It’s a holiday weekend,
And I’d like to write
Some joyous verse.
But reality rules.
In Paris,
Armed with a box cutter,
A jihadi attacked a French soldier—
(Anything to do
With last week’s murdered
London troop?).
In India,
To promote their cause
Maoist rebels kill seventeen.
Sweden’s dull prosperity
Is shattered
By angry immigrants
Rioting, smashing, burning—
Responding to
Perceived neglect.
(They could, of course
Return from whence they came,
Where, doubtless,
They flourished.)
In Pakistan,
Where costly regulation
Is ignored,
A bus blew up—
Killed 15 children
And their teacher.
Our current,
Salient military issue?
Commanders plead
With macho troops
To stop raping
Their female comrades.
Among the most interesting
New species discovered in 2012—
A cockroach
That glows in the dark.
(5/26/13)
For Lisa
Down at the tennis courts I showed a friend
A morbid poem I wrote last month called “Flame,”
Wherein I cite my own spark’s ashy end—
Burnt out—no light or heat to drive life’s game.
This lady friend (both beautiful and smart)
Took umbrage at my self-demeaning whine.
“Your verses testify! Your verbal art
Provides the power, heat—the force divine
That lights the avenues of humankind,
That warms the passions and ferments the brew—
Intoxicating quaff—unties our binds.
Your hot bright heart’s not dead—it burns anew!”
Wow, I thought—could that possibly be true?
Is that what narcissistic poets do?
(5/23/13)
Look, we’ve got a house at the beach
Paid for! Good pensions and no debt—
Our three educated kids, each
Pulls his own weight, beloved assets.
I harbor no unfilled desire
Except, perhaps, a peaceful world.
I sometimes sense that I’m admired
But mostly feel that I am foiled.
My wife is kind and substantive,
Good humored, talented and bright.
I’ve everything a life can give
So why my morbid psychic night?
I query: why my splintered heart,
And why my spirit drowns in blight?
My unresponsive human spark
Flickers, but casts no useful light.
Perhaps it’s simple—my splenetics?
The product of bizarre genetics!
(5/22/13)
I’ve written about pain
And love, and death.
Versified god
(The source
Of most sorrow
And stress),
And greed,
(The source of the rest).
When pushed,
I write,
From time to time,
About joy—
But, truth told,
My heart’s not in it.
(5/21/13)
The body is an instrumental source
Of various and somewhat sour sounds
Though frequently the melody is coarse
When smelly drumbeat flatulence astounds.
Percussion sometimes takes a softer tone
When ancient joints emit their creaks and thuds.
Though nothing dominates digestive moans
So much as belches, burps performed in floods.
Recently, seared scallops or ancient fish
Broadcast some strange and horrid music noise—
All night long incessant rumbles, ghoulish,
Gurgled, thundered—conveyed no lyric joy.
My ER doctor knew that symptom’s name—
The medic’s term for ugly gastric flames—
Loud and terrifying gut enigmas?
Offbeat peristaltic borborygmus!
(4/30/13)
This June,
My younger son, at 50,
Plans to visit Iceland—for two weeks—
To tour and hike with a pal of his.
My stepson Rick, approaching 55.
Can’t wait to retire and move
From L.A. to the drenched
Olympic Peninsula.
My older son, at 58,
Smitten, flies to New Zealand
From California—non-stop!—
Next week.
My energetic wife, now 77,
Is planning a ceramics tour
Of Italy
Organized for June of next year.
My old friend George, at 81,
Intends, this summer,
To motorcycle through back roads
Of Kentucky and Tennessee.
How is this possible?
At their core there burns
A flame, not so hot and bright
As once before, yet still warm and light.
Me, at 83?
Alas, my flame’s burnt out—
No embers even—
Just cold white ash.
I yearn for problem-free
Serenity—
A comfortable chair,
A readable book.
(4/20/13)
