will sober up.

Madmen don't get glad.

William Carlos Williams.
I read some.  That completes
My tour of modern poetry.

Like a child who eats

Reluctantly his eggplant.

It wasn't reading Keats.

Rhymes

Fancies dominate my brain,

But I am not like Keats,

Neither images of flowers,

Nor music with its sweets,

Endearing constellations,

Stars where Jesus meets

Saints and fools together

Arriving at the door

Of heaven. Dead so recently

They still can hear the roar

Of the sea below them,

Exploding on the shore.

 

Writing

Put a candle in the coffin

And a pen and paper.

Only writing poesy

Gave me any pleasure.

An idea breaks the surface

Of the gloomy sea

And suddenly I'm writing and

I'm happy once again.

Let the angers dissipate.

They're in my stomach now.

Let a happiness inform

The poems I am writing

5-12-13

 

A Book

I like the book I'm finishing -

At least I do a little.

The thing's been beaten, proofed and purged -

If it's no good, I'm lousy.

Several poems, different kinds -

A true kaleidoscope.

Begun in peace

(The poems I like)

And finished on a binge.

And when it's done and put away,

I guess I'll just forget it.

No one wants to read it and

I'm weary of the words.

If I think it's good (I don't),
I'll leave it in the tomb.

Bad News

I will give up poems.

I have been an ass,

Writing in the hallway,

Skipping every class.

Passing out my books

Around the neighborhood,

And getting no reactions.

Was I ever good?

I would be embarrassed

If I had a brain.

She said I wrote like Shakespeare,

And that I was mundane.

He said there was an error

In the punctuation.

And that is all he said.

Hardly an ovation.

Music

Beautiful music makes me cry.

A treasure I can keep.

Beautiful music had to die,

Murdered in its sleep.

I don't weep for the soul of me

Reflected in its strains,

But as stars were to Ptolemy,

And the ocean when it rains.

Though waiting to be crucified,

There was music when

I was born. The blood has dried.

No songs that might have been.

 

A Song

Shakespeare wasn't subtle. Little feelings

Weren't made for an Elizabethan song.

But rich with an emotion in the words,

There's magic in the meaning and the sound.

Now our cat is dying. Does he know it?
Do animals feel dark about such things?
People have a god to end their journeys,

A barker in the carney in the sky.

Like they tell you in the doctor's office

About your feelings, let the phrases come.

That's the only way to write a poem.

Something knows, not crabbed into shape.

Thought

In my head there is a stigma on

The intellect and thinking.

I want my poems beautiful.

Can thought accomplish this?

Keats negated thought,

And made philosophy verboten.

Shelley can be beautiful.

Since Keats until The Oscar

There was nothing beautiful,

Then Brooke, and then Millay,

And after that just gibberish

From people who are wise.

Wisdom doesn't want to write a poem.

 

Debate

Morals or survival? Socrates

Wouldn't sacrifice the truth.

I doubt that he would lie.

And surely wouldn't take the cash

From somebody who loved him,

And therefore let him do it.

But survival is the truth.

Yet morals are eternal,

All living creatures die,

And cloud formations,

Flowers. Trees. The sea.

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Laughing

Lovers

They rise up like a dolphin

Sounding high above the sea!

Then like a sunken ship want nothing
More to do with me.

Most of those who swear their love,

Only love like that.

Some remained reluctantly,

A tire going flat.

I see myself unhidden so

Completely in my verse.

That's my personality.

I couldn't make it worse.

Sadly I'll be this until

The jerk in me is dead,

Very like a few and I
Avoid them with a dread.

The only way to write a song

Is hear it in my head.

The Person

His perfect sensitivity

(She taught him to behave)

Couldn't keep his cold cadaver

From an early grave.

He understood his fellows

Like a kibitzer at chess,

He thought. It really seemed to me

That all he did was guess.

In this book I think I have

Some pieces that are good.

All the rest are effigies

Carved clumsily from wood.

 

Villains

Why do nice people fall in love with villains?

Successive villains lying in a row.

Driven to an early grave or madness.

Another explanation I don't know.

Tell a crook he's crooked and he'll hit you.

Yet it's true. Is virtue just a show?

Christians make a mockery of Jesus.

They locked you up for thinking long ago.

Lines

The world is out of control

And what can anyone do?

A fine for smoking pot,

But here's a gun or two.

Republicans and god

Will make your dreams come true.

Lincoln was republican,

But not at all like you.

Traditions

Since nothing else is truer

Why not try traditions?

Guiding posts to lean on

When no one else is there.

One custom of religion

(Father to the rest)

Is ban the unbeliever

Or anyone who thinks.

 

Laughing

Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde,

Simon, Brooks and Kaufman.

