I stood there in my Easter suit
My hair slicked back, She used Wildroot.
My hands are clasped in simple prayer
The 56 Pontiac is there.
My eyes are big. So are my ears. 
My grandmother waits and sighs "My dears.
We have to go. We will be late."
My old dog stands barking at the gate.
Perhaps at my Grandma's mink
Which is really weasel is what I think
And she stands smoking a long Pall Mall
And then we hear my father call.
"Where the hell are my goddamn ties?"
And I seem to hear my mother's sighs
As she sits waiting in the car.
"I don't know where the fuck they are"
One minute more. He's still not there.
Darkness falling in the air.
My mother leaves. Won't look back!
Goodbye 56 Pontiac.

I remember Johnny Wasko's white coffin.
I used to think of it often
The funeral home dim
The mourners quite grim
And enough holy incense to get lost in.

And I remember his Dad
Who was ever since then so damn sad
He fixed our TV
And once said to me
"You remind me of the boy I once had."

Ah, Christ and then came the end
He didn't know I was Johnny's friend
On some snowy street
His final defeat
And nothing at all to transcend.

Old Father

Baby Belly Butter Little Face
I had a terrible childhood.
I had a problem with Pope Pius XII.
His picture hung in my fourth grade classroom,
St. Sebastian's Catholic School, Warrensville, Pa, 1958.
I beat him drag racing.
He drove his 600 ft. long gold and white Popemobile
Synchromesh transmission, etc.
I had my bicycle.
And a little luck.
I still remember his face in racing goggles,
the sneer, the Redman tobacco drool at the corner of his mouth.
He called me Kid.
However, there was no doubt who won.
You can't read about it.
The church bought all the newspapers.
The next day nuns descended on sports desks all over the world.
What you can read is: Pope Beats Smart-Ass Kid."
Don't believe what you read.
They had World Youth day and I wasn't invited.
My father chased me with a belt.
"Why weren't you invited to World Youth Day?"
My mother wept.
Those were terrible days.
The nuns made me write religious poetry.
"The collies/at the funeral home/barked at my grandmother."
Kids fainted nightly from airplane glue.
We lined up to see the movie, "The Man With The Atomic Brain."
My father talked to a cough for twenty years.
We bought Remco telegraph kits
Strung wires from house to house.
Sent secret messages:
"You will be killed in a war."
We all wanted Ted Williams to be our father.
We all wanted our father to take us out and show us the stars,
Hand on shoulder, pipe in hand pointing to a
constellation.
In a field. On a hill.
But our fathers worked for guys who looked like Eisenhower.
They worked the night shift.
They were too tired.
They cried in basements.
They fell one by one into rolling mills.
They left $2500 in insurance.
They were driven to Fairview cemetery by big-knuckled drivers
wearing Masonic rings.
Our mothers were also tired.
Hands caught in mangles at the laundry
They had problems stirring the Kool Aid
They had problems hauling us to church on sleds when it snowed.
You will waste your life.
Someday you will open a book
that will not be the color of the sky.
You will blame the book.
We won't be there.
We will be wailing in coffins.
Wailing for the world to end.
Wailing with all the poor poor dead
For this shitstorm, this storm of shit, to end.
Baby. Belly. Butter. Little Face.
("Whoa," said Little Face. "Hand me down my walking cane!")

The Musings of Cardinal Martini 

Will I Be Pope?

Black smoke. White smoke. No smoke.
What's the difference?
Every day's a good day.

Above St. Peter's Square

Waving at the faithful
From the balcony.
For God's sake. Hold me up!

Should Women Be Priests?

Yeah, right.
Next they'll want to be bartenders!

Midnight Mass

The Pope is missing!

Easter Morning: Wrong Sermon

What's the problem?
The Diamond Sutra is way cool.

Explaining the Virgin Birth

No vermouth.
Still a Martini.

That real bed and that real room
Are as real as that unreal tomb
You will never see. All unreal.
Life then Death and what you feel
Is what is always really real.
I knew a man who could have lived, but then
He shot himself and I remember when
His brother told me he, himself, felt dead.
"He killed us," is what his brother said.
Finished his drink and then went home to bed.

I had a sonnet 
With an Easter Bonnet. 
No one cared. 
I had a haiku 
With extra voodoo 
They only stared.
I needs the money.
Gotta pay the rent.
You can have them both, brother:
One dollar and fifty cent.


The old sheep's in the meadow.
The damn cow's in the corn.
That old sheep's in the meadow
And the cow's in the corn.
If you fall in love with Bo-Peep.
Boy, you'll wish you never been born.

