Ad Fontes

Passions are known to produce more than Valentines
But that’s not to say a cool mind’s not a threat –
The crimes of the heart are indeed bloody crimes
No, the hard part is simply to never forget
That a heart and a mind are part of a whole
each has its weakness, its limit, its flaw
And mutual indenture is not a bad goal
So clemency’s sweetness must temper the law
To vote for just feelings, to vote for pure reason
Affronts man’s integrity when brave hearts are sinking
A mind that is open to laughter’s not treason
and no better bouy than a wink in one’s thinking
It’s balance brings beauty, or so it would seem:
Laws must have pardons – sane men, a sweet dream

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[great dark clouds rose up like silhouetted cities]

great dark clouds rose up like silhouetted cities –
just at the moment the street lights went on –
and I felt all I’d written so far were just ditties
[night’s not quite here – but the day’s nearly gone]
I recalled the soft scent of the dawn – like a book
freshly opened to promise and singular worth
and remembered – embarrased – the notes that I took
on everything, in the hope of one day giving birth
to a treatise – an essay – thoughts neatly laid out
ideas unfolding, transparent and clean –
something of value in a world that had sold out –
beauty forgotten, relations turned mean.
When I got home I sat down, really tried hard to think
and laughed when I noticed my pen – out of ink.

Be Not Fooled

Who sings me songs of candied afterlives
demands I now lie low in expectation –
bow down, await rewards, endure the gyves
shut up, mark time, be meek for the duration –
feel sin and guilt, fear God And All His Might –
some super spook who no one’s seen at all
unless quite daft or higher than a kite
or steeped in myths of Eve and Adam’s Fall.
A Book that offers just itself for proof
is like a dog that chases his own tail.
Religion from religion stands aloof,
leaves little room for justice to prevail.
Those Fathers Up Above are worse than crooks
No Source of All is bound in any books

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If the sentiment expressed here appeals to you,
you might enjoy another of my poetry/prozetry sites
https://countercatechism.wordpress.com/

Notes from the asylum

There’s a hooked rug on the floor here
Two dumb paintings on the wall,
A piano in the common room
But I’m not here at all.
Me? I’m out in Coney Island
(Or on Bleeker Street at dawn)
Lost in someone else’s childhood,
Tryin’ to keep on keepin’ on.

But they want me to tell stories
To pretend their lies are real
When they say they’ll let me outta here
I go un-huh that’s no deal 
Although i’m sick of playing pixies
And i’m sick of all the pills
And Dylan was the 60s
And their tv gives me chills

So I talk to all the squirrels
And pretend that they talk back
Stick my tongue out at the doctor
Cause I know he’s just a quack
And I write these silly verses
‘Cause there’s not much else to do
While I sit tight on the lawn chairs
Humming… tangled up in blue

Fourteen lines of pure anxiety

They follow me from pole to pole, a million mugs that vex –
two witless eyes, a mustache droop – there’s no escape, I swear!
The umlaut on the same key as the accent circonflexe !
hot on my trail from there to here and back again to there!
Don’t sermon me on tricks of light, on chance, on bumps in plaster.
I know about such accidents and imperfections, knots in wood,
or sweaty ring from whiskey glass or Clorox-linked disaster.
Those can’t explain such accuracy, I only wish I could. . .
Photograph them? Paint them? That never seems to work!
No, when unabashed intruders think of barging in on me,
those modes of reproduction never reproduce the quirk –
that seeing beyond seeing that I somehow always see!
Yes, I know they’re mere reflections, less significant you’d think,
than the one I saw this morning, yawning, there above the sink.

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To what end…? (a manifesto)

do any here believe that perfect meter makes a poem
or perfect rhyme or perfect metaphor?
has no one ever told them a chateau  is not a home?
a poem should show what it was written for –

it’s neither wind-up toy nor stand-in for a poor boy’s shrink –
a defrocked priest to hear a heathen’s sin –
so turn the taps full force and cleanse your ego in the sink;
the selfish gaze complete, you may begin.

before you lift a pen or type a letter on a screen
seek clarity of purpose, know your goal;
for vanity, I’d rather watch the strutting peacocks preen –
a poem is writing for your brother’s soul.

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The Expedition

They voted funds to send a handful out
to that far place from which they’d tracked a beep –
a planet blessed with life – of that, no doubt –
which, inexplicably, had gone to sleep.

A century had passed without a tone
or signal they themselves could understand.
What happened to that starchild on its own
way down in Solar Seven’s bright command?

They journeyed past the one with all the moons
until they reached, presumably, the place
that spoke to them sometimes in whacky tunes
or densly wrought inventions filled with grace.

But all they found was one wee man-made berth –
an orb of music drenched in deep dispair
laments of half a hundred left of Earth
and songs that said There was a planet there…

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Last leaf

Red, red it was, and ashen grey the wall
and smoky black the twisting turning vine –
as blood, this red… as fire…Fido’s ball…
a “don’t-go” red, that passing, draws a fine.
I watched it twist and turn as if in pain –
perhaps to see another drifting down;
it whispered of the coming chill and rain
and when the earth would wear a snowy gown.
All verdancy – or most – must undergo
such transformation seasonally here
from snow to blossom, blossom into snow
as summer’s lake shrinks down into a mere
I’ve seen as much more times than I can say
but not ’til now been touched in quite this way

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Envious

I envy the eagle the gull and the cormorant
condors high above the andes
crows who scud the crown of every tree in town
sparrows lighting on my sill –
I envy these and always will

I envy the temple birds in the blinding blue of Java
finches that people southern trees
the thrush and the lark – even pigeons in the park !
but some turkey in a gilded hall ?
I’ll never envy him at all

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Holy Cow Pats

They whistle tunes of Everlasting Life
and, dumb as fish, you rise and seize the fly:
They broker lies to make you bear all strife,
bow down to earthly monarchs ’til you die.
Dear spineless pleb, of atoms you are made –
scant bits of matter and extensive space –
and death is no more fearsome than a shade –
the shadow-side of Life’s astounding grace.
The Here and Now is what is on my mind
an Eden of great peace – just out of reach –
an end to laws that cut and choke and bind
a place where no one censors freedom’s speech.
They’ve tricked you with religion’s greatest con:
This gilt-edged theft goes on and on and on.

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