Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Elegy Melody

In the lonely dusk of yesterday
The lint fell from the heavens
I dropped to a knee
Supplication was my thing then
Writ large on the forever horizon
Were the vignettes of Claudius
So we shuffled into a bar
Where the drinks were purplish
We listened to Nixon talk of peace
While he ordered bombing babies and hospitals
(The tender cords of amnesia wrestled with us)
The bombs in Southeast Asia sent limbs flying
We heard the laughter emanating from the television
Silly were the situations and people on the tube
And they were interrupted by eternal detergent commercials
(Goya Garbo and Godard looked on as we waited for Godot)
This was the Kerouac of our Spring’s Discontent
And little did the peals of pain surmise
That Sherlock was lurking under the Redwoods
(Gone off the rails now)
Warmth enveloped our snow bound brains
LSD got us back to normal
We read the encryption software of Sundance
Lo the poseur we were on a tortilla high
More beans please and pass the peace and love
Understanding 2001 and 1984 and Catch 22 and 8 1/2
Misunderstanding Math and English and Science and History
The Beatles always The Beatles and more The Beatles
But crusty burgers in palatial cars did not satisfy
For we were the generation of cosmic understanding
Our super laconic waffles stolen by midgets
(Platitudes, platypus, plexiglass, posterior)
Left us under the spell of the news
A break in at the DNC in Washington
Our marijuana roaches of next week were thus foretold
So we had mad sex in millions of positions in millions of places
But with just thousands of people
Crooked angles of jet stream love sent us rapturous
We thirsted for more poetry and baseball and wine
While bombs and love exploded all over the elastic world
Earth — the planet in seven dimensions
Time to cry

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Question Time for the Despondent

How many ways can I die today?

Are any of them nice, are any okay?
How could I end this sad little life?
Would a gun work or how 'bout a knife?
Is there reason for me to live longer?
Is there a chance that I’ll get stronger?
What is the point of another day?
Can there still be fun, can there be play?
Why continue enduring this sorrow?
Isn’t likely to be worse tomorrow?
Do I go on in such terrible pain?
Is there any purpose, anything to gain?
Is it possible to avoid despair?
Why should I try why should I care?
Could I still be happy again?
If that happens, what then?
How long would it last, how long would it stay?
Wouldn't I be sad again the very next day?
This pain makes it hard to see the good and the glad.
All I experience is the painful and sad.
Still I get up and go through my day,
I guess because I know no other way.



Tuesday, March 7, 2017

My Thoughts Exactly

The dull knife of sad perceptions
The filament dancing in moonbeams
All the troubles of the weighty norms
The raunchy song of sea-faring men
The little that grows and the big that shrinks
All the tangles and knots and pinafores
The favored daughters of conscientious kings
The mannered ways of an aloof miner
All the perceptions of yesterday’s musings
The determined glare of an icy locksmith
The gladdening memories of alchemists well met
All the darning socks twisting in the hurricane
These are all and not enough just like a long life