They can make me happy.

A laugh is like a song.

And automatic writing

Is all there is to verse.

From the Muses or from god,

Never mind the poet -

An instrument of nature,

That nature will forget.

Poems

I have got the meter.

The words just fall in place.

But Millay and Keats

Outstrip me in the race.

With neither sense nor feeling,

My poems are a face.

My phrases seem so perfect,

Which isn't quite the case.

My sister will not read them.

In Jersey she is through.

My best friend is impatient.

What would Junkets do?

Even love misplaced is true.

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When honesty's a symptom

Lovers

They rise up like a dolphin

Sounding high above the sea!

Then like a sunken ship want nothing
More to do with me.

Most of those who swear their love,

Only love like that.

Some remained reluctantly,

A tire going flat.

I see myself unhidden so

Completely in my verse.

That's my personality.

I couldn't make it worse.

Sadly I'll be this until

The jerk in me is dead,

Very like a few and I
Avoid them with a dread.

The only way to write a song

Is hear it in my head.

The Person

His perfect sensitivity

(She taught him to behave)

Couldn't keep his cold cadaver

From an early grave.

He understood his fellows

Like a kibitzer at chess,

He thought. It really seemed to me

That all he did was guess.

In this book I think I have

Some pieces that are good.

All the rest are effigies

Carved clumsily from wood.

When honesty's a symptom

When honesty's a symptom,

Deceit a way to live,

Only cows like music,

And only kittens give.

When villains pray to Jesus,

And Jesus seems to hear,

The innocent go under,

And love is sex and beer.

Honest people trying

To steer their craft around

Cannot find the rudder

And cry without a sound.

Honest men defeated

By larceny and vice

Never stop believing

That mendicants are nice.

Alas these selfish poems

Whose rhythms ring a bell

Are slowly turning bitter,

And cynical as hell.

Man is getting older

As days keep going by.

Driving in my car,

And I sing songs cry.

That's the path that liars

And criminals are on.

Self-pity is their license

And common sense is gone.

"Sticks & Bones"

A Gala

Come see the psychiatrists!

The only game in town.

You'll learn a lot of doctor words

With lots of syllables.

Who knows what they mean?

Just say them anyway.

Psychologists don't understand them either.

And if your shrink looks bored, you can

Make faces, summon up

Ridiculous non sequiturs.

See how he comes awake!

And scribbles undecipherable

Notes into a book.

He can't read them either.

It's a highlight of the show

Only seen in sitcoms from the 60s.

The Cynic

Euphemistically called cynical,

Anger spoiled my verse for many years,

A gravid ocean swelling for release.

The anger's there. I feel it. How it hounds.

Even to fantasize a homicide.

I shall write around it wishing I

Were in the age of florid images,

Poetic diction, metaphors and love.

Love was lived. Oh relic mystery!

A phony age of poses, death was real.

Wars were fought. Christ the second king.

Doth and thee and thou. The sedge has withered

From the lake, and no birds sing.

 

Freedom

You can't stand the freedom,

Crazy, bizarre.

Too much oxygen in the tubes.

The cat has relented and

Takes his med.

And doesn't hate George

Though he holds him down.

He grew up in freedom

He fought to keep.

I never had freedom.

My grandfather failed.

My mother defeated him.

Winning is loss.

They're both in their graves

And a residue still

Of what they accomplished

Remains on earth,

Better off lost

In the sea of death.

No never be lost!

Better to know

Where you are when you die.

It's very important

To know where you are.

“Frankenstein”

Victor Frankenstein, the doctor

Said of his wife, “I should have socked her

When she cried, “Create a man,

You pediatric also ran!'”

When he should have thrust his mug up

With defiance, Victor dug up

Something wet and icky.

Here the tale gets tricky.

This creature gotten from the earth,

Born again, a second birth,

Detested Victor with such spleen

That it became quite mad and mean,

And so pursued forthwith and forth

Its creator to the north.

And there upon a floe of ice

(I add to make the story nice)

They floated into paradise.

 

Freedom

“Steppenwolf” Story

Of my poor life.

Given the freedom

There's nothing to do.

I don't like women

And I don't like death.

Given the freedom

I wouldn't do that.

The price of admission

Is only your mind -

The structure, the feelings,

The things that you think

You think will collapse.

Nothing that matters.

You'll die into life.

The garbage you carry

Around in your head -

The gods and the parents,

Ideas and values,

All you consider,

The gods and the bigotry,

Even yourself -

Washed down the drain will be

Carried to sea.

You will be docile.

You'll cease to exist.

The one with charisma

Controlling your life,

Your world and your money.

The bullshit. It's fake.

Remain with your books.

