If you don't know what I wrote

I think you oughta

"Here lies a poor poet -- his name written in water."

No more mortal death. Goodbye winding sheets.

"Who wrote that?" they ask.  "His name was John Keats.

A poor poet it's true.  But he had the last laugh.

Immortal!  Immortal! Through his epigaph!

 

Look to the dresser of deal

With the single Wodehouse novel

And the authentic imitation Royal Seal

That his father gave him:

"Put down the book and go to bed.

We are bankers, not poets," his father said.

And he did and did and now is dead.

 

Strike the timbrel and arise! Arise in song!

And strike the gong for the Banker of B'Hong!

 

Look at the crushing coffin with its handles of gold.

Cringe at the crypt that says Lo and Behold

Death only will last as long and long

As the silence of the Banker of B'Hong

Who could have been immortal in story and song

But only became the Banker of B'Hong.

 

Strike the timbrel and arise! arise in song!

And strike the gong for the Banker of B'Hong!

 

The city whirls. It ticks. It tocks....

"Bring me my brass bound buggering box."

New York city. And Auden shakes his head.

Gin and ginger beer and so to bed.

Thinks " Maybe, maybe a good line."

September 1st, 1939.

 

Minnesota Love

The night is cold.  Ah, the Big Dipper!
Oh, how I love my Preston woodchipper.
And how she repays all the love I give her...
Chipping this one and that one!  Then into the river!
Goodbye!  Farewell.  You will be missed.
Another dead bastard for my list.
The river bears the strangest cargo.
In Minnesota.  Just north of Fargo.

 

Fichte met Immanual Kant
And said "Mein Herr I think I want
To illumina the noumena
I thought I'd just assumena
That the noumena is doomena
And does not in fact exist."
And away he went and in that hour
Pissed off Arthur Schopenhauer
Who in Parerga and Paralipomena
Said Fichte was in a comona
Of consciousness alonena
And was astounded
That he had grounded
Der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre
In the ignoble egosphera.

 

I once read "The Myth of Sisyphus"
And thought of the Australopithecus
An extinct hominid
Whatever he did.
Existence is a very bad bithiness.

 

The problem with Being is Time.
One day you hear the midnight chime.
And you cry "Adieu!"
Then there's no more of you.
I fear it isn't very sublime.

 

You embrace the I and the Thou
Love and are loved in the Now
But the I goes away
And the Thou cannot stay.
If this makes sense, I want to know how?

 

Pity the poor Pre-Socratics
And forgive their nervous dramatics
They felt so forlorn
Socrates still wasn't born
Hence their despairing but endearing acrobatics.

 

Consider that fellow named Thales
Who threw in his lot with the whales
He felt the universe oughta
Be all based on water
And steadfastly ignored the details.

Anaximenes thought him a square
And thought everything based just on air
And invented the art
Of the philosopher's fart
Perfected, in time, by Voltaire.

 

Shelley shat on Scotland's Kirk.
Byron buggered boyish Turks.
Wordsworth and Coleridge were boring jerks.

There are great passels
Of Poets who are assholes.
The cavalier poets in their castles
Were all whining snotty assholes.
Leaving Milton there to sing.
But that asshole killed the King.

Ezra Pound despised the Jews
Wallace Stevens hated youse
Blake was all in all goddamn insane
I much prefer Michel Montaigne
To all those assholes
And all their hassles

Man cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen.

 

Ah, the JD...is there more?

How many visitors? Looks like four.

And, I guess, that I am one.

No more mojo. Are we done?

The wolves howl! The gypsies wail!

Where is Whitetree? Where is Dale?

Ah, I see Don. He still is here!

Then there must be a savior near!

Where is Joe -- caught up in work

Or. perhaps, buggered by a Turk!

And where are our friends from far off climes?

Orson Welles can hear the chimes

Of midnight. Orson speak to me!

Are all gone beneath the sea?

Or lost to the usual Fiddle dee?

Or lost to the usual Fiddle dee?

 

I remember a Halloween of long ago.

 

There was a Halloween moon.

 

I was going to go with my Uncle Joe.

 

"When will he be here?" "Soon."

 

I sat and waited by the front porch light

 

And watched as the ghouls crept by.