Wish I could be Jack Horner
Eating that Christmas pie.
Wish I could be Jack Horner
Eating that Christmas pie.
But I'm Little Boy Blue
Want to lay down and die.

Doctor Foster went to Gloucester
In a shower of rain.
Doctor Foster went to Gloucester
Man, it rained and rained.
And I'm standing here waitin'
Waitin' for the midnight train.

Little Miss Bo-Peep
Told me "Don"t' come back no more."
Miss Little Bo-Peep
Said "Little Boy don't come back no more."
"Bye, bye Bo-Peep."
Shot her with my 44.
With my 44.

The Cats of Paree

It's been many years since I've been to Paree
Where I played for that French girl. Her name was Marie.
And she sang, she sang so lyrically.

"Oui, I'm a cat."
" I don't care about that.
But don't you think you could play in B-flat?"

I murmured "Oui" as I changed the key
And Marie she sang so beautifully.
A beautiful song without any "Rien"
And when it was over she sang it again.

I'd felt half dead. This was in '45.
But as Marie sang I felt quite alive.
Ah, that beautiful song without any "Rien"
Just me and Marie. That's the way we were then.

All over. All over. Yet what can I say?
Well met by moonlight on the Champs d'Elysee!

The words of my Daddy I still can recall
“If you just write light verse then you’re nothing at all.”
This was in the Fifties and there were many sad men
Who remembered their twenties in the forties and then
Wrote many sad poems where they danced the tango
With sweet girls from Paris “It was long ago
In forty five after the Germans had gone
She was so sweet and so pale and so wan
She was so sad and when we went to bed
“Just hold me, please hold me,” was all that she said.
And the room was so cold and there was no light
And the cats of Paree howled all the damn night.”



Jesus was not really with it
He was called a Flibbertigibbet
Hence his birth
On this railroad Earth
And the time spent on the gibbet.

Jesus remarked to the Buddha
I really wish that I would a
Had your sang froid
Before the dreaded damn void.
"Yes," Buddha replied, "You should a."

My mother said "You go to Mass!"
My Dad said he'd kick my ass
So I pretended to go
Thought they wouldn't know.
Except there was this girl in my class

Who heard me tell my friend Steve
Of a sin she could hardly believe
That I went to the drugstore on Main
And there did disdain
The Mass! She found it hard to believe!

And of course she told her dear mom
And mine, of course lost her aplomb
When she heard of my sin
That,of course, was within
Her son. Ah, then the pogrom!

Poet Ed Dorn sat writing "Abhorrences" 
And the bastard persisted despite the assurances
Of posthumous poets who said "We don't like it a bit."
Ed Dorn kept writing. Said, "I don't give a shit."

He pissed off the gnarly and eluded the snobby
And he wittily titled his last book "Chemo Sabe."
And they all got together and demanded an answer.
So Ed Dorn lay down and then died of cancer.

So, farewell and adieu to the poor poet, Ed
Whose poems were better than whatever he said.
And, if he came back, he would wish he were dead.

David Latané recently reminded me of this verse from the Lost Poems of John Keats

How mini-bards geld the stallions of rhyme
With their verses. And how they do brood
Lisping the lucid light! Ah, nothing is renewed;
There are beauties both earthly and sublime
And often, when I sit me down to rhyme,
I think to write them… and say “Hey, Jude
There’s nothing to get hung about. Ah, Dude
Leave the throngs with their disturbance rude
And turn away and hear the midnight chime
The unnumber’d sounds that evening store:
The brusha brusha of great poets brushing off their sleeves
As candlelight causes them to grieve
In dulcet rhyme. Grieve for their Lost Lenore
In measured verse which even the moon bereaves
And brings to loving hearts the wild…the wild uproar!"




Another Poem from The Lost Poems of John Keats

Thanks for reminding me David Latané

On leaving some Poets at an early Hour

That one sonofabitch is really mean
And I don’t understand his asemic damned haiku
And what a jerk. What’s his name…Joe Green?
But what the hell is a po poet s’posed to do?
And the other guy. Asks me “Do you tweet?”
And I mention, by God, my nightingale
And what…he’s had six whiskeys neat
And tells me that he is out on bail!
And then they say “You goddamn Flying Monkey!"
And titter. And no… I don’t have no weed
Then they say the Sweet Coleridge was a junkie
And sneer at me when I cry out for mead.
So to the stars. The Wonders of the Spheres!
I flee to starlight…. but oh! The Darkness nears!

