Down at the paddle tennis courts, I ask
Agéd friends “Do you guys ever have fun?”
“Absolutely!” Sometimes a simple cask
Of beer will do the trick, an iced spiced bun
Adorning coffee, hot and fresh—sometimes
A movie, hockey game, exotic trip
To distant, unimagined tropic climes.
Their glories testify that I’ve been gypped!
I’d rather have a root canal than board
A plane! And food, these days, tastes much like fur.
Night driving seems like falling on a sword,
And those pro games no longer swirl a stir.
The one thing that most carpés my diem?
The pleasure of each morning’s firm B.M.
(5/16/2}
In olden times
The agile sword
Won fields,
And thrones, and wealth.
Libertarians
(More civilized)
See markets
Spewing pelf.
Smarts, not strength,
Control the world—
“Kill regulation—
Foul, depraved!”
(Those masters suck
What we produce—
We’re, once again,
Enslaved.)
But times have changed,
Smarts must take heed,
Attend to need,
Wash away the mud—
Or desperation,
TNT,
Will draw the smart ones’
Blood.
It’s in the books
(Yeats knew it well)—
Jeroboam, Robespierre,
And Lenin found solutions.1
It’s just not smart
To suck us dry
And foment
Revolutions.
(5/10/12)
1William Butler Yeats theorized that history worked in 2000 year cycles (for every Christ, an anti-Christ waiting to be born). When King Solomon died, Prince Rehoboam went before Israel requesting that they accept his sovereignty over the United Monarchy of Judah and Israel. When Jeroboam complained that Solomon imposed unfair taxes on Israel, and asked for relief, Rehoboam threatened to increase their burden. His intransigence resulted in a civil war that destroyed the United Monarchy. Robespierre was an influential figure in the French revolution. You all know who Lenin was. Damn! It can’t be right when the footnote’s longer than the poem.
Face it! Seasons dominate our taut lives,
Though most reflect the planet’s curious tilt.
Twenty-three point four five degrees contrive
The equinox, the solstices—the gilt
Festooning Christmas, Easter—holidays
Galore—those landmark seasons of each year.
Our merchants’ joy, our families’ hoorays–
Those days off work, weekends of boozy cheer.
But ev’ry bright is shadowed by the dark.
Our bleakest season, like a threat’ning ax,
Extends three months (or more!) a rav’ning shark—
The season when we calculate our tax!
That maze of rules, the danger of rebuke—
Nauseating, enough to make you puke!
(4/28/12)
I couldn’t find the cat.
I opened ev’ry door.
He didn’t come to eat
My heart grew sore.
Perhaps he went outside,
Was smashed to gore.
Then, mystically, he reappeared
To be adored.
(4/22/12)
What is it that a poem’s supposed to do?
More, surely, than display the poet’s wit,
Project the pain of poets’ pious rue,
Or plump the bulky texts for English lit.
Those quirky forms—sestinas, villanelles—
Hurl hefty gauntlets. challenge brain lobe cells.
Pantoums and tankas, tercets and rondels,
Engirdled verse, slim, trim, sexy as hell!
But formal traits—the rhyme and style and beat,
The images, and metaphors, and shtick—
Are, finally, an uncooked meal, raw meat,
Poets’ pride displayed—plain narcissistic.
I’ll tell you what a poem’s supposed to do;
Dredge out our muddled minds, focus blurred view.
Poems shape our mist, mould spirit into fact—
Exploding stars that change the way we act.
(4/21/12)
Apologies to Shakespeare and Burns
“Love” (“Lust” really) and “Death,” we’re often told,
Infuse the bulk of all poetic art.
I’ve loved a lot while tumbling toward the cold
Dark consequence of Death’s sharp toxic dart.
So listen up! Comparisons enthrall—
She’s better than a summer’s day, a rose—
And age—like leafless boughs, emitting gall—
Might catch your kin’s attention I suppose.
Still, dammit, poets tend to miss the point—
A life goes way beyond hormonal flares,
And passings we so fervently anoint.
Lost love, decrepit age inflame despair;
But hunger, shelter, warmth’s what life’s about,
While billions suffer lives all hollowed out.
(4/18/12)