Let the carnival leave.

The carnival's only

In town for a week.

Don't be deceived.

She's a vixen. A fraud.

She just wants your money.

She never says love.

 

“Sticks & Bones”

Home from Viet Nam -

He believes in nothing now -

Not doctor, flag or family,

Jesus Christ or love -

He walks around the village

And talks to everyone.

And everyone he talks to

Unbeknownst to him

Begins to hate him viciously

And wishes he were gone.

Also feels his family -

Harriet and Dave

And daddy Ozzie – all of them

Just sweet Americans.

In the ending scene

The family is sitting -

Ozzie with a pipe and paper,

Harriet is knitting,

Dave the well met brother

Is strumming his guitar.

And Rickie with a bowl of water

And a razor blade

Sits cutting open arteries.

And all of them are happy.

Quietly they visit,

Americans at home,

Evening of a normal Yankee day.

A movie that I saw

And bought the script.

Kaleidoscope

Writing Too Much

A novelist may turn out thirty pages

Of a chapter in a single day,

Or more. It would have taken Proust a decade

To write “Swann's Way”. Is poetry the same?

I compare myself to Noel Coward

And Donizetti in embarrassment.

Do I write too much for it to be

Worth a damn? Yet Donizetti was

Excellent, prolific. He was dull,

Though Italy adores him. He went mad,

And do did Berg – A nightmare and a death.

 

Daytime

The night is gone. Another night will come.

More stifling of emotions barely felt.

The nightmare will resume. No where to go.

Ugliness and cruelty prevail.

I've been told before that I am wrong.

Many times. So where do I begin?

She'll wake up, the comedy continue.

Even cops consider me a pest.

Take me far – so far away

Take me far – so far away

From the Yankee shore

I'll never hear of Yankees anymore.

That will never happen.

I do not have the dough.

And a world immune to Yankees

The earth will never know.

Yankees are ubiquitous.

And Mourdock nearly tied

With the guy who won.

And an angel died.

Electoral! Obama

Blitzed the august voice

Of god. But nearly tied

With the people's choice.

How many thousand years?

So old, no longer odd!

The people on this planet

Do not deserve a god.

11-7-12

The Ass

“A Sea of Stones” I thought the title heaven,

Lifted from an old forgotten poem

I wrote then rediscovered. And the poems

Before I had them printed seemed divine.

I got some copies yesterday and thought

The songs were homely bastards. Though I sent

Another book called “Bookends” to the printer,

Thinking that those songs were just as good.

Another cheat? Do I resemble Brian

Who praises his own verses which are bad?

I don't praise my poems. I just write them.

I am as Brian's friend defending Brian

Said, a hater. Christ! What silly crap!

Brian is an ass who can't write poems!

And if I can, then I am just an ass.

 

Lines

I'm a fool who writes too many poems.

Are any of them good? I have no plan.

An oyster with a bucketful of sand

In his shell, are any of them pearls?
In Jersey she declared I was a genius

When we met, then bringing out the dogs,

Said I was mundane. I went away

In the wake of her attacks (and there were several).

She didn't write again, or ask me stay.

Was this foreseen by her? I know I'm guessing.

I don't care. Her letter's were complaints

About New Jersey's governor and weather.

And flattery for verses that I sent.

And little else. She had too many friends.

Although I didn't mention this conceit,

I dreamed we were Tchaikovsky and his friend.

The lonely dream imaginary things.

The staff at Denny's make a better friend.

Lines

Why can't I crawl into somebody's head,

Spread litter on their brain, and go to sleep?
The few who said they wanted to be friends

Didn't make me feel. The ones I loved

Were little people, little like myself.

Some sang songs. The one with an umbrella,

David, is the nicest I recall.

I have loved. I doubt I will again.

Although since him, it's mad to be alone.

He is here. I don't know what he's thinking.

Guess at minds? A useless undertaking.

Some people never tell you what they feel,

Get angry when you ask. And then like Buck,

Just make it evident they want to scr-w.

In such a case, one pr-ck is like another.

Young boys will do obeisance to his beauty.

You're slipping like the ocean from his prow.

 

Mother

I never had a relative.

I never had a friend.

My screaming mother gave this house to me.

Too afraid to speak

Since Jacqui silenced me,

Sixteen years ago I fell in love.

Never tell the truth.

They'll crucify your ass.

Just go along, love god, get old and die.

No. I had a relative.

A grandfather. He died.

My mother sabotaged the whole affair.

My mother took the reins.

And when she was asked,

She didn't say she wanted me alive.

 

Writing Too Much

A novelist may turn out thirty pages

Of a chapter in a single day,

Or more. It would have taken Proust a decade

To write “Swann's Way”. Is poetry the same?