On Sitting down to Read The Chains of the Sea Once Again

O golden tongued Romance, with serene Uke!
The Quest for the Diamond at the End of Time
It o’ertops Tolkien and is a bit like Buk
And gives to Jimmy Joyce the Midnight chime
And he is there! There with, by God, yes, Mark Twain
Tolstoy, the Silky and the Loneliest Ranger
And the Visionary Company who once again
Ride out for All with no regard for danger!
Again and again they go to Wrigley Field
No where No when. God watching there forever
As the Jim Jims demand that all Love all Love yield
They cry out Oh Never! Never!
They die for us. Through them we ever live!
Divinity’s resurrection and all Nature’s purgative!

A CUCUMBER did my spirit seal; 
I had no human fears: 
She seem'd a thing that could not feel 
The touch of earthly years. 

No PICKLES have I now, no force; 5
And not even any cheese;
Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees



Gamblers Three

On a cold winter evening on a fast train to nowhere
I heard a deep voice. The voice said Howdy, Joe,
I see that you're riding on this train of ghosts and shadows.
I looked into the dark. It was Dale Credico.

Yeah, were on this train together. Dale was singing Stormy Weather.
Looks like I know the fellow you are with.
He was drinking gin and tonic. You could tell he felt a bit ironic.
Singing Boots of Spanish Leather Of course it was Tim Smith.

Tim looked out of the window. This train is moving so fast.
The red light and the blue light, Were leaving them behind.
I gotta tell you, boys, I think that this next station
Is just a few before the last one.
The blue light is your baby and the red light is your mind.

But you gotta keep singing on this fast train to no-where.
You're not getting off alive so what else can you do?
So remember who you love. One day you wont be there.
Everybody's aboard this train and were all just passing through.

We didn't say much more. But we began to cheer up.
As we sang a few songs and had few more beers.
And we sang some sad songs and we began to tear up.
We were sad but merry and as lost as grenadiers.

We spoke of 67 and how they weren't days of heaven.
And all we didn't know. And all that's still not clear.
Until along came the conductor and tapped me on the shoulder.
Said, Mister Joe, you have to get off here.

I said This ain't my station. Just for your information.
My ticket says I get to go to the end of the damn line.
But then I was on the platform. I saw my wife and daughters.
Stepped into the darkness and I was feeling fine.

You gotta know when to hold them. Know when to fold them
Into your arms and say I love you.
And its no use gambling that you're gonna keep on riding.
The midnight trains coming. Coming just for you..

But you gotta keep singing on that fast train to no-where.
Youre not getting off alive so what else can you do?
So remember who you love. One day you wont be there.
Everybody's aboard this train and were all just passing through.

The Maidenform Bra

My cousin's husband he had a hard life
Worked twenty years before she was his wife.
Worked ten more years but he won't tell you because
He worked most of his life making Maidenform bras.

I think about him. Perhaps in his youth
He was bold enough to tell anybody the truth.
But he got tired of the jokes. That's the way it just was
When you were a guy making Maidenform bras.

But once at a party he had too much porter
And said “Years ago we did special order.”
And after another and a whisky and soda
“I was on the special team that did Carol Doda!”

Then talked of fine fabric and complex underwires.
“If they say it was easy, then they’re goddamn liars.”
Then put down his glass and said with some grief.
“Now there’s so many women who can’t get no relief.

They gotta make do. There’s no custom fit.
It’s all about money. No one gives a shit.”
That’s all he said. He had the thousand yard stare.
Marx said “Everything solid melts into the air.”

But you won’t pay attention. The reason’s because
You think I’m just talking about Maidenform bras.


The Poet Loses His Teeth

My teeth are gone but yet I live and sing.
What know I of Oblivion quite yet?
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 

The curfew tolls Death’s knell and I hear it ring
And I will go betimes and go without regret.
My teeth are gone but yet I live and sing.

Hell's bell’s sound out ring a ding ding.
I laugh and sing as down and out I set.
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

A little life! A little life! What will it bring?
I am to myself still a stranger met.
My teeth are gone and yet I live and sing.

Death be not proud! Thou art not yet King!
I will still mouth a marvelous motet
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

My songs live on! No matter what Death may bring.
I have no teeth but I am not dead yet.
My teeth are gone but yet I will live and sing
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.


Unembedded Sonnet

If plants have life and soul they must have grown
Some sort of nervous system web of night
Not linked to body. Forces yet unknown
As the great God Baldur the God of Light
Saw when the Flower Princess bathed in the stream
Neither plant, nor stone, nor crystal nor wave
An All Knowing God. He saw this was not a dream.
No thing left out, no thing that he need save.
Eternal life to all the living things.
Nothing is dead. He saw her naked there.
Alone and not alone… of course she sings!
Old Euclid never looked on beauty bare
In hidden forms. She looked in Baldur’s eyes.
And laughed. And turned. Remembered the surprise

A Shakespearean sonnet. Ah, what gloom!
There is no Bard. Yet there is such drama.
The usual stuff in this its narrow room
Oh look Line four. I have dropped a comma 
And blithely have I enjambed that last line
And bravely have I made it to line six
With many a trochee: a geste divine!
Now for some words requiring asterisks
To show my class. Guess what? I choose “volta”
Though in my youth I would choose “eperon”
And let it dance just like John Travolta
And let it go and keep it running on
To here. Now, gentle reader turn your face.
Line 14. So strange! So strange this place!

