twit-toodle
First birdie
toodling in the morning
how sweet thou art!
Now my day can start.
From your chipperness
I take heart.
The bedsheets and I
fall apart.
(Seldom have my days
begun at dawn.)
But this birdie made me
a bit inebriate
of day.
This World Is An Illusion
This world is an illusion.
I can say that with confidence
because I have seen its
naked shingles
and Walt Disney projections
onto the juvenile mind -
or is it Taoist pranksters?
What is the illusion?
Is the world the narrative
introduces the illusion?
Is what is not, instead,
within the purview
of the self-same narrative
the illusion?
More bluntly put,
this world is an illusion
because death and greed
seem to triumph
while in reality
Christ conquers
in an epiphany.
For A Lady
When I was young
and precipitous
in my zeal for her
blandness and bosoms,
I said,
"I will love you
even when you are
old and decrepit."
Now I'm old and decrepit
and nobody gives us
a second glance,
and we hold gnarled hands.
The Psalms
I recited some psalms
and said, "These
are about David
or the son of David,
not about me."
That's true,
but maybe we can hope
to identify
and mollify our condition
as a mere puff of wind.
Dirge
You have been taken away
to the cloudy realm
below the clear sky
where the sign shines
brightly if wan
for the sight of you.
All is ambivalence.
Do you go this day
to judgment
or to justification?
Shards are your flesh,
your earthy remains.
h1ill you come again?
Will you come again/?
There is no answer
until infinity/.
Lemon Tree, Lemon Tree
The fruit
of the lemon tree
is edible
and even tasty
to my three year old
daughter.
That was a
a long time ago.
I have since
run into others
who also enjoy
this bitter fruit.
It makes me uneasy
that the famed ballad
about the inedible fruit
of the lemon tree
is false.
Even folk music
can not be trusted.
My daughter
is thriving.
The Author Defends Himself
A thing is more important
than a thought.
When you sold out
your guts, Richard,
and started writing
"philosophical fragments"
instead of hard-truth
cinder blocks,
did you betray your soul
and become the fool
of every passing pharisee?
I only ask the question.
There's more I couldn't mention.
Album
Old photographs
do not show
the breathing
or the beating heart.
We have pure exterior
in black and white
but sometimes we guess.