Promise The ego of a child

Promise

The ego of a child -

And oh the night is black! -

Is easily destroyed

And can't be gotten back.

I'm screwing off the lid

Of the crystal jar

Where my only soul

And the ideas are.

The poems that I wrote

When my heart was wet

Are nothing to the poems

I haven't written yet.

Mensonges

Do people make demands on you?

You'd rather not comply?
Do people want their money back?

Very simply lie.

Are you making promises

On which you must not fail?

Though that is what you want to do.

Tell a little tale.

Does someone say you lie too much

And he is getting sore?
Or you backed into his fence?

Lie a little more.

Are people you want nothing from

Getting in your way

With needs and feelings of their own?

Prevaricate today.

On your tombstone when you're dead,

Or on your urn of ash,

Very likely will be read:

“Here lies a piece of trash.”

 

Jill

Are your children crazy,

Ye of little heart?
Tough love is your answer.

Who's protecting whom?

I broke it off completely.

Gasping just to talk,

I came back. It took a week

To get the dates correct!

I do not like your poets.

They reflect on me.

They are good. And I am good.

A gaggle of bad poets!

Our affair is silly!

Like someone else I know,

I'm blamed for all the ills of earth,

And the death of Christ!

Gary

Perhaps when I'm in heaven

With all the cherubim

I'll have another lover

Gentle, sweet – like him.

I teased him like the bastard

Mental doctors paint.

He made funny faces

And planned to be a saint.

Finally he left me,

Muscular and pretty.

In 1969

I went to New York City.

Everything I wanted

And everything I lack

In a single lover

Who's never coming back.

Except one day he did.

He followed me. He wrote.

I was in Manhattan.

I ignored him, like a goat.

9-24-13

"Pal Joey"

You started out with nothing,

And I hope that's how you end -

Not a nickel in your pocket,

Not a soul to call a friend.

Tattooed like a sailor

And an enterprising fake,

When no one gives you money,

You ambitiously just take.

Everything about you
Has the odor of a fraud.

You hide from the police, but baby,

You're in good with god.

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Little Men Oh god! I hated Kitty

Yankee Love

He told me it was music.

I said, “It's only loud.”
He knocked me down and kicked me.

Americans are proud.

Little Men

Oh god! I hated Kitty

A couple years ago.

I have it down on paper.

Some days ago he died.

We nursed him and we loved him

And gave him medication

So long. How long? It helped him.

It didn't help enough.

An irritating cat

Of regular proportions,

Mentally deranged, it slowly

Was emaciated.

I shoved him on the floor,

And yelled at his intrusions.

I didn't like his problems

Or his personality.

For some reason he imprinted

On me and wouldn't go.

It this the way of life? The weak ones

Worship their tormentors?

“Animals are stupid,”

Their killers love to say.

All nature – vast and varied -

Will surrender to their wars.

Jill

Are your children crazy,

Ye of little heart?
Tough love is your answer.

Who's protecting whom?

I broke it off completely.

Gasping just to talk,

I came back. It took a week

To get the dates correct!

I do not like your poets.

They reflect on me.

They are good. And I am good.

A gaggle of bad poets!

Our affair is silly!

Like someone else I know,

I'm blamed for all the ills of earth,

And the death of Christ!

A Scene In A Movie Sal Mineo in "Rebel"

Gary

Perhaps when I'm in heaven

With all the cherubim

I'll have another lover

Gentle, sweet – like him.

I teased him like the bastard

Mental doctors paint.

He made funny faces

And planned to be a saint.

Finally he left me,

Muscular and pretty.

In 1969

I went to New York City.

Everything I wanted

And everything I lack

In a single lover

Who's never coming back.

Except one day he did.

He followed me. He wrote.

I was in Manhattan.

I ignored him, like a goat.

9-24-13

 

Dead End

Like a lyric in a Broadway show,

A poem has to click, or it's no go.

You labored on your ode for half the night.

It isn't wrong. It merely isn't right.

One reading tells you whether it is great.