Waiting for Waylon and waiting for Willie
The wild, wild winds go willie woo woo.
Waiting for Jesus to squeeze us and leave us.
Leave us alone. Oh, what can we do?

And the wild, wild winds go willie woo woo.
If you get an outfit you can be one too.

Old Pontius Pilate he just had to smile,
"It's a bitch," he said, "but its gotta be done."
Atilla the killer-- a really big chiller--
Says, "Oh I'm so sorry, but aint we got fun?"

And the wild, wild winds go willie woo woo.
If you get an outfit you can be one too.

Napoleon Bonaparte, after things fell apart,
Sat down on his island and howled at the moon.
Cleopatra the clever, dressed all in leather,
Chastises poor Caesar and promises "Soon.."

And the wild, wild winds go willie woo woo.
If you get an outfit you can be one too.

Vlad the Impaler, the best of the Wailers,
(The wind howls like a husband and sobs like a wife)
Says "It's no trouble. I guess I'll date double."
And remarks to his victims: "Ah, the blood is the life."

And the wild, wild winds go willie woo woo.
If you get an outfit you can be one too.

They told old Samson, "Oh, just be a man, son
Pull the pillars on down and let it all go."
But he said, "No lie, ah, I remember Delilah
She made love so sweetly, she made love so slow.

So I'll dance, I'll dance with William Blake
For love, for love, for sweet love's sake.
Let the wild, wild wind go willie woo woo.
If you get an outfit, you can be one too."

I told my bonnie, "Hey, you know it ain't funny."
But she said, "Oh, honey, they already know."
I didn't believe her and I had to leave her.
But I saw them last night at the last picture show.

And they danced, they danced with William Blake
For love, for love, for sweet love's sake.
Let the wild, wild wind go willie woo woo.
If you get an outfit, you can be one too.

Infinite spaces in sweet infant faces.
Infinite love in the grief of a leaf.
So they all bump their bellies with Percy B. Shelley
Jelly Roll Morton and little John Keats.

And they dance, they dance with William Blake
For love, for love, for sweet love's sake.
Let the wild, wild wind go willie woo woo.
If you get an outfit, you can be one too.

And sing:

Nietzsche is peachy!
Kant a'int so keen!
As on heaven's gate
We insouciantly lean.
All you attempters
You know what we mean!

He's on tonight!
He's come tonight!
And, by God, he is burning
With hyperboreal light!
And says just two words.
The words are" "Not quite."
Amd lends a little sang froid
To the numinous void.
And a little sang-froid
To the glutinous schwa.

I see by my outfit that I am a cowboy.
I see by your outfit that you are one too.
We see by our outfits that we are both cowboys.
If you get an outfit, you can be one too.

Homer Speaks

“Topless Towers” Yeah, I wrote that.
That’s what Priam wanted.
Petting his dog as I brought out my lyre.
Closing his eyes. Paris and Helen talking all the time.
Damn them. But it was a good song.
A good song.

“Wine dark sea” is all mine too.

I’m writing this as Troy burns.
Not my fault. “Leave the goddamn horse outside” I told them.
But, they never listened to Cassandra.
Much less this old man.

Well, here they come
Those fine haired sons of bitches.
It’s over. All over.

I’ll do ok though.
Got a little thing called “The Iliad” I was writing on the side.
Even got a great last line:
“Thus was the funeral of Hector, Tamer of Horses.”
Think they’ll see the irony?
Not a chance.
But I’ll do ok.

I always do.
“Hey Odysseus! It’s me. Homer!
Remember me?”
“The wine dark sea guy?”

 I had a fifth of whiskey then 
I had a sixth sixth of whiskey when 
I decided to simply try again 
And looked into the darkness. "Men!" 
I cried! But what was that? Big Ben! 
"The curfew tolls the knoll of parting day!"
But day had eftsoon parted. I meant to say
Something witty and so very wry!
"How soon the light departs. And so do I"
This was in London. Of course! For I heard Big Ben
In Londontown though I don't remember when
I was there except through power of rhyme
Londontown. Perhaps, it was the time
I sat at home reading Thackeray
And drinking a banana daiqueri
Reading Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo
Infected back then by the troublesome spiro
chete. It turned out to be syphilis
Infecting my poesy with near terminal dactylisis
Cured by, I think, a tiger's bite
And so I say to you "Good Night!"

