Apologia Pro Sua Vita
Not all my poems are very good.
Many don't rhyme
the way they should.
My meter sticks
in second gear -
a more rejection slips
I fear.
But kiss me
with those pastel lips,
and I'll relate
our little tryst.
Free Poem
This is free.
I wanted to write
a free poem,
and looked around
and saw the squirrel
on the oak tree,
especially for me.
I give it to you,
suspended in animation
and briefly motionless,
pausing
to look askance.
Legal Notice-Foreclosure
It's like
we're
all; living on credit
our who1e lives,
and where does it end?
We pay interest
thru our skins,
and indulge
the enormous expense
of our sins.
The bank will foreclose.
The land is
up to the highest bidder.
The Screen
The sofa and the armchair,
threadbare both from sitting,
face the television screen,
the focus of our lives.
It is the fireplace of old,
the heat to escape the cold
of undiluted reality.
We don't sit anymore face-to-face
to smile wanly or grimace,
but all is shadows on tv,
sort of ghostly at times.
Nothing is real
unless it's on television.
Or: Nothing on television
is real.
Choose.
We are losing our lives
to Burger King and Toyota
commercials and American Idol.
Lex Talionis
"An eye for an eye
and a tooth
for a tooth"
leaves all the world
blind and toothless.
(Gandhi).
No crimes
where no laws!
We have too many laws,
each with clause
after c1ause.
The study of laws
is a bore.
I was admitted to
two laws schools,
knowing they would accept me,
but didn't go,
thinking law empty.
Too many laws. Arcane laws.
Legalists and pedants
to pore over each and all,
lucrative acumen.
If life is a game,
there must be rules
or even hippies become fools.
But we must annul many laws.
Learn to forgive, not punish,
and live with greater relish.
San Francisco: 1969
Beware of the girl
with simpering eyes
who gives you sympathy
as you sit drinking coffee
in the run-down restaurant.
She may cry out loud
what she has said
under her breath
to a dozen run-down customers:
"I love you"
and break the devil's back.
A Fire Sermon For Amelia
A feeble flicker
of flame
can fan
an entire
forest fire
to fury
and the trees
all ignite
in this land
of night.
The tongue
can set fire
- and the pen -
to what men
most desire.
The house of man
is burning down.
Eschew lust.