And if it is, so what? A verse? You date.

Life

Life is a dark forest.

You cannot see your way there.

The most that you can do

Is find a rock and stay there.

Groping in the darkness

Grab religion, start a fight.

Jesus and the bible

Give you artificial light.

People who run countries,

Invent, write poetry

Are managed by an undisclosed

And secret destiny.

Great men who do not choose

The fortune that befits them

Will carry on for 90 years,

Unless a trolley hits them.

4-23-12

 

A Scene In A Movie

Sal Mineo in "Rebel" -

And the horror of the stars!

The Cosmos overwhelms

A little pebble on a planet,

Nothing could be tinier,

Smaller, more dispensable, -

Or nothing could be larger,

More gigantic or indifferent,

As Mineo crouched whimpering

In the planetarium.

7-14-11

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The Occupation A little Polish family

The Occupation

A little Polish family

In 1941

Had to let the nazis in their house.

The captain to the father sneered,

“You're going to like us here,

Aren't you?”
And the father didn't answer.

Four years after that

When the nazis were defeated,

The captain and his men were dragged away.

Just as they were leaving

The father of the family

Went up to the captain and said, “No.”

4-15-12

The Statue

The statue kneels. A little shallow rain

Anoints his head and shoulders. And his feet

Naked stand in puddles to his ankles.

He is sad. The drizzle will attest

That he is sad. A statue can't be sad.

Clay and stone can last a thousand years.

Lachrymose, except the only tears

Come from the cloud that hovers overhead.

 

The Tower

My soul is like a tower.

A light is coming from it.

Grey boulders like huge flowers

Or cotton balls at anchor

Around the tower's bottom

Catch exploding waves.

They vibrate on the rocks.

The windows in the tower

Through which the light illumines

Are thick against the midnight

And salty ocean blast.

An image of the tower

Reflected in the sea!

The Thief

See the nifty thief.

Cute beyond belief.

She'll rob you til you're blind.

No bauble left behind.

Chauffeured by a thug.

Lying like a rug,

She'll con you. She's a rip.

Not clever, only hip.

Essentially she's slime.

Tattoos, rap and Coors.

Never paid a dime,

Unless the dime was yours.

Roaches in her shack.

She'll be coming back.

Life is ancient, life is cheap

Life is ancient, life is cheap.

The good and gentle go to sleep.

Heaven as a dream is sweet.

Life loves life, and meat eats meat.

What's the personality?

A question good for poetry.

Evil is, and none knows why.

Just the bad deserve to die.

No one knows or ever knew

Whom Jehovah answers to.

 
     

Common Knowledge

Everybody knows

That Jesus is a myth,

And god is just a weapon

To kill your children with.

George

Quick-witted and alert

Since the day we met,

Profound and happy memories

I can not forget.

Now it's 20 years -

Well, almost that, not quite.

Everything is wrong,

But everything is right.

If you like my poems, I have collections on Amazon, both Kindle and paperback.  Just type Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.  If you ask me, I'll tell you which books are best.

Watching Cziffra Cziffra's spidery fingers

The House

In a house of silence

No one ever speaks,

No greeting of affection.

Make one, if you dare.

We sit in our perfection,

At peace with god and life.

And Jesus! We are honest.

Like an M-16.

A Joke

He looked at him sincerely.

He had even read the books.

“Tom,” he said, “the poems

That you love, the early books,

Gentle and naïve, foretell

Better things to come.

They're good. And I assure you

They'll be here a hundred years,

Maybe two.

But these your later poems,

The pieces you detest

For reasons you don't say

Are deep and warm and true.

They are of genius.

They'll be read in languages,

And last as long as Homer,

Chaucer, Shakespeare, Sappho.”
Tommy reached a letter knife

And stabbed his benefactor in the heart.

Then he wept and watched him slowly die.

 

Parole

The horror of the gutter and parole!

Psychos who attack you in your sleep!

Nothing safe or sacred. No one cares.

Or can. It isn't in the Constitution.