The Little Shop

I found the little shop just off 52nd street. One always does, of course and I was pleased that everything was in order when I entered.

Dim, the little old man behind the counter with the sly smile, the great shadows in back of him and there in the display case just what I was looking for.

"I have to say," I told the fellow "An egg .. a crystal egg? This has been done."

He smiled back without saying a word. "But I'll take it, of course. "The usual price?"

He nodded and reached into the case and placed the egg for me to examine."

I believe that there is an instruction manual with it. A moment please." He disappeared into the shadows. Footsteps and then nothing for a bit. By the time he returned I had it working."Quite lovely isn't it?" He handed the manual to me. "This is in Latin!"

He sighed. "It's what they expect. Of course you must never under any circumstances open the egg. Is that understood?" He seemed bored.

"Or I lose my soul."

"Of course."

I hurried out into the street the egg in my pocket.

Streetlamps, a women walking her dog, a taxi, a light May rain.I was up all night, of course.

Listening.

Such songs I heard.

It was all there, of course.

All of the past and the future.

The latest flakes of Eternity.

And I kept my soul. I never opened it. Why should I? I knew what was inside. Nothing.

The Cats of Paree

It's been many years since I've been to Paree
Where I played for that French girl. Her name was Marie.
And she sang, she sang so lyrically.

"Oui, I'm a cat."
" I don't care about that.
But don't you think you could play in B-flat?"

I murmured "Oui" as I changed the key
And Marie she sang so beautifully.
A beautiful song without any "Rien"
And when it was over she sang it again.

I'd felt half dead. This was in '45.
But as Marie sang I felt quite alive.
Ah, that beautiful song without any "Rien"
Just me and Marie. That's the way we were then.

All over. All over. Yet what can I say?
Well met by moonlight on the Champs d'Elysee!

The words of my Daddy I still can recall
“If you just write light verse then you’re nothing at all.”
This was in the Fifties and there were many sad men
Who remembered their twenties in the forties and then
Wrote many sad poems where they danced the tango
With sweet girls from Paris “It was long ago
In forty five after the Germans had gone
She was so sweet and so pale and so wan
She was so sad and when we went to bed
“Just hold me, please hold me,” was all that she said.
And the room was so cold and there was no light
And the cats of Paree howled all the damn night.”

I remember a Halloween of long ago.

There was a Halloween moon.

I was going to go with my Uncle Joe.

"When will he be here?" "Soon."

I sat and waited by the front porch light

And watched as the ghouls crept by.

The leaves tumbled down in the Halloween night.

The clouds were orange in the sky.

With moonlight shining on the steel mill red

As the old and familiar hell.

And Uncle Joe was beside me…. Said

"You're ready, I guess? Oh, well."

And we began walking the dreary beat

I walked every Hallow's eve

To the houses there on our sad street

Just where I wanted to leave.

When my uncle said. "C'mon get in"

As we came up to his car.

Ah, he had a flask and it was full of gin

And the car was a Jaguar.

Silver and white like a god's own ghost

And Joe put it in first gear

Then second and third and then began to coast

And sing like a gondolier.

And I could feel the moon laugh down at us

As we glided through the night.

"Let's just drive." My uncle said.

And I just said "Alright!"

I once could look at a meadow 
And not really seems to forget, oh 
The celestial light 
Of an endless night 
But somehow I've lost that libretto. 

Yes, it's just the same so sad story:
I seem to remember there once was a glory
When I was a boy
And there was such joy
Years before I was a Tory

It was back when I was herding sheep
My thoughts seemed so weighty and deep
But I've turned my back
On the Cataract
And I seem to have fallen asleep.

I remember my juvenile pisses
Taken among all Nature's blisses
But here I stand
And hold it in my hand
And only vaguely recall just what this is.

And I piss neath the wheeling Great Dipper.
It's been a while since I was feeling quite chipper
And I give it a shake
And read William Blake
And I seem to have pissed on my slipper

I'm just an aging baby boomer 
But I prefer a sense of humor 
And am tired of war and of its rumor. 
Tired of all that usual prose 
But I delight in Gogol's nose. 
I prefer to be unamused and silent
Before the mad and hyperviolent.
Of course, I might on an average day
Be discovered reading Hemingway
But I ignore his hymn to night
And think of a certain slant of light
That fell upon an old friend's face
As he spoke of "A Clean Well Lighted Place"
And I forget just what he said
And almost forget the fellow's dead
Dead twenty years before
But what else is my reading for?
Ignore me please! An effect of age.
And excuse me while I turn the page.
If it were (and it ain't) up to me
I think I'd prefer Don Marquis
Over all of his "betters"
In the Arts and the Letters
And to hell with the dull bourgeoisie.

