Loyalty

How like a dog I feel -- my loyalty
Remains unwavering -- I'd never stray
From you more than a dog would stray or flee
From his home pack -- I only want to lay
My head upon your lap and let you scratch
My scalp, my every itch -- I will protect
You and take care of you -- no, I won't snatch
The trust you have in my from you -- reflect
On all you know, on all you've seen -- you know
My loyalty remains unwavering --
There's nothing more that I should need to show
Or demonstrate or write or even sing --
Your needless doubt, it seems to always hound
Me if you're present or you're not around.

The Smell of Spring

I love the smell of grasses' screams
Of warning to their neighbor grass --
But even they are drowned out by
The garlic who you can't deny
With their sharp-scented screech which steams
The air with every mower's pass.

To My Jealous Love

Is there another who I'd love to hold,
Love loving, find so beautiful? What bold
Or brave or bountiful deep beauty strikes
Vice down before it dares arise? The shrikes
Eat mice as gray as they; impaled on thorns,
The mice feel far less pain and fear than I
On days your jealousy arises. Why
Should you feel jealous when my body's true
Until relentless time brings death? Review.
Could one who is so loyal ever fall?
Know you're the only one I'll love, that all
You see is all of me at every time --
Oh, you will never find me in a crime.
Uncommon is my love -- I could not share,
Renew, or dissipate my love, my love,
Nor share this hand that belongs in your glove.
Insist that I remain within your gaze?
Prepare for me to never leave your side --
Lay next to me forever, I'll abide
Each night and day, I never will complain --
Say "stay with me" and I'll always remain.
Announce to me each day that all your cares
Now and forever will withstand all stares
Demanding explanation for the looks
Fixed on you from my soul -- for nothing brooks
Uncertainty for how I feel. Your face
Could make me cry with joy. My dear, embrace
Knowing my everything always belongs
Your own. And each one of my bird-like songs
Owe life to you -- I will not be a mouse
Undone upon a thorn. Here in my house,
Revere the reverence that I feel for you,
Perpetuate my love, give me my due.
Untouched by my protests in verse? Does this
Surprise you? How can it when all my bliss
Suspends me in the air so all I see,
Yes, all I see of you, makes me feel free.

Your Happiness

I ever seek your happiness, but fail
In finding what to do to make it true
Beyond a moment's breath. A wind-filled sail
Is what I seek to speed out from the blue.

It seems I cannot read the weather's signs
If storms are certain in the coming days.
I stand upon the deck, a rope entwines
My arm -- I hope it's firm and never frays.

Yet all my happiness I find within
Your quiet eye. I hope that I can steer
To keep your wall clouds and your lightnings' din
At bay, for losing you's my only fear.

Perhaps true happiness can't live with strife --
Together we should seek out joy in life.

The Madman

Warm madness is a self-indulgence I
Imbibe in toast to my self-serving lie.
As I divest responsibility
And marry it to others foolishly
Agreed to by the ones who love me, I
Embrace her tingling warms, set myself free.

I dance upon my mountaintop alone,
Insist my cave is really my earned throne --
I look down on the stupid hoi polloi,
Reject the morons who all but annoy
And scorn those who would love to live alone --
Where are the fair ones I would dare enjoy?

This network maze dragged me down to my id,
A chaos where I finally am rid
Of every asshole, every stupid slut
Who I let close enough to make me cut
Me, bleeding, down to this self-centered id.
But who is -- they or me -- the idiot?

Oh, why won't those I love to love love me?
I overflow and wish to set them free
To leap as satyrs in the flowered fields,
To drop their armor, weapons, and their shields,
And come embrace the peace and love that's me.
They let me embrace all the darkness yields.

Oh, lovely madness, don't you know what I
Have sighed for your embrace. Please know that I
Have grown to love you more than I love me.
I know you love me more than they love me.
This loneliness. I think and therefore I
Embrace the world encompassed but by me.

On the Usefulness of Poetry for Learning

There was a time when people realized
That poetry was easy to remember
And people wrote in verse -- yes, essays too --
Because the rhythms and the lines which were
The same length as their short-term memory
Allowed them to remember what was written.
That's also why so many plays were written
In verse, to help the actors memorize
The plays more easily. As we have moved
Away from rhythmic verse, we've also heard
Complaints about our students' memories,
How they don't seem to know a thing, it seems.
Perhaps if we were teaching everything
In blank verse lines so that our rhythmic brains
Could map the rhythmic lines more easily
Onto themselves, then we could memorize
Far more than we do now. The science is
Most certainly behind me on this thesis.

