To be, always, dark, mere murky shadows
Of the bright prismatic thought, rainbow wit
That streaks about, trapped behind the window,
Locked. The translation? Bungled counterfeit.
(5/31/14)

Is it some genetic thing buried deep
That makes me wonder at a sunset
While he sees stormy portents ruining sleep?
Is my gorgeous bloom his allergic threat?

Rembrandt, Manet, Van Gogh, even Dali
Please the heart and eye—but Jackson Pollack
Sells for a million bucks?—insane folly!
Abstract impressionism’s just plain crap.

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Gershwin engage,
Enchant our ears—beguiled, we cheer and clap.
Now we’re asked to honor Phil Glass, John Cage
Mocking music’s art (not to mention Rap).

Then there’s us, human shapes: illogical
Protruding nose, hair, convoluted ears,
Toenails, genitals, anatomical
Design—veneers beneath which we appear.

Explain to me how women’s beauty works,
How canny centimeters certify:
An inch or two of breast—firm, nicely perked—
A quarter inch of lip, an eighth of eye
The length and shade of hair, the cream of skin
That curve beneath the knee, the width of thigh
Coalesce, create ugliness of sin
Or beauties that entrance our leering eyes?.

No wonder that philosophers debate
The nature of aesthetic enterprise.
Do we perceive, or randomly create
The beauty that our minds have crystallized?
(5/4/14)

Face it! The boundaries of art are forms,
The latest fashions that adorn ideas,
That tweak the eye, the ear, the mind—perform
A magic that turns artists into seers.

Yet, always, artists do project ego
We shape worlds reflecting our obsession
We forget that art is, despite our throes
A formal and aesthetic expression

Thrust your ego if you must, goshdarnit—
Just slick it up—clothe it in a sonnet.
(3/25/14)

About how hard it was to end their tales—
Rich brews rendered in impeccable prose
Detailing life’s complexity—derailed
By that swift unsatisfactory close.

How can writers simply end their stories?
How can their woven textures simply stop?
Real life doesn’t lend itself to glories,
Thus novels tend to finish with a plop.

I prefer the sonnet’s formal rigor
Craft that final couplet—pull the trigger.
(2/5/14)

Sounds, listen to heartbeats, invent rhythm,
Even fashion instruments from bird bones.
Those ancient flutes—aural crystal prisms—
Mimic calls of animals, insect tones.

We really can’t explain how reeds and horns
(Those bowed, plucked strings) and opera emerged—
But once invented, music grew, took forms
Enraptured all of us in its rich surge.

It grew and grew, baroque and classical,
Romantic, modern, tonal miracles,
Along with blues, and jazz, and crooned bourgeois,
And rock and roll, and rap, reggae and ska.
(1/22/14)

One of the regulars down at the courts,
Larry, is eighty now famous for coifed
Hair, and immune to our mild, teasing snorts.
Educated children, grandchildren, waft

About his soul. He and his family
Have shared both mazel and tsouris enough—
Proud emotion, piqued by the awesome glee
Of birth and joy, darkened by the rebuff

Of illness and bone crushing accident.
Yet, through it all, he has remained unique—
Quietly dependable, provident,
He watches over us, cares for the bleak,

Helps even the drunk thieves who hang about,
Picks up the tab. We watch him from our bench—
He represents (we know and want to shout)
The very definition of a mensch.
(10/20/13)
Mazel = luck; Tsouris = trouble; Mensch = human in the highest sense.

The college girl may groan—that paper’s due.
The Prof may sigh; he has to grade the quiz
By nine o’clock; and businessmen eschew
Their coffee, dreaming bonus-building tricks.

Some wake to days of opportunity
They work and garden, often volunteer—
They revel in each day’s activity;
Spend evenings with hors d’oeuvres and foamy beer.

At eighty-three, back pinched, joints scored with grit,
I wake and moan: “Another day—oh shit!”
(8/5/13)

Good humored, he replied he found me “deft”
(Now there’s a word you don’t see ev’ry day).
Perhaps he meant my poetry had heft,
Was skillful in a sure and easy way.

At eighty-three, my body’s sore, not deft,
So physicality’s not what he meant
Despite my age I’m not yet brain bereft
Though memory is often dark or bent.

Perhaps perceptive, honest and candid,
He simply noticed that I’m right-handed.
(7/13/13)

Still, despite my pain, inability,
There is an upside. When I was strong, young,
Driven to amend instability,
Politics freed my wallet and my tongue.

I mourned our spiraling world, dark, berserk—
I dreamed a world at peace, unbigoted.
I spoke and voted, volunteered to work,
Till age intruded, frayed that youthful thread.

That cesspool Middle East? Our next mayor?
Iran? Truth told, I just no longer care.
What troubles me? What most affects my mind?
The household mess my death will leave behind.
(3/28/13)