Raymond Chandler was inspired in the shower
And stayed in there for an hour
Then went down the mean streets
And scorned the elites
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower.

In 68 I took some peyote
And read about old Don Quixote
A Classic Comic it was
And I read it because
I was lonely with no antidote.

This all happened in my boyhood bedroom
That's where I nibbled the magic mushroom
Which is amusingly sad
But I was all that I had
And it looked like that would be my doom.

The next day I awoke 'neath a tree
With a rabbit looking at me
Who said without malice
"Don't ask for Alice
She don't talk to the sad bourgeoisie.'

On Seeing the Matamata Turtle at Como Zoo 

"Poor Matamata 
What's matamata with you?" 
"Screw you," turtle thinks.

Pity the poor poor
Violaceous Euphonia (8 syllables!)
One syllable extra!

No haiku for him!
Today I see the poor bird!
Beautiful loser!

White-faced Whistling Duck (5 syllables!)
Is a most fortunate bird
Can get in first line!

Some Lucky Bastards live on a golden hill.
Some live like I live and always will:
Winter comes early and summer comes late
And the first thing you learn is you always gotta wait.
Walk and walk until you is skin and bones
And end up also stealing lines from the Rolling Stones.

And nothing is happenin' Mr. Jones.


Detective Hartigan sat down to dial.
"Lord, Lord I killed a poor orphant chile.
I'm melancholy I know but now I'm damn sad.
My .44 went through his Mom and his Dad.
Well, first through the perp in the apartment next door.
Lord, Lord it was my 44!
I'm through with that Dirty Harry Bulljive.
Gonna get me a fine Colt .45."


How old was I when we first met?
Thirty something? I forget.
You were working for the army
And we were both so very barmy
You laughed as you typed and we knew
...About the bridge at Elkhorn slough
And about the owl in the Owl Oak
And Samson Shillitoe, that bloke.
And Connie knew and laughed with us
So I flew here just to discuss
Just when in fact that she would assent
To be with me together blent
So there was a method to our madness
Song and poem and what gladness
That I take it for a rainbow sign
As we begin our slow decline
Or just maybe that has passed
And we descend ah fast ah fast
Where all, of course, come to the end.
Heigh ho for the carrion crow, my friend!
Which, of course, I don't really mean
Who the hell knows...
Your friend,

Joe Green

Rejoined with:

Timothy L. Smith

Those were the days, me lad,
more merry than sad
and nobody could assail us!
Now the world's gone awry
and though we may try
...we must admit that things fail us.

No more can I stand with a jug in my hand
and declaim many poems from memory.
And where once I was rich, and a sonofabitch
now I'm just an old asshole in penury.

Oh the passing of days has its myriad ways
of cutting us all down to size.
But I say, "What the fuck, I've still had good luck
and I'll never give in to Time's lies.

As the man said, "So it goes" and nobody knows
what waits as the golden years call.
As for you and for me, we'll just have to see
if we can't beat the odds after all.



The Poetry of Joe Keats

On leaving some Poets at an early Hour

That one sonofabitch is really mean
And I don’t understand his asemic damned haiku
And what a jerk. What’s his name…Joe Green?
But what the hell is a po poet s’posed to do?
And the other guy. Asks me “Do you tweet?”
And I mention, by God, my nightingale
And what…he’s had six whiskeys neat
And tells me that he is out on bail!
And then they say “You goddamn Flying Monkey!
And titter. And no… I don’t have no weed
Then they say the Sweet Coleridge was a junkie
And sneer at me when I cry out for mead.
So to the stars. The Wonders of the Spheres!
I flee to starlight…. but oh! The Darkness nears!

Hounds give up. They lay down.
Nothing there. Nothing in town.
Everything goes up. Then down.

I could never see it yet and yet
I had a lot, a lot to forget.
Death comes anyway. So I
Am here now, at least, the by and bye
Somewhere there. Then I'll go down.
But now I can, at least, look around,
Orion above. I remember a night.
Remember! Remember! More light! More light!

Twittering

I looked and I feel somewhat sad.
This is a picture of my Dad
Standing before the Eiffel Tower
Taken, maybe, just an hour
After Paris was liberated.
My own Dad it seems was fated
To be there as the Nazis fled.
He has a cap upon his head
Tilted at a rakish angle
And from his hands he gaily dangles
A rifle... and with no little grace
Seems to imply that that place
Will be again a place of light
As the Nazis go down to endless night.
He fought the good war as they say
And forgot...but then one day
He seemed to have something to say
When I was leaving then to go
Into the army . He said "Joe,
You know when I was in the war..."
Then nothing else. There was no more.
And I agree. What can you say?
But I remember that strange day.
What's the price for all of that?
Meaning that is where it's at.
Worthless also! So what's revealed?
Only that you sometime feel
That nothing ever makes real sense.
Which is what I felt when I went hence.
But still my Dad stood at that hour
Gaily before the Eiffel Tower.
And in a field not far away
Someone's father died that day.

