Monday, April 28, 2014

What You Deserve


Have I?
Have I failed you?
Have I been too little of something?
Too much of another?
The wrong kind of still others?
Are you truly happy?
And if so
am I part of the reason?
And if not
am I part of the reason?
In my own way I have tried
I have wanted to be
What you deserve
Which is far more the I can do
But yes I have tried
Especially lately
Wanting to be 
Hoping to be
Trying to be
Can you ever forgive
The awful times
When I let you down?
So many I know
So foolish I was
So intent not to be anymore
As we grow older 
Together
I am determined
To
To be
To be what you deserve

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Here It Is

I don' know where it all comes from
But here it is
Words

Changed clothes but not my mind
Walked to the gym arrived in time
Ran six miles and a half
No pain in either calf
Sauna and a shower felt good
Then on back to the neighborhood
Pretzels and smoothie of fruit
Root a toot toot
Watched a movie by Werner Herzog
Went outside was barked at by a dog
The wife and I went out to dine
Filling my belly felt might fine

Here it is
Those words I mean
I guess the brain decides
Which ones to use
(I don't always seem to choose)
Words and sentences and even
More
I don't get it
But I dig it
And later I read those words
And I'm all like
Where did those come from?
The answer is good old me
See?

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Maybe


This is the last of it
No more words
It’s all empty and meaningless
And beyond love or hope
The imperfection is palatable
The soaring lows bottomless
There are no ashes
For the Phoenix to rise from
Only dregs so sad and forlorn
Tears of futility
Dominate the landscape
Where from the void
Comes reckless death
Embroiled in hell
But kernels of truth can be seen
A dash of honesty
The reality is not all bleak
Because always there is
This
These thoughts and desires
That transcend somehow
The death of wonder
Love peaks through
And we can believe for a minute
That maybe
Maybe
Maybe

Friday, April 25, 2014

Kathryn -- Again

There I was and you were so beautiful
We were together and you were so beautiful
You
I see wonders and amazing lights and
I feel delights and experience joys
But you are so much more
Beautiful
There is honor in life if done right
There is dignity there is saneness
There is purity and there is truth
But there is nothing
As beautiful
As you
Clouds and rain and sun
Nothing
Only the touch of a baby
The laugh of innocence
The waves on the shore
Dare try to compare
With you
Who are
So beautiful
Soft voices in the night
Light kisses on the mouth
The sincerity of a hug
Happiness
You are so beautiful

Sunday, April 20, 2014

The Perpetual Squalor of the Empty Mind

Oh god the pain
The tearing at the soul
The utter devastation of lost tomorrows
All gone
Sand is all
And the dust
The dust everywhere
Lack of reason or hope
And the perpetual squalor of the empty mind
The futility of grasping
All is out of reach
And left here waiting for death
For the release of this pain
And the eternity of quiet
Here still the wrenching
The mind twisted by knowledge and lies
With an unquenchable desire for more of each
Not able to make good cause
With enemies of understanding
Just in puddles of dank sweat
Dripping desperately to the bottom
Where light's absence is the only surety
And therein depression shouts awkwardly
Beguiling somehow
Seized in the tentacles of sorrow
Wondering how to do anything
Anything at all

Monday, April 14, 2014

Oh the Past

"The stars were icicles of mockery." - From Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.

The deadened night reached back into yesterday
There by the gleaming moon was all that I
had ever been
And wanted to be
The silent noise and the roaring quiet dissipated
But
I could still see the younger me full of hope
But
Without a plan or a goal or a vision
Dark clouds and a soft wind and a chill
all at two am
Made for a wistful sense that
there was little that could be done
The present was on going and the future a dream
the past though
Oh the past
Here was where I happily dwelled
Rectifying past mistakes
Righting wrongs I had done and that were done to me
Making me live anew
Editing and revising and fixing and correcting
As if what had transpired were written and not lived
I reached back into long past decades with an eraser
and a pen
And there made perfection where crystalline mistakes of
obvious blunder had once existed
This was my night of heroics
Wrongs righted enemies slighted dissipation blighted
I would go on now
Knowing that I had dwelled again
in years of ago
Oh the past my fickle friend
Not my memory but who I am
You I see as clouds against the stars edge into
the night sky
Don't hide from me
What is past is
Is
Always and forever
And I will re-write you yet
On cold dark nights of starry dreams

Up Up and Away

Climb climb
I've got to rhyme
Higher higher
Away from the pyre
Steep steep
I sow I reap
Abyss abyss
I can't miss
The top the top
Woes are my crop
End end
I'll never bend
Cry cry
I wish I could fly

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Blatherings

Shut up Josh you talk too loud
For too long
Saying nothing
Like a lot of people
So much time and space polluted
By empty words
The blatherings of empty minds
Going to great lengths to fill time
Hating the empty moment
Smashing your silence with their drivel
And avoiding
Any actual exchange of ideas
Or feelings
Or reactions
With meaningless trivia
Blah blah blah
And worst of all
Never listening
For talking is listening
Not one upping
Not using what is said before
As a springboard to pontificate
So can we talk about this?