 

The leaves tumbled down in the Halloween night.

 

The clouds were orange in the sky.

 

With moonlight shining on the steel mill red

 

As the old and familiar hell.

 

And Uncle Joe was beside me…. Said

 

"You're ready, I guess? Oh, well."

 

And we began walking the dreary beat

 

I walked every Hallow's eve

 

To the houses there on our sad street

 

Just where I wanted to leave.

 

When my uncle said. "C'mon get in"

 

As we came up to his car.

 

Ah, he had a flask and it was full of gin

 

And the car was a Jaguar.

 

Silver and white like a god's own ghost

 

And Joe put it in first gear

 

Then second and third and then began to coast

 

And sing like a gondolier.

 

And I could feel the moon laugh down at us

 

As we glided through the night.

 

"Let's just drive." My uncle said.

 

And I just said "Alright!"

 

I had a friend Johnny Wasko.

He died on Halloween.

Had a friend named Johnny Wasko.

Died on Halloween.

 

"And he was a good boy," the old nun said

"Not like you, Mr. Joseph Green."

 

Mr. Joseph Green.

 

Next year Halloween wind blowing

There was a big full moon.

That Halloween wind was blowing.

Big old yellow full moon.

Took my Halloween candy.

Gonna put it on Johnny's tomb.

 

Walk through Fairview Cemetery

Up to Johnny's grave.

Walk through Fairview Cemetery

Up to Johnny's grave.

Gonna give him all my candy.

My poor soul to save.

 

Gave him one Sugar Daddy.

I don't like them anyway.

He always liked Sugar Daddys

When he came out to play.

Put down the Sugar Daddy.

Then I walked away.

 

Little skeleton six feet under.

Little skeleton walking away.

Little skeleton six feet under.

Little skeleton walking away.

Lit a Salem cigarette and kept walking.

Had nothing else to say.

 

After Twitter

 

Let us go then you and I.

No, we cannot be bitter.

To our new home in the sky

And we will not remember Twitter.

 

We will go and bid the soldiers shoot

To get with child a Mandrake root

Then stagger to the Mermaid Tavern

Avoid the pit, eschew the cavern

And there cry out just what we know

Tales of weakness, tales of woe.

Then sip our ale and wait for one

William Blake? maybe John Donne!

For God's sake given where we were

I'd take Walter De La Mare

No one comes. We wait an hour.

The off we go to the Dark Tower.

From the Mermaid to the bower.

Tim asks to wait another hour.

We'll wait an hour more at least.

"Ah, look Tim -- what rough beast!"

Slouching out from Bethlehem

To say "Hello!" to me and Tim

Face of Auden. Eyes of Yeats.

Custom built to serve, it waits.

Chats a bit..says it was built in

A railway town by the name of Milton.

Asks the way to Simplon Pass

Says that it must go, alas

Can't find the way. It's lost you see

In Seven Types of Ambiguity.

And we are lost but long for that...

And Macavity the Mystery cat

Is there and then, ah then

We meet the long world's gentleman.

 

When I was 19 I thought "Damn!

No one knows just where I am!"

Left school... didn't tell my Ma or Pa

To go by train to Mardi Gras...

Well, first a bus to old Chi-town

And then the train. Man, going down

I thought "New Orleans here I come!"

And in my pocket I had some

Six hundred bucks in Cashier checks

It seemed so simple -- not complex

I didn't know what the hell I'd do

Stay a year -- maybe two

Then I could see for me

A year or so in Italy.

What I liked was:. I was alone.

Riding to the great unknown.

No Twitter then. It wasn't hard.

Maybe send a fine postcard

To...whoever...from Bourbon Street

Just one card. A single tweet.

"In New Orleans and I'm doing fine!

Left the college life behind!"

Walked to the bus. It began to snow.

Got on the bus. I know, I know.

We started driving... the snow fell fast

Got off in Chi-Town, Man, at last

Went to buy a ticket for the train

Tried to buy a ticket -- all in vain.

You can read about it. A record storm!

Trains couldn't make it through the swarm

Of snow and ice. So I slept there.

A cop said "Boy are you aware.

That you long hair fuckers just might

Meet someone you don't want to see tonight?"

