POEM: Elegy For Iris And John
Elegy For Iris And John
nothing ever deeply felt
can ever disappear
the week the month
the stately year
are but counters in a game
that must ever end the same
Remembrance
POEM: The Truth
The Truth
is beautiful
because it is true
no smear of color
no music
the particularity of pain
the authenticity of grief
a Sicilian quarry
at high noon
bedrock
POEM: The Desert Sun
The Desert Sun
1.
blinded by the desert sun
the Hebrew prophets
divined in darkness
a beauty deeper
than had been known
2.
an old retainer
of Charles The First
asked to defect
to Cromwell’s side
replied as follows
I have eaten
the king’s bread
for thirty years
I will not desert him
in his hour of need
3.
the beauty of the moral act
POEM: Aesthete
Aesthete
adrift on the couch
I spot a ship
my Chinese hat
a peasant’s handiwork
upon a ledge
the crown is a prow
breasting the waves
the brim a curve
curving seawards
Oh a ship
is a beautiful thing
even when at rest
dreaming of the open sea
POEM: Proust
Proust
the only paradise
according to Proust
is paradise lost
perhaps so
but one can always
read Proust
POEM: The Sport of Kings (with apologies to Hemingway)
The Sport Of Kings
(with apologies to Hemingway)
I was fucking
a good-looking kid
from Baltimore
whose uncle owned
a great horse
(Spectacular Bid)
feeling like family
I rooted him home
to win the Derby
two weeks later
it was the Preakness
when he lost the Belmont
I felt like shit
then the kid
takes off for Maryland
when she gets back
it’s not the same
I don’t know
sometimes it seems
they don’t leave
a guy nothin’
POEM: Waugh
Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
wrote the following
to know and love
another person
is the beginning
of all wisdom
if this is true
my darling Nan
my English girl
you have made me
the wisest fool
in all the world
POEM: To A Young Poet
love and loss
are the two
great themes
one girl will do
POEM: Survivor
the beautiful bongo
the rarest of antelope
is sensitive as a burn
mishandling alone
may cause its death
a red-headed Jew
(a lesser rarity)
I more than sympathize
the time my girl
left our home
closing the door
upon my guts
I wanted to die
but went on living
(if this is living)
without her
POEM: Pop Tune
Paul Bley
the jazz pianist
has a marvelous track
of The Nearness Of You
one of Hoagy Carmichael’s
great songs
I played it for Kayo
and she loved it
she uses it on
her demo tape
and always plays it
when I visit her gigs
recognizing the tune
I look up
and we smile at each other
across the room
this night the song
moves me to tears
it brings to mind
another time
when one lived
for love and desire
not recognizing them
as way-stations
Kayo of course
only sees my smile
and that’s the way
I prefer it
when the set ends
she walks to my table
her smile like a gift
and asks you liked it
what do you think
I think of loss and regret
of a wife gone
and of a mother
who died alone
I say you played it
beautifully Kayo