I compare myself to Noel Coward

And Donizetti in embarrassment.

Do I write too much for it to be

Worth a damn? Yet Donizetti was

Excellent, prolific. He was dull,

Though Italy adores him. He went mad,

And do did Berg – A nightmare and a death.

 

Not Libel

Let her go, a shuttle from the ship,

Into the sea of space, into the sun.

She'll strangle me if I don't let her go.

She drove me crazy once. Don't make it twice.

She murders people. So did Jack the Ripper.

He was never caught. She won't be either.

So I should write some poems about him?

Did he die old? And happy? So will she.

I lose. She wins. Another game I lose.

A game I wasn't playing. Tell me why

I sat there seven months before I quit.

It's all completely crazy. I'm insane.

She'll drag me down again if I don't stop.

There are bad people in the world. She's one.

 

A Wish

I just spent the morning writing poems.

As Jill once said, I just “crank them out.”
Christ! Another fan like her, I'll quit!

To hell with Jill. I'm thinking now of you.

I can't believe that you don't want my love,

A gentle word that only wants affection,

Not your money. Not your transportation.

Not your body. But a love that's shy.

A love that gives is ready to receive,

But only wishes. Poor men wish for free.

You already told me I don't love.

And some time later, said I love too much.

Which is true? As far as your concerned.

Your parents, her. You love them. God know why.

I culled my family. And I threw them back.

I'm not Shakespeare. This is not a sonnet

Kaleidoscope

Keats' thinking is in letters to his brothers.

Mine's in poems.

Jill compared my letters to her sister -

“Loquacious and self-centered”. Junkets said

He'd read his favorite passages until

They sounded vacuous to him. And I

Can read a book of mine and in my soul

Celebrate that I could do such magic.

Then read it once again – abysmal trash.

Or start with trash and wind up on a throne.

 

The Book

She wrote a book, alone in secrecy.

She wrote about her husband,

And everything he did

In infinite detail.

And lo! The book was published.

Not only published, read,

Translated and then spread

Through the literate world.

Her husband read it.

When he saw himself in her description

He exploded into rage and shot her dead.

And he was convicted. At the trial

The judge before he told the man the verdict,

Told him that his name would be immortal,

And everything he'd ever said or done.

 

Every night while he's asleep

Every night while he's asleep,

My love comes back to me.

Then he awakes

And life goes on from there.

When he's happy, when he laughs,

Heaven's at the gate.

I walk through,

And paradise is mine.

3-8-12

Glass Houses

Glass Houses

Passive, weak and sick, but throwing stones

At the gods who promise them a heaven,

At the country they were bred to love,

At the myths and icons they were taught

To reverence, rely on for a life,

That will not brook inspection to endure.

I don't know what other people see

Or think. At 17 I simply said

That I was agnostic to a guy

Who was on the corner shouting Jesus,

And he hollered that I was insane.

And every liberal I met agrees.

Never was a person more alone

And with no destiny except to die

Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin

People can be beautiful
In several different ways.

And some so ugly you cannot believe

They're allowed to walk around in daylight.

The last of Keats – his phony love of death -

Is ridden from my verse. And I am just

An ordinary poetaster now.

A poetaster! I cannot say poet.

It bothers me. Keats said it easily.

But for angels, god and destiny,

No one but the wicked would be ugly.

But I'm a poet, say the word or not!

Or am I just conceited like the rest?

Berlin was gifted til his final song.

But modern fools consider him passe.

Does that mean he doesn't sound the same?

And Sondheim! Every word he wrote was wrong!

Modern men live only for the present.

Two lesbians in 1968

Were lovers.

One considered me a jerk.

Everything I did and said was wrong.

She said so.

And her lover was my friend.

The Bad Poet

With absolute conceit -

Unbridled and unwarranted -

He posts his poems,

And he praises god,

And wishes his beneficence on all.

He thinks he has ideas.

He can barely think at all.

His poetry is terrible. I told him.

He blessed me, and a friend of his

Considers me a hater.

He put his poems on another site.

Am I as bad as he is?
He clearly feels he's good.

I have been encouraged.

So has he.

 

A Foolish Poem

My verse is good. I'm otherwise insane.

Like the foolish man who posts his poems.

He blesses anyone who says they're bad,

Then posts them on somebody else's site.

Sardonically she said my verse was bad,

Coupled with a smear to my defenses.

Everybody hates somebody else.

So what? When every country on the planet

Is at war, the poems will be lost.

My family (just people I once knew)

And everybody else ate food and f-cked,

Slept and walked and worked and went to church,

But not a one of them wrote poetry.

Let god look after their eternal life.

Longevity's intended for the gods.

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