Man, I got up. Made it to the bus.

Thought I might like to discuss

The "Lake Poets" back in English class

Went back to school. Ah, what an ass.

And even though I was somewhat bitter

I didn't know there wasn't twitter.

So no one knew I was a fool.

And I think that rather cool.

 

A few years ago my Dad was dying

I sat beside him trying trying

To be anywhere but there

To be anywhere no where.

Held his hand as I read a book.

Didn't really want to look.

The resistance. Nazis in the mist.

Felt him shake and then I kissed

Him...when was the last time I...?

I looked at him. I watched him die.

Then he whispered, "I need you...

There's one thing I want you to do,,,"

Then I couldn't hear just what he said.

I went away then he was dead.

See the granite on his tombstone glitter.

Then we're gone too. Twitter. Twitter.

 

I was young when I left home.

Left home after I read a poem

About mermaids singing each to each.

Thought I'd go and see that beach.

Made it to Atlantic city.

The taffy was great and the girls we're pretty

Snuck in and saw the Diving Horse

The cops discovered me, of course,

And I was sent home but I did not stay

Left again the very next day.

Left because I read a poem

About being young and leaving home.

This time I went to NYC

Looking for Lady Liberty

Read the poem about the huddled masses

New York World's fair. A bunch of asses

Got in my way so I couldn't see

The wonderful world of chemistry

So I went down to Bleecker street

And said "In every face I meet

I see marks of weakness and of woe."

"What's that that you're saying Joe?

Asked a guy I met with a guitar

Screw it. I had come so far

Just to listen to a silent sound

And pretty soon was homeward bound.

Vaudeville transcends all love

You have a hat and just one glove

And perhaps a cane. It is enough!

You know we are the stuff

Dreams are made on. As was said

By some guy who finally went to bed

After all the shows and shows.

What vaudeville means...why no-one knows.

 

Love is love and love is nil

Without the thrill of vaudeville

When love is there why love has flown

And you discover you must dance alone

Not for yourself. Ah, that's the key

And is vaudeville's great mystery

You look out always from the stage

And hear the music and feel the rage

Of dancing always against death.

There! And this. You take a breath

And put out one foot and then another

Never wondering why you bother

You dance for you. You dance for her.

You dance and it does not occur

That as you dance you name your love

Or think of the paper moon above

You dance to live and love just then

To conquer where. To conquer when.

And because not to do that would soon kill

The human love that's vaudeville.

 

A winning show. One sees the mute

Get with child the mandrake root.

You think of the poor boy on the stair

Who, of course, was never there

Who, of course was then nowhere

And then you can see if you dare

That it is all quite debonair

And think I think I know I'm seeing

Myyself as an instance of Non-Being

And then reflect "Goddamn, that's true."

And then wonder "What are you?"

But it wouldn't matter if you knew.

It wouldn't matter if you knew.

 

Moi

 

Every day I ride the bus.

I think of me. I think of us.

What I see I cannot say.

But I try in my peculiar way.

Look! Don't look.

It is the same.

It's something that I cannot name.

And maybe even if I could

It's not something that I would.

A NOTHING maybe or a hint

Of something ..maybe just a glint

Of meaning ... something naming US.

Every day I ride the bus.

 

I stood there in my Easter suit

My hair slicked back, She used Wildroot.

My hands are clasped in simple prayer

The 56 Pontiac is there.

My eyes are big. So are my ears.

My grandmother waits and sighs "My dears.

We have to go. We will be late."

My old dog stands barking at the gate.

Perhaps at my Grandma's mink

Which is really weasel is what I think

And she stands smoking a long Pall Mall

And then we hear my father call.

"Where the hell are my goddamn ties?"

And I seem to hear my mother's sighs

As she sits waiting in the car.

"I don't know where the fuck they are"

One minute more. He's still not there.

Darkness falling in the air.

My mother leaves. Won't look back!

Goodbye 56 Pontiac.

 

Moi

 

NOTHING made Wordsworth sad.

Old Sam Coleridge thought "Too bad."

They kept on writing -- not for spite

But to apprehend the endless night.

And because that is what they did

They even somewhat liked that kid:

John Keats was the poor boy's name

Who couldn't stand the endless same

And one day, well, he just took off

To Rome because he knew his cough

Meant that soon he would be dead.