Let us go then you and I.
No, we cannot be bitter.
To our new home in the sky
And we will not remember Twitter.

We will go and bid the soldiers shoot
To get with child a Mandrake root
Then stagger to the Mermaid Tavern
Avoid the pit, eschew the cavern
And there cry out just what we know
Tales of weakness, tales of woe.
Then sip our ale and wait for one
William Blake? maybe John Donne!
For God's sake given where we were
I'd take Walter De La Mare
No one comes. We wait an hour.
The off we go to the Dark Tower.
From the Mermaid to the bower.
Ben asks to wait another hour.
We'll wait an hour more at least.
"Ah, look Ben -- what rough beast!"
Slouching out from Bethlehem
To say "Hello!" to me and Ben
Face of Auden. Eyes of Yeats.
Custom built to serve, it waits.
Chats a bit..says it was built in
A railway town by the name of Milton.
Asks the way to Simplon Pass
Says that it must go, alas
Can't find the way. It's lost you see
In Seven Types of Ambiguity.
And we are lost but long for that...
And Macavity the Mystery cat
Is there and then, ah then
We meet the long world's gentleman.

A few years ago my Dad was dying
I sat beside him trying trying
To be anywhere but there
To be anywhere no where.
Held his hand as I read a book.
Didn't really want to look.
The resistance. Nazis in the mist.
Felt him shake and then I kissed
Him...when was the last time I...?
I looked at him. I watched him die.
Then he whispered, "I need you...
There's one thing I want you to do,,,"
Then I couldn't hear just what he said.
I went away then he was dead.
See the granite on his tombstone glitter.
Then we're gone too. Twitter. Twitter.

NOTHING

NOTHING made Wordsworth sad.
Old Sam Coleridge thought "Too bad."
They kept on writing -- not for spite
But to apprehend the endless night.
And because that is what they did
They even somewhat liked that kid:
John Keats was the poor boy's name
Who couldn't stand the endless same
And one day, well, he just took off
To Rome because he knew his cough
Meant that soon he would be dead.
"Oh, my poor friend" is what he said
To his friend who watched the poor guy die.
And Keats still wondered "Who am I?"
And knew he would be nothing soon.
The endless night. The falling moon.

A winning show. One sees the mute

Get with child the mandrake root.

You think of the poor boy on the stair

Who, of course, was never there

Who, of course was then nowhere

And then you can see if you dare

That it is all quite debonair

And think I think I know I'm seeing

Myyself as an instance of Non-Being

And then reflect "Goddamn, that's true."

And then wonder "What are you?"

But it wouldn't matter if you knew.

It wouldn't matter if you knew.

Vaudeville transcends all love

You have a hat and just one glove

And perhaps a cane. It is enough!

You know we are the stuff

Dreams are made on. As was said

By some guy who finally went to bed

After all the shows and shows.

What vaudeville means...why no-one knows.

Love is love and love is nil

Without the thrill of vaudeville

When love is there why love has flown

And you discover you must dance alone

Not for yourself. Ah, that's the key

And is vaudeville's great mystery

You look out always from the stage

And hear the music and feel the rage

Of dancing always against death.

There! And this. You take a breath

And put out one foot and then another

Never wondering why you bother

You dance for you. You dance for her.

You dance and it does not occur

That as you dance you name your love

Or think of the paper moon above

You dance to live and love just then

To conquer where. To conquer when.

And because not to do that would soon kill

The human love that's vaudeville.

Outta Here

I wait beneath the willow.

So many young people.

The young men with their young women dancing.

Fireflies and a moon above.

Screw them all.

Lawn party..why am I here?

I need another martini.

I would go but my wife took my keys.

The Stars The Stars

All the night the moon shone

The stars burned in the golden sky,

I watch "Gilligan's Island"

On an old black and white TV.

I pass the window to get another drink

Thinking of the Professor.

There is no other life.

All the Holy Night

The immensity of the universe!

Reading the New Yorker

A nice New Yorker cartoon.

Skipping the shitty poems.

My Martini is so cold.

Look there's a cartoon I missed!

Something to Count On

The moon is like a gypsy playing a yellow guitar.

A martini is just a martini.

Every damn time.