There was a kind of poetry intended
To teach the reader, which has fallen out
Of fashion. Once didactic poetry
Was well-respected. Alexander Pope
Wrote his Essay on Man not in dull prose
But rather in heroic couplets. Just
Consider these few lines of his knowledge:
"Say first, of God above or Man below
What can we reason but from what we know?"
Epistemology has never been
More clearly stated, or more beautifully.
We have as models of this kind of verse
The likes of Hesiod and Ovid, Virgil
And Shelley. Why have we rejected use
And information as an aim of verse?
It seems the very worst that Modernism
Contributed was the idea that
All art -- and even the humanities --
Should be completely useless. Art for art's
Sake, nothing more. Indeed, this freed
The arts, allowed proliferations of
Such forms as we had never seen in such
A short time period. And yet one has
To wonder why the usefulness of some
Art could not be retained. The structure of
Our brains allow the regularities
Of poetry to easily deliver
The information and ideas which
Bombard us in high qualities today,
So much of which we need to know to do
The complex jobs we have, to understand
The world in its complexity, which we
Did not evolve to really deal with. Yet
We have a tool -- a tool which we discarded --
Which lets us learn so much so fast that we
Could even understand this world we live
In better and in much more depth than we
Do now. Can you imagine what we could
Learn more than we now think is possible?

Perhaps you don't believe the things I say.
Well, let me ask you this: how many lines
Of prose can you recite? How many songs?
A song indeed is poetry, and you
No doubt can sing a couple dozen songs
Without a note to prompt you. Why is this?
Perhaps it is because all that I said
Is true. The rhythms and the rhymes of songs
And formal poetry get stuck and play
Themselves on your brain's rhythmic circuitry.
When we get earworms, it is never prose,
But always songs which we hear in our heads.
Our memories are rhythmic and work best
With rhythms when we want to memorize
For quick recall. Imagine too the new
Ideas which our brains could formulate
If we in fact made use of what our brains
Could really do by taking full advantage
Of how it works. It is too bad that we
Don't take advantage of the usefulness
Of poetry to learn about the world.
The sciences and the humanities
Could all be easily accessible,
Could easily be learned if we could just
Present it to our students in blank verse.

Daniel's Song

It's Daniel, it's Daniel --
He's cute as a cocker spaniel --
He likes a warm hug,
He's cute as a bug --
When he's hungry he sure can yell!

A Tale Retold

She was more beautiful than anyone
He'd ever seen. Her bright blonde hair flowed back
Across her shoulders, brought forth the soft features
In her round, perfect face. Her eyes were black

In pools of blue, her body such perfection
Description fails. Her long, smooth legs flowed out
Beneath her skirt. Her calves and buttocks rose
Above her tall stilettos. There's no doubt --

A perfect woman. Then she glanced at him.
Her dainty smile lit her face. His heart
Leaped to his throat. He looked at her; she him.
She reached up, hand to hair, let out a fart.

Her hand slid to her purse. She lifted out
A cigarette and lit it in her mouth.
And somehow all her beauty disappeared --
He told himself his heart had drifted south.

He turned to walk away, his interest lost,
But still he glanced again back at her face
In time to see her belch into her hand --
And then his lust left him without a trace.

What had he seen in her to make him stare?
Her stringy hair, the tattoo on her arm,
Her legs too thin -- a woman not his type --
He much preferred true beauty, grace, and charm.

Standing on a Bridge at Night

There's truly nothing
Sadder than a romantic
Without a lover.

True Love

I love you enough
To want you for myself
So I know for sure
That you are safe
And loved.

Wanted

A tender heart,
A love-filled soul,
Conservative,
Loves rock-n-roll.
Who loves to touch
And hold my hand --
When I'm upset,
Will understand.
A hug, a kiss
To show our love --
A love of God
Who reigns above.
A love of science
And natural things,
And loves to read
'Bout everything.
Will love and care
For me my life --
This woman is
My perfect wife.

7-31-92

Past Imperfect

Am I my past, and must I be defined
By things a different me has done? The sky
Is ever-changing with clouds that wind
In whirls that come together just to cry.

No atom in me is the same as those
In the old me that met you. The old me
Is doubly gone -- this me is he who knows
A love that me could never know nor see.

Yet you insist that I, whose love has grown
For you, remain the same in essence. Stories
From past selves are but myths, and all have shown
A character in all his pains and glories.

The thing to know is, when it comes to you
My every thought and action will be true.

Souls' Wings

You wonder why
You wonder why we all fly by
Day or night
Live for flight
Delight in the sight
Of living just to try
Trying just to live
For a love of life
Overcome, overdone over some
Freedom our secret souls
Desire
Desire without a sigh
require a life without a lie
Will not relinquish nor deny
Our souls' desire just to fly.

