=2fewpoem SELECTED SECULAR POEMS, 1984--1989 From: Only the Whittler's Art: Collected Meta-Poems From Whom Can We Learn Collected Satires Hock & Soda Water =hic!(hoc ======================================================================= cooked as good as can be it's still a turnup but can't throw it out ------------- Narcissus ponders and polishes his well-wrought phrases, then wrapt, seals his soul and falls into a love of gazes. ca. 1963 ---------------- Ok: after 40 years finally can write English, somewhat but poetry's only an ancillary language; tacked-on capacity -- the craft of packaging trivial insights neatly. ---------------- I wrote this haiku waiting for the light to change. Stop light's lot sharper. (Boston, ca. 1976) ---------------- Poems clambering like cats to be let out: "What's my name? My name? Mine!" ----------------- Betake we must to wine, bereft of wenches. The Gallo callow poesy etc. quenches. The breaking day plays bongo-bo~~ngo ball off all our senses. Hell, might's well 'scuse the booze; 'twas less pretentious. (Grolier Bookstore, Cambridge, ca. 1974) -------------- What I learned at the Philosophers' Convention We seek a bright white young man with a proper stopper to measure fearless ideas through a bottle dropper. Not like these, please, that rant, pant, rave, and wave- r, tipsy--top- sy, the Raggedy Andy and Mopsy' s of acadanemia; we deem decorum seemlier and procreate a proper pecking order of minds intense and dry as typewriters. (ca. 1965) ------- II. FROM 'FROM WHOM CAN WE LEARN" Said my boss Cowboy Jack, "Your friend in the Big White Hat": "There's always something to do: if you don't have a thing to do, grab a broom and sweep the floor." Wolfboro, N.H., apr. 1956 ------ The Kansas rancher I quit cold drove me to town, cashed my check, and put me on the road with a sack of apples and oranges He said: "We're all looking for something better. I figure when a man needs a hand he needs it right now." (Santana, Kansas, apr. summer '65). --------- My nephew explained to his fasther, "Don't you understand -- when somebody wants something, they want it right now." ----- Max Finstein said, "Rick thought of a commune as a place to hang out & smoke dope; I talked him into starting a new world, alas." (New Buffalo, Arroyo Hondo N.M., ca. 1970) ------ Jane said, You can fall down but you can't fall up." -------- Chicano Dave says, "If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly bear." (New Buffalo, ca. 1969) ------------ a Zuni said, "We are a peace-loving people and so, if somone seeks to attack us then, if at all possible we run away." ------ In my mud room at New Buffalo I built a big stone corner fireplace. Blond Larry did all the work but I told him what to put where. He said It's a lot harder to do this job to your specifications. ----------- Meyer said "Yup, sometimes in this country it can take all day to make 3 phone calls." (Moshav Shedmot Mechola, 1984) ======================================================================= III. FROM "COLLECTED SATIRES" Running for President in '84 Gary Hart climbed Mt. Mansfield half-way ----- Automatic stuck in his jeans the bank guard mists the potted plants ------------ FAUNTLEROY is mellow: he can stand anything, and stand up for nothing. ----- P.T. the Executive Elephant has a staff of 10 to pick up after him. ----- POPINJAY's cousin the Great Blackbird has brains enough for two fortunately. ----- RAILROAD BILL don't even piss without estimating the angles; and if the sun must shine he'd prefer it don't do so on his town without discussing arrangements. If he tells you the time request a second opinion; if he shakes your hand count your fingers. ----- Din-din corrals men into the house of prayer; answering, heaven sends him down only daughters. ----- IV. FROM HOCK AND SODA WATER, Collected Secular Poems 1984--1989 the way your cat stops eating some unexpected delicacy and looks up quizzically as if to say, "you know, this is really quite nice." (West Medford, 1983) ---------------------------------------------------------------- *The Poet as Movie Extra (Murder on the Orient Express (Golan/Globus, '86) "Fools' names, like their faces oft appear in public places" obviously; but why? Consider the matter in abstraction: Kilroy was everywhere yet never was... or all those plaques grasping for imortality... and don't overlook concealment (autumn squirrels hiding nuts) the charm of buried treasure, however trivial. ------------ Rain and Miles Davis Torn lily drifting downstream Brandy in the glass 23.02.88 ----- Quintessentially macho our cat Spunky padded purposefully down the road each morning and returend in stoic dignity at evening having slept all day behind the first big rock. ------ One day when I was 10 my father treated us to Pizza in the Italian Seciton. I said, "I suppose I should thank uyou." He replied, "Of course; it was very nice of me." ----- things seemingly take too much time but 't ain't so much the heat as the circuitious logistics of poverty. ------ Supper of bread and garlic my boss walks by and says "Good appetite!" ----- In a Latin mode Only at my poetry not old affairs do I look back now in admiration -- how well I spoke then and how childishly we acted. ----- The great white horse halts mightily whinnying gulping in air and dreaming of water while rider relaxes knees & reins removes a mask, and rubs his brow: "Shit," says the Lone Ranger, "lonely night with no TV." :White Knight off-duty ----- Embarassed by that uniform, Superman regrets his granted wish: to masquerade in blue-serge suit and tie as Clark Kent. ------------ "Left me high and dry" Skipper sailed off north. Sailed off into the rain. Sure glad I ain't out there. Sami, Kephalonia, Oct. 6, 1988 ----- A Pornographic Movie gives the Devil his due: the set of sex sans residue of love, and freed from complication or art, angst, or even procreation. (ca. 1973) ---------- ======================================================================= FROM =metapoem If 'n my craft or sheepish art mask extras overused and half my word-plays twice-told tales unfold, the err-er, Reader, 's you: could ever art perennially spring without recycling? ----- Fragments: ....when pitter-pattering iambs serve as flats to set the stage for literal entrechats... ... he'd like to take a stand just like The Fool while dropping rhymes like combo shots in pool. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Damn your tranquilizer Now every time I try to drop a note to my soul A cherub floats by on a pink cloud and catches it in a gold wastebasket. (NYC; Sept. 23, 1963.) ===================================================================== FROM =mopo8992 Flying to my home mourning a lost love consoled by the stars Do not forget how your souls loved nor that her heart has left you. Dec. 4, 1984, El Al (rev. 1989) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Resented for 50 years your refusal to negotiate, Time, but know now relief at leaving done deeds behind. Harwich--Hamburg Ferry Winter Solstice, 1990 ------------------------------------------------------------------- **Four Star Night** Sasson the Mad Russian 's wife says they're out on the street but not quite down in the gutter; last night they slept in the Kings' Hotel. (Cf. Catullus) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Like a cat awaiting grace from the refrigerator I sit on the walk-way mall before a Magic Money Machine marked 'Closed'. ------------------------------------------------------------------- News Item, Decembear 1991 The complete Buddhist scriptues once written on palm leaves will now be inscribed with concentrated light on a CD-ROM tree. ------------------------------------------------------------------- MORE TALES OF MODI'IN Reggae Tune Eliahu got no shoes Nu -- he Jet-Set it to Italy maybe to bring us back currency. ------------------------------------------------- "You ain't talked to me in 11 years and today all you said was, 'Don't talk to Leon.'" (Atty Wm. Richman, Esq.) ------------------------------------------- 'Oh Pious Ones' how continually you invoke, how rarely attend wishes of heavens. (Cf. Rumi) ------------------------------------------------------ Today we went out to the shooting range to learn to shoot 3 shots apiece so we can all carry guns but it was raining very hard and so somebody asked the Rabbi and he said we could all go home so we all went home and the sun came out. We will go back out to the shooting range next year if heavens permit it. 27.12.91 ------------------------------------------------------------------- For four years Roy lived like a perfect English country gentleman may in a little 2-room cottage with his 3 big Doberman watchdogs in his little 2-room cottage. On day Hai asked, "Is that normal?" ---------------------------------------------------- Today Roy graded his lawn Like a helicopter landing pad. He stays here to guard us from 'weirdos'. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Portrait of the Poet by the Lawyer for a 4-year-old "He comes from way up there and sometimes his mind moves so fast you can't even see the wheels spin." ------------------------------------------------------------------- Honest Ulysses, cast ashore wonders: What are all the plastic people laughing for? (UCSB '67; Prof. Paul Wienpahl, who lived Zen and Spinoza.) ------------------------------------------------------------------- How to Pick Apples If you know where you'll be if the bough breaks and if the bough beaks where you will be then you can pick apples. (Derry NH, 1964) ----------------------------------------------- How to Play Basketball If someone's closer pass; if you're closest shoot. ---------------------------------------------- To play football like a gentleman don't ignore the sidelines nor tackle the spectators. ---------------------------------------------- How to Play Baseball look dumb stay loose and try not to swing before they pitch ---------------------------------------------- How to Go Hiking If you've lost the trail go back to where you were when you were on the trail. (Campra, 1999) ------------------------------------------- How to Work Take down the tool [ kelim ] you need. When you're done, put it back. Too heavy to carry around. -------------------------------------------- Every job has its bad points and some good points. Every job you want has its good points and some bad points. (July '03) -------------------------------------------------- ================================================================= How Paris celebrates each house where every poet died of its high prices. ------------------------------------------------------------------- The sun scuttles across the gry sky like a hedgehog crossing a snow-lined road. (England, Dec. 11, 1990) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Frying bacon, honing poems -- trim off the fat. ------------------------------------------------------------------- soft wind, summer clouds rumble of a thunderstorm red fox running home ----------------------------------------------------------------- Watched by cows and mule I stumble down from the pass. soft bells in the rain ------------------------------------------------------------------- Lovers in the Morning "Before I know who I am you ask me how I am." ----------------------------------------------------- "garlic" "Darling..." "Not darling, garlic." ------------------------------------------------------------------- George Bernard Shaw, a bachelor romanticized such liasons as 'maximized chance of accepted advances' ... ------------------------------------------------------------------- "My housemate's cast-off room-mate sat inside and watched TV all day, as in and out you do it to my CPUnit VDT." (Hamburg, 1991) [Notes: In German, VDT would be sounded, VDTay This is maybe the closest I've come to the intricacy of Catullus': Nulle potest mulier tantum se dicere amatam vere, quantum a me Lesbia amata mea's. nulla fides ullo fuit umquam foedere tanta, quanta in amore tuo ex parte repara meast. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The day love you left I raided your pad for food; found a stewing chicken with your name. So Sue, though split, chick, you're keeping your cool ... NYC ca. '64 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BAGATELLE Cats nap where whim of the wave of the day betake them ... even in Egypt, posing as deities they eschewed formality; 'the cat's pyjamas', then, were mere hyperbole. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Discussion with a young Englishman: " 'owdy Mite: I'm off to the h-airport to get me 'air cut. Cheers. " ------------------------------------------------------------------ ================================================================= A 1940's childhood -- I miss now my comic-book world a Flatland of basic colours interminable as a country freight-train an eternal World War of good-&-bad where one needed only to know Who's Who. ====================================================================== ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