The Plum Wine of the Buddha

The Plum Wine of the Buddha

Cannot properly be called a cocktail.

In Martini Veritas

After five martinis

Soft jazz

Still sounds like shit

Tiny Tim Blues

Went up to Minnesota.

Took my little uke.

Went up to Minnesota.

Took my little uke.

They called me Tiny Tim.

But I felt just like a fine young Duke.

Went on Johnny Carson.

Married a fine young gal.

Said "Hi" to Johnny.

Johnny was my pal.

All over, All over.

Knew it would be anyhow.

When you think about it,

You know they all knew my name.

When you think about it,

You know they all knew my name.

Who knows you my friend, my friend?

But at the end we're all the same.

All the same.

Laying in my grave.

Minnesota snow blow wild.

Laying underground.

I feel just like a little child.

Come the end times, the end times, the end times

Eternity feel so mild.

A Ballade

The Vietnam war was goin' on
And I was at Fort Hood
Sometimes feeling pretty sad.
Most times pretty good.

I'll sing of soldiers in the rain
And how its sometimes pretty hard
And tell you how it was so strange
On Tank Destroyer Boulevard.

I reported to the Orderly Room

To good old Major Moore.

Who said to me “Godammit, son

Why don’t you close the door?

I about faced and about faced

The Major Moore put on his hat.

Said “Sergeant Green, I’m leaving now

Don’t let out the cat.”

I stood there in amazement

He said, “That cat talks in Latin.”

He pretty mean and crazy

And his name in General Patton.”

Now, I know the General Reader

Will cry out sans belief.

But Major Moore strode out that door

With his secret grief.

He had just returned from Vietnam

And was thinking “Fuck the Army.”

And he was not the only one.

All of us were barmy.

Major Moore went out the door

To his Buddha garden.

The Buddha looted from Saigon

When Major Moore was parting’.

He had two guys assigned just there

To care for the flowers and trees.

You don’t believe me?  I don’t care.

This was the Seventies.

I went back to the Orderly Room

Right up to the company clerk.

“Jesus Christ what is my doom?

Where do I go for work?”

The company clerk stopped typing.

Said, “Here take a look at this.”

It was a novel he was writing

Entitled: “The Last Kiss.”

“It’s set in 1984

When everyone is dead

Except for a boy and his little dog.”

That’s really what he said.

He look at me inquiringly

As he adjusted his toupee.

He was a Mormon and a novelist

And, quite bitterly, was gay.

And he played fine jazz piano

In a melancholy way.

I read  the page and looked at him

And pronounced the writing fine.

He perked right up.  Said, “My name is Jim.

Do you really like the final line?”

I looked at Jin quite closely

And felt that I had no choice.

And said in a voice quite ghostly

“It makes me think of Joyce.”

The I picked up my duffel bag

And headed out the door

And I seemed to hear a Joplin rag

As I saw whoI stood before.

It was Sergeant Major Gilmore Davis

Who said, “Boy, put down your gear

And go back and get a pair of pliers

And bring them over here.”

Sergeant Major Gilmore Davis!

In his Gilmore Davis way

Has a face like “Jesus Save Us!”

But a smile like Sugar Ray.

Last days in Army service

He’s been in since ’44.

And you’ll think he might be nervous

With all the shit he did endure.

World War Two and then Korea

Three tours of Vietnam

But you have the wrong idea

He was mellow. He was calm.

He took the pliers.  Said, “Come with me.”

We went to the Rec room.

Where he adjusted the TV

Until Nat King Cole began to croon.

“Stay here, boy” he said to me.

But he didn’t mean it meanly.

“After Andy Williams.

We’ll watch “I Dream of Jeannie.”

I went out into the Fort Hood night

With my gear upon my shoulder.

Humming “Mama, It’s Alright”

I had a chance of getting older.

I was there near the Second Armor

And the First Cavalry

A screw-up in a lost brigade

In a Lost Company.

The Cobras shivered above us.

The tanks drove down the road.

And left us alone. God loved us.

Just like he loved Tom Joad.

I got assigned to language school

To that strange faculty

Or draftees, drunks and derelicts

Teaching deportees:

Wives brought back to the USA

From Korea and Vietnam

From little villes and long lost hills

From  Seoul and from Saigon.

So they could work in restaurants

Or dance in topless clubs

And smoke opium in trailers

And give those fine “back rubs.”

One day Captain Thomas

Came looking for his wife.

Where’s that gook bitch?  I’ll kill her!

The he took his life.

And she got al of his insurance.

She had quite a business sense.

And opened up a pawnshop

With Sergeant Gilkey, hence

Her marriage to the Sergeant

Which followed hard upon

The orders