Belief

The spirits fled -- no one believed in them.
The gods all died -- no one believed in them.

How many green ideas yellowed, browned
In drought because no one believed in them?

The Megatherium and dinosaurs --
Extinct. Nature has not believed in them.

A field of particles and energy
Not here -- no universe believed in them.

How many poems, music, arts have died,
Been lost because no one believe in them?

How many stories, poems, works of mine
Have died because I'd not believed in them?

And I would die a little death if you
Should say, "Your work? I'd not believed in them."

Postmortem

The circumstances of the murder were
Mysterious -- it wearies us to find
We cannot find a body -- growling cur,
The murderer -- pretending to be kind --
He sought stability, to order things
That he could not afford, that could not be
Made orderly like quartz -- the throat that sings
Was sliced to let the music out, to free
The sweet, soft song from its confining space --
His love he lied he loved was not allowed
To live, because to live was his disgrace,
So greatness had to die -- he was too proud --
He sought the crowd -- the crowd denied his worth --
And so the only body that we found
Was far too tiny, never came to birth,
Was torn out of the absence, on the ground
Beneath a cherry tree weighed down in white --
Three bodies imply chaos, and his house
Was kept at ninety sharp degrees, a fright
Of order brought to danger by his spouse --
So he aborted everything he'd made --
And we are left impoverished -- the trails
He left are ice -- he lounges in the shade
While everyone around him rails and fails

Cayo Bolivar

The corals grow upon the rocks, lay down
Their gemstone homes at polyp pace. They fold
And branch and with their holes provide a crown
Of dwellings -- fish and shrimp and snails with gold
And purple shells -- a place alive with bright
And flashing color, fish swim hard to hold
Their place in swirling currents' crashing waves.
The butterfly fish all pretend they're bold.
But from the sky, out of this reef we'll see
A seeming simple shape our minds will mold
Upon the turquoise Caribbean Sea:
A butterfly's light sea foam wings unfold.
From everything our minds make metaphors,
Connecting all through our perceptions' doors.

Below the Weather Vane

The classical rotunda set atop
The modern, otherwise undecorated
Brick building looks like Zeus came in to drop
An out of place reminder that we're fated
To have the gods around. We can't escape
The gods -- they will not die -- they will not flee
For long -- and that is why Zeus came to rape
This building like Achaean Leda. He
Touched someone's memory -- the architect
Despite all sense, became enthusiastic
For ancient Greece and felt he should select
White columns for the top. His orgiastic
Choice stands where few can see it well -- a blight
In my ninth story window line of sight.

On Censorship

Is poetry important? Yours is not
If no one wants to censor you or burn
Your manuscripts. If no one wants them hot
Off the presses and no one will spurn

Your verse, then it is unimportant. Death
Comes early to the dangerous who dare
To challenge worlds. Your long life and your breath
Condemn your frivolous words. We don't care.

But if you say the meaningful and break
The colored glasses that we wear, you'll see
Your words for their importance. When a lake
Of blood is spilled for words, then you'll agree

That arts' and humanities' import
Is such that only fools would dare abort.

The Emptiness

I stand and stare at nothing; nothing stares
At me, entices me to make a move.
I'm open to the nothingness that bares
Itself to me, to nudge me from my groove.

Behind me are my parents, neighborhood
Of children, my experiences, hate
And love, abuse and sorrow, much deadwood
That block my river's flows and form my fate.

But why must I endure my fate? Am I
Not free to form it for myself? I stand
And stare at nothingness. I will defy
My past and form my future with my hand.

You find the natural flows, you'll gain renown --
You push against the river and you'll drown.

Life Sentence

The man sat in the prison cell, convicted
For life. He saw the same four walls, the scene
Outside his window never changed, restricted
In life and all his views, he had turned lean.

He kept back from the door the guard sat near
And waited for the food to come to him.
He lived a life of ever-present fear
And only read by lights that faded dim.

The days, the months, the years all passed, the gray
Grew in his hair, and death approached at last.
His life was death -- he wanted no delay
To pay with life what happened in his past.

The guard stood up and opened up the door.
"It could have opened any time before."

Breakfast at the Hampton Inn, Bowling Green, KY

"I dropped my pill!"
"Well, where'd you drop it?"
"If I knew that, I'd find it."
Some shuffling feet, careful.
They cannot step on the orange pill.
He has to watch his sugar.
"I think I caused a consternation here."
An elderly pair on the floor, careful.
They're searching frantically.
"Oh, never mind."
She searches, still --
He stands, begins to walk away.
"I found it!"
She struggles up
Next to the table leg, her prize
In hand. He helps her to her feet.
The pill is placed into his mouth
And orange juice drinks it down.
The breakfast ends in silence.
She smiles.