"Oh, my poor friend" is what he said

To his friend who watched the poor guy die.

And Keats still wondered "Who am I?"

And knew he would be nothing soon.

The endless night. The falling moon.

 

love reading Shakespeare

And drinking Cutty Sark

But, if you really want me to,

I'll love Nancy Clark.

But I don't really see her

Though I love dancing in the dark.

Tell me where that sweet gal is!

Where is Nancy Clark?"

 

Don looked at me so pitifully

Said, "Poor boy, why she ain't real

Though she's rendered rather faithfully

Nancy Clark is an ideal.

She's meaning and non-meaning

And. poor boy, ah, well,

You ain't got no chance of seeing

This blissome, lovely belle

She's Being and Non-Being

As per Husserl

And, yes, you'll never comprehend!"

Don looked at me and laughed.

"She's something you have never kenned

For you lack Geisteswissenschaft!"

 

I remember my old socks

And on those socks I call a pox

They called me once "The Silver Fox."

God, how I hate the goddamn clocks

That tick away. Hear, hear the knocks

Of death upon the gate unlock

The memory of my old socks

And all the trash: the ticks the tocks

The forgetting that forever mocks...

Yet, I remember my old socks.

 

I fear that I will never go

To watch your lovely photoshow

The reason why I do not know.

I dream instead of a rondeau

Composed, betimes, by young Rimbaud

A fellow I don't care to know

Walking near a sad chateau

Upon which falls eternal snow

He sees, perhaps, a single crow.

Ah, there too I do not care to go!

The reason why I do not know.

The reason why I do not know.

 

When I was young and sick in bed

I heard just what the Doctor said

" I wouldn't worry Mrs Green

It's nothing that we haven't seen.

Your son is simply tired of living

And is dying and is unforgiving

He can't accept just who he is

And doesn't seem to give a piss

The world is to much with him, yes

He has two days if I had to guess.

And then, after he goes down to dust

You should remember that you must

Forget him. He wasn't meant to be."

And I thought, "Why, yes, that's me."

And just to prove the doctor wrong

I have lived so very long

And have found out that, well, on the whole

I'd like to say in Espanol:

"De noche todos

Los gatos son negros."

 

Don replies "Yes, there is hope!

I know that there is hope in soap

So be like me and don't despair

That darkness falling through the air

Will obliterate the wise and fair.

And, gaze, if you will upon these socks!"

But I hear the THING that knocks and knocks

As it once knocked on Macbeth's gate:

DeathandNight. And I cannot wait.

To gaze upon Don's photo art.

I hear the cry "Come ye, apart,

And seek surcease in living verse!"

I seem to hear the funeral hearse

And turn my gaze from forms like this

That remind me of the vast abyss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful …That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly remold again and ever again, the face of this soiled world. Drum-Taps. Reconciliation Walt Whitman

 

 

h, Sylvia Plath and old Ted Hughes

I'm not as patient as I used

To be a few long years ago

Who's fault is it? I don't know.

I like a few of their sad poems

But none for me build crystal domes

Of delight and wonder and all that.

Compared to much they're rather flat.

And I hear Yeats, that cranky seer

Say "Stuck in the blacking of the mirror."

It does suffice for mortal moods...

But I prefer the Faerie woods

True life. True danger. Both at once.

Remain for whoso list to hunt.

Something strange and strange and wild:

The Erl King. The mortal child.

 

I'll' take Harpo Marx for my money

Whitman never was funny:

And odd sort of bloke

With never a joke

Who called this whole country his honey.

A child asked "What is the grass?"

Now, if Whitman had fallen on his ass

And said "The grass is my ass."

Or "My ass is the grass"

It would tend to surpass

The solemn, alas,

 

...The man just couldn't be funny.

 

He would simply awake and sing

I'm me and I'm everything.

And made a long list

And to get to the gist

For him comedy was never the king.

 

Lawrence of virtuous father virtuous son,

Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,

Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire

Help waste a sullen day; what may be won

From the hard season gaining: time will run

On smoother till Favonius reinspire

The frozen earth; and clothe in fresh attire

The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun.

