Saturday, January 21, 2012

Dog

Nobody notices the dog
Old enough heart, no good
Like a Romany gypsy
Repaying a debt
To the destructive powers
Orphans. Thieves. Invalids.
Overcome!
Roars the earthy spirit
A single word is a
Catalyst for it all
But “I’m not so tough”
                                                                So thinks the old broken dog

Remember to take in the proverbial long view, and not the abbreviated version of existence.

That afternoon, as the poorly compensated workers flooded out of the shops, I walked into a student weeping and heaving some ugly sob on the dirty curb of the street in her short dainty skirt. I put my hand on her shoulder, her hair curled and hung down over my hand. She looked up with watery red eyes. “Cry elsewhere,” I told her, “Or sprout wings and soar, girl.”

Monday, October 17, 2011

The Wise Poet of the Forever Alone

Opening:
Even in the limning
despair, there is the spirit of love
masked by want and fulfillment
or perhaps cocooned and shadowy
It is to those who can and must help themselves
that I speak to, you depressed men and young women
to follow my precepts
for the wheel of fortune is forgiving
and life is sweet!

Precepts:
Savor the air, tend to your small garden
or secondhand car, don't slide into alcholism
tolerate the superficial
You may not be a virile-looking specimen
or have that special effect on the opposite sex
but don't polish your plaintive violin
Be passive, and certainly be patient
another year looms
and swifly the poised music
will make us laugh

Seek a surrogate mother in the moon
cuddle the sun in the yard
The brittle spirit
will find satisfaction in the small
things
and this will go a long way
No need destorying yourself
in the childness
of anguish
and maudlin tears

This should be your rhapsody:
Oh, friendly nieghbor! let's be together
    and if it be only in spirit, that will be just fine
    with me

Oh, stoic hope! I'll make do with the four seasons
    lonely winter, affectionate autumn
    companionable summer, and our mutul friend
    spring

The moral of this rhapsody:
It has always been like this
even in the widowed year
or the month of the affable slob
or the days of madness and
desolate spirits
So open the doors and windows
for I've found the crucial notion
against our despair
in the blood of night

And So It Will Be:
One day you'll have
a meeting
a crush, a girlfriend
a boyfriend
and touch the leaf of sex
Over time
you'll be a well-balanced
individual

You'll grow senile
and sit at
the dinner-table
you may see son, daughter
and friend
and they'll see mother, father
and friend

And in the course of life
you'll be the most moral
person, and your kindness will
be exmplefied to one and all
because when you were young
you died a little every day
in circling sadness
but you'll have succeeded it all
and while everyone else celebrates
birthdays and anniversaries
you'll be celebrating the bright
warmth of togetherness