Monday, April 7, 2014

Coming Home From Work

No F trolley so had to walk up to catch the 30
Through Chinatown
Cue a big frown
Cutest tourist toddler in the world across from me
Laughing and cooing not boo hooing
I read impassively from Kerouac novel
Answered texts from youngest daughter
She's a scholar jump and holler
Twas a smooth and groovin' bus ride
Especially for the 30
Didn't get down or dirty
Sad smiling faces especially one Asian woman of
Not quite middle age she seemed wise a real sage
Read and texted and looked about give a shout
Quick walk to BART past obese stinky homeless bum
Had maybe too much rum
Crammed down to BART station bad sensation
So many people on their way end of the day
Got seat on train eased my pain
Read more from book as I ain't no schnook
Ride home loud young men cussing
Too much fussing
Out of BART and walked on home
In weather too hot enjoyed it not
Waiting here was my wife what a dear
Time to relax and kick off my slacks

Noisy Noises Disturb the Nosy Oyster

"Adolph Hitler's voice in the taxi horn...." - From the poem Cadillac Squawk by Allen Ginsberg

On lonely fantastic nights of searing bliss
I do ponder a lovely fair haired miss
But I also turn my heart to see
An even prettier women living with me
That I have such a beautiful wife
Is certain proof of my wonderful life
And that I hear noises from afar
Does not mean that my minds ajar
For cars do honk as they pass by
And in the distance is a baby's cry
Damn you ears you hear so much
Always sensitive to sound waves touch
The crazy old neighbor blasting his TV
Makes me fume for quiet I plea
When at last the hush does surround
My imagination does leap and bound
I think of incredible things that I will do
How I'll write books that are fresh and new
Then with my wife I happily chat
Only rarely do we ever spat
Her kisses on my lips do light
And my joy cascades through the night
Noisy noises do come and go
But my life is grand and this I know


Sunday, April 6, 2014

Real is But So is All

“What a horror it would have been if the world was real.” - From Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

The filthy subway station platform is real
But so were my mystical childhood adventures
The angry screaming mad woman is real
But so were my ecstatic teenage sexual fantasies
The horrible deaths and torture reported in the news are real
But so are my the laughing joyful poems
Real you are voracious and greedy corporations
Real you are scheming lying politicians
Real you are murderous criminals
But so are you real orgasms
But so are you real laughter
But so are you real dreams
All the realities of the world
Competing and arguing but all true
Horrors side by side with joys
Slaughter and dancing
Mayhem and kisses
Violence and understanding
I am real too
And so are you
So are we all
And so too what we do
And so we do


Saturday, April 5, 2014

Some Years Ago

Driving with my dad down desolate streets
On a dusty Saturday afternoon in 1967
Melancholy negroes walk down sad sidewalks
Quite Mexicans pass them sulking
Dad has the radio on listening to loud nothing
I talk nonsense and he pretends to care
We pull into a sad parking lot
And veritably jump out of the car
Dad runs an errand that bores me
I hum a Beatles song and imagine a baseball game
I look on proudly as Dad makes a purchase
Then he sees an acquaintance and chats
He proudly introduces me, his son
I am polite to the white haired acquaintance
Then we are back in the car
Dad cusses about a bad driver
I am used to this
Looking out the window I see a lot
And it is all nothing
Asphalt concrete broken down buildings
Boring drive until we turn up a street where there are
Hippies
Of course dad makes derisive cracks about them
I think they're interesting and different and maybe fun
(I've yet to be high but its coming)
We finally get to leafy neighborhoods
Happy houses with children in front yards playing
Dad pull the Oldsmobile into our driveway
He races me to the front door
He always wins cause he's the dad

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Forenever Young


There is no today now
There will always be tomorrow
There has always been yesterday
This second
This minute
This hour
Never happened or will
They were always in the future
And will forever be in the past
Now is a false construct
It doesn't matter anyway
Nothing does by which I mean
Everything
Does
It all has meaning
In being meaningless
And so I return to you Buddha
Knowing that you are the only reality
Yesterday tomorrow and forenever
Forenever young
Old timer