What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,

Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise

To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice

Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?

He who of those delights can judge, and spare

To interpose them oft, is not unwise.

 

I had a fifth of whiskey then

I had a sixth sixth of whiskey when

I decided to simply try again

And looked into the darkness. "Men!"

I cried! But what was that? Big Ben!

"The curfew tolls the knoll of parting day!"

But day had eftsoon parted. I meant to say

Something witty and so very wry!

"How soon the light departs. And so do I"

This was in London. Of course! For I heard Big Ben

In Londontown though I don't remember when

I was there except through power of rhyme

Londontown. Perhaps, it was the time

I sat at home reading Thackeray

And drinking a banana daiqueri

Reading Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo

Infected back then by the troublesome spiro

chete. It turned out to be syphilis

Infecting my poesy with near terminal dactylisis

Cured by, I think, a tiger's bite

And so I say to you "Good Night!"

 

I looked and I feel somewhat sad.

This is a picture of my Dad

Standing before the Eiffel Tower

Taken, maybe, just an hour

After Paris was liberated.

My own Dad it seems was fated

To be there as the Nazis fled.

He has a cap upon his head

Tilted at a rakish angle

And from his hands he gaily dangles

A rifle... and with no little grace

Seems to imply that that place

Will be again a place of light

As the Nazis go down to endless night.

He fought the good war as they say

And forgot...but then one day

He seemed to have something to say

When I was leaving then to go

Into the army . He said "Joe,

You know when I was in the war..."

Then nothing else. There was no more.

And I agree. What can you say?

But I remember that strange day.

What's the price for all of that?

Meaning that is where it's at.

Worthless also! So what's revealed?

Only that you sometime feel

That nothing ever makes real sense.

Which is what I felt when I went hence.

But still my Dad stood at that hour

Gaily before the Eiffel Tower.

And in a field not far away

Someone's father died that day.

 

I could have picked Tide but I chose Fabreze

As I read the poems of Weldon Kees.

You wake up one day and find you learned.

That your ship is gone and the tide has turned.

You are always arriving and always late

Then you jump one day from the Golden Gate.

Or maybe you decide that now you'll go

And take that bus to Mexico.

 

I could pick Tide but I choose Fabreze

As I read the poems of Weldon Kees.

 

The broad aisles, the tile beneath my feet,

even the lighting conspires to make me dream

of writing poetry like, for instance, Neruda

who takes up residence as I peruse

the potatoes. Or Lorca, whose crickets

light up as I finger the fruit.

There is Pound, by the cake mixes and

Eliot up high with the imported vinegar.

Dylan shouts at me from the meat counter

though I've never understood why Frost

isn't with the frozen foods.

 

Things take a darker turn; the baked goods

haunted by Sylvia's voice,

at the cleaning supplies, Anne Sexton

reminds me that things were not

always so good. Near the dairy,

Berryman's voice echoes over the prairies

and then, like a cool drink, Collins

mixes things up. I pick up a bottle of rum

and Dario reminds me I'm no longer young.

And the fact that I'm in Trader Joes?

Well, that one's easy. So it goes.

 

I hurry back. I forgot the ice.

Milton mutters something of Paradise

Lost as I... Where did I park the car?

The boy looks like Wilfred Owen. The war

Is dreadful. Oh, here we are.

Now what does HE have to say?

Tennyson in front standing in my way.

"Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white."

I need to go home. My mind's not right.

"Get out of the way, Alfred! Screw your poem!"

I drive down the road. No direction home.

The radio plays. Plays "Johnny B Good."

Now goeth Sonne under woode.

"Screw it. Damn it. It's over. I'm done!"

Going down Highway 61.

 

NOTHING made Wordsworth sad.

Old Sam Coleridge thought "Too bad."

They kept on writing -- not for spite

But to apprehend the endless night.

And because that is what they did

They even somewhat liked that kid:

John Keats was the poor boy's name

Who couldn't stand the endless same

And one day, well, he just took off

To Rome because he knew his cough

Meant that soon he would be dead.

"Oh, my poor friend" is what he said

To his friend who watched the poor guy die.

And Keats still wondered "Who am I?"

And knew he would be nothing soon.

The endless night. The falling moon.