Living in the night. At every step

Policemen want to put you back in jail.

The need for love remains and some affection,

Manifest as sex. And fisticuffs

Your only pride. And you are getting older.

Tomorrow – just the pain of nothingness.

5-28-12

Mad As Hell

He smashed into the planet

Like a swift and sudden comet.

He's so fucking cute, I want to vomit!

Baseball cap on backwards,

Gutter slang and hoodie.

Would he bust your mandible

If he got angry? Would he!

All his friends are like him.

A jet of dirty piss!

God created life -

And also this!

4-20-12

 

Watching Cziffra

Cziffra's spidery fingers

Walk across the keys.

Then at last they suddenly burst

Into rhapsodies!

Looking into the distance -

Heroic Polonaise -

Eyes closed and eyebrows lifted!

Well deserving praise.

7-5-11

 

Mendelssohn

Alone with lots of poetry,

And nobody is talking.

Perahia's playing Mendelssohn,

But Mendelssohn is dead.

Perahia is the medium.

A séance of sensation – only sound.

Fragile figures, colored, made of glass

Are sitting on the counters and she shelves.

And I'm a wrinkled woman with no love,

A granny, a Victorian

Who sits among her lace,

Looking at her treasures,

And trying not to die.

Alone with lots of poetry,

Many stacks of poetry,

All of it is beautiful,

And all of it is mine.

3-26-12

 

Chopin

When I think of Chopin

I don't think of virtuoso.

I think of purple ladies

Smelling heavily of rose.

I think of lacy parlors,

Fragile curios on shelves,

Shut and heavy curtains

In a room with china lamps,

And emanating mildly

From the rugs, the scent of musk.

12-1-12

If you like my poems, I have some collections on Amazon, both paperback and Kindle.  Type Joseph Hart Poetry in the search bar.  Thanks.

A View

Keats

How could he write poems

About things that do not matter

To him or to the public?

Painting gods that don't exist.

“Stout Cortez” - But was he stout?
It wasn't even him.

Though when I die, no single word

Will matter anyway.

Where is the reality?

There is none in Keats.

A welcome mat to madness!

The beautiful is real.

Imaginary poets

Fall asleep and dream.

That is magic.

They may not awake.

The beautiful and true

In merely human terms,

Offer something

Which can be forgotten.

Yet I have a craving to write poems

That don't pertain to anything at all.

A View

I define poesy

Just as it comes,

A lilt if it has it,

Occasional rhyme -

What is occurring in me.

Emotional images give me a lift,

But cannot be coaxed from my brain.

They come with the writing.

And phrases go deep -

What is phraseology?
Thus the extent of my prosody.

Though musical language is sweet,

I lack the command and a knowledge of words

To make it my bailiwick.

But oh for a period – how many years? -

Most of my poems were angry.

A pleasure to write but a horror to read.

How could I stop being pissed?

When will the anger relent,

And the Muses forgive?

Happiness

Pressure

A diver with his tubes

Underneath the sea

Has less pressure on him

Than is surrounding me.

Remedial the pressure

I've grown accustomed to.

Promises and money

And nobody who's true.

 

Jill

She doesn't like the 30s

Or 40s music'lly.

The reason for her prejudice

Isn't hard to see

In someone who's as honest

As she possibly can be.

 

Happiness

Nothing makes me happy

But a pocket full of money -

Not a lover's promises

When all of them are kept -

Not a Berlin melody

Or Verdi at his best -

Not a perfect poem

That I wrote myself -

Not a gentle lyric

By the angel named Millay -

Nor Sutherland and Callas singing

Once again for me.

Succinct

I am not laconic.

I'll mention that right now.

Details of what I'm saying

Fall like soot upon the snow.

I read one day that Junkets

Is noted just for this -

Describing every nuance

Of the subjects of his poems.

So tell the social worker

Who's listening to me

That he's visiting with Keats.

He'll say the tedium is hell.

I'm like the little girl

Of 4 or 5 or 6

Who's going to be crazy

When she's 17.