Saturday, July 30, 2011

177 Years of Being a Jerk


Oh I was no good
You wouldn’t have
Liked me
It was the drugs
(I said)
It was the liquor
(I said)
But no
It was me
Standoffish
Rude
Sullen
Moody
But always there for me
You could count on it
I depended on
The indulgence of strangers
And friends
And family
Cruel, biting remarks
Often meant to hurt
Successful
And oh so happy to be me
Wasn’t I great?
Now leave me alone
Off doing my own thing
If I need you
You’ll be the first to know
And so I went
I was something else again
And again
Me mine I
Oh yeah
Short
Sharp
Curt
It’s all over now
I’ve changed so
Seen the light
Burning bright
It says:
Be nice not yourself
Okay
So here I am
Reformed
Like Me?

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Happiness

Tripping off the long nights
And daring to stare at your dreams
Hoping that willingness
Is enough to start
Not knowing it all
Not pretending to
Having a reach exceeding all grasps
Pissing sea water into the wind
Lifting the dancers with your mind
And applauding rapturously
These are times to tie men's souls
To the beautiful days of endless rhythm
Just don't forget...
To sing

Sunday, July 24, 2011

He's Dead

He's dead now
Once your lover
Drives me crazy
To think of it
Always has
Still will
But dead now
Still tortured by
The thought of
Him touching your
Hair your breasts
Kissing your lips
Inside and out
Madness to imagine
No solace in
His slow death
Which was an
Awful one
Sad for him
Pain any way
I look or
Think of it
Hate him and
You with him
All those years
Ago
No no no
But he's dead
Changes nothing
You see my
Mind is warped
A jealous raging
Crazy man I
Am today and
Can't understand why
But there it
Is
It is it
Is it is
He's gone now
Except he lives
In my jealous
Silly mind
Poor poor guy
Poor me poor
All of us
Who suffer from
This kind of
Silly pain of
Memories
Damn them but
Bless him
He was a
Nice guy

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Your Yesterday

That was your yesterday
Not mine
Those were your tears
But I’ll mingle mine with them
If you’ll do me the courtesy
Of loving my life
As I worship yours
On the promise of golden tomorrows
And dangling virtue 
And dancing morals
And happy tunes
Of your not quite correct
But always genuine
Searches
For that yesterday
That was yours
Love you
Mean it

Monday, July 18, 2011

The Agony of Remembering

I feel a hellish pain tonight
Reminded as I am of waking up
Those warm Summer mornings of my youth
Eager to start a new day 
Certain that it would be full and rich and meaningful
Perhaps with sport or sex or just being young
Now it is the night of my life
Dark and cold and bitter
I cringe at the lamplight
It reflects of an old and wrinkled face
Whose time has passed
Gone is the carefree reverie of yesterday
Gone forever
Here instead is the melancholy of memory
The bitterness of what was missed
The longing for what was had
I do not spring out of bed these Summer mornings
I lurch and groan and ache and wonder
Where did it all go?
Can’t I have it back?
The agony of remembering
The regret the heartache the excitement the elation
All intertwined and all in a knot
In my belly
How I wish....

Friday, July 15, 2011

It Happens

At Fisherman’s Wharf Norwegian tourists discuss which way to go
Germans take photos of one another with Alcatraz in the background
A few block away a Filipino drag queen argues heatedly with no one
In Chinatown a small restaurant sign reads: Dim Sum, Nice Food
On the bus recorded announcements come in three languages
A beggar greets people emerging from the subway station by asking for change
A young couple on the train wrestle playfully
At a Berkeley cafe a woman suns herself in a bathing suit 
Men ogle
A mailman strides purposefully up my street
In the house the cat is laying on a nightgown
Time for me to type

Thursday, July 14, 2011

The Writer

Of all the glory 
In this untold story
Of all I’ve to gain
With none of the pain
Yet I cry and I wail
In fear that I’ll fail
Instead I must try
And not ask why
Soon there’ll be nothing left
Just a life bereft
So in a dive
Glad I’m alive
And so I now write
What a wonderful fight!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

It Happened One Night

Laying face first on the floor
Wallowing in my gloom
Driving myself insane
With thoughts of the naked days
When love in creeks felt just fine
Before the body sagged and the mind raged
Before the shifting sands blew into my face
I got the get up song now
The coffee
The elderly man talking to his little dog
All that nonsense and no bikini models
At least not knocking on my door
So I lay here
Face first
On the floor
Contemplating that long road
To I told you so
See ya

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

A Song of Consequence

I have disassembled my brain
As a consequence
Poetry
The notions of grandeur displaced by
Geese always the geese
But fluttering, flying, flouting Finns
(Such as myself)
Cry our joys loudly in the mist
Never having gained an ounce of...
I did mention the disassembling of my brain?
Not my brian, that proper noun
First name of an Epstein and a Jones and
Say, who invited me to this party anyway
Look at the bird by the window having a row with a mate
Saw her on the lift coming up
Before that at the chip shop
Never mind that now
Poetry
Songs of consequence
You see it’s all interrelated in a totally
Totally
Umm the word here is I guess....
Disconnected way
But who am I to say?
I ask you
You answer me
And say I have disassembled my brain
Mentioned already?
But I only just got here
To planet nowhere
Which is everywhere
Maybe
Just perhaps
I should put this brain back together again
You’ll see something then, by God
I promise you that
“Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie” - From Starman by David Bowie
Dig it...BROTHER

Monday, July 11, 2011

Kyle

This is a poem about Adolph Hitler’s illegitimate son Kyle
He is a person I knew for awhile
He was witty, charming and smart
To whom living well was a refined art
Kyle smiled and laughed a lot
He never quarreled, argued or fought
His temperament was sunny and bright
He spoke of topics cheery and light
His dad Kyle did not know
The thought of the Fuhrer filled him with woe
Kyle preferred dancing to history
For reasons obvious at least to me
This was a poem about Adolph Hitler’s illegitimate son Kyle
To think of him makes me smile

Friday, July 8, 2011

Trembling

With trembling hands I wrote my love
With a trembling heart I sent the letter
With fear unnatural I awaited her reply
How somber this mood, this sad pacing
How sadly I wandered through my desolate mind
Searching for answers as the wait continued
No reply
With trembling hand I wrote again
With trepidation I mailed the second missive
With growing tension I awaited a reply
How desperate the hours of waiting
How slowly the time did pass
I grasped and reached within myself
Hoping to find solace 
None cam nor ever a reply
With trembling hands I took a dagger
With a trembling heart did raise it
With fear gripping I let the knife fall
How forlorn did I slump to the floor
How morose my piteous mood
Searching for meaning
Finding nothing
And yet I carried on
She is my love no more
With trembling lips I say it
Stronger, wiser, sadder now
I look for another and new life
With trembling heart

Thursday, July 7, 2011

The Boldness of My Vision

The boldness of my vision
Is subject to no derision
I suffer for my art
I say this from the heart
I thrill to be here tonight
Nothing will be said out of spite
This is the place to be
Where masses yearn to be free
You cheer my tour de force
Though it’s just a matter of course
But the best is yet to come
You dig where I’m coming from
This is like nothing you’ve seen before
Everything else seems simply a bore
So fresh, so new so alive
Now our species can survive
This is the boldness of my vision
I’ve done it with such precision
Of this I am so proud
This greatness I proclaim aloud

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Insane, Me, Yes!


It would be nice to be insane
To live with a scrambled brain
Crazy is the way to be
That’s what I want for me
A functioning brain is passe
For me its had its day
I want to be half nuts
No ifs ands or buts
Screwballs are the best
You can have all of the rest
I want to be a loon
Live life like a wacky cartoon
The sane have had their day
Thus the world is in bad way
It’s time for the mad to rule
Never mind if we giggle and drool
I wish I were truly insane
Normality is really a pain

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Pick One


You can’t read Ginsberg poems
While listening to American Pie
While riding on the bus
At least one of them must be stopped
You could get off the bus
You could turn the music off
You could put the book down
You could do two of those three
You could do all three and just think
But why not indulge yourself
The bus will get you home
So stay on it
Because when you’re home
You wont need to be on the bus anymore
So either turn of the IPod
Or stop reading
Savor one experience at a time
Focus
Multi tasking if for busy people
You don’t want that
You don’t need that
You need not over stimulate your brain
It being the only one you have
Give it the song
Or give it Ginsberg
Take if off the bus
As soon as possible
Enjoy

Monday, July 4, 2011

The Insanity of God


The insanity of God
Is such a stark contrast
To the reasonableness of evil
How nonsensical love can be
While hatred makes perfect sense
Reality is utterly crazy
Fantasy is logical
We dwell among the madness
Of a world defined by facts
And truth is left for the deranged
To rage about
We stand at the vortex
And spit into it
When we should dive in
Abandon your opinions
Give into your hope
Never look back
Crazy, man, crazy

Friday, July 1, 2011

I Understand Now


There they were waiting for me
Fear, innocence, rage and confusion
All vying for my attention
Trying to make a mockery of my youth
Rendering me a stammering mess
Damn them
Cruel enemies of my serenity
Blocking the path towards enlightened joy
I suffered them sadly
Indulging only so long as necessary
The gamely shoving them as far aside as my strength could manage
How I struggled to get past these foes
To grow into a man
Not society’s version
But my own
I needed to create a vision of who I wanted to be
And be it
I wanted my due
I, who lacked only guidance
Who went it alone
Stumbled onwards
Fear deadened
Innocence gone
Rage quelled
Confusion evaporated
But now no longer young
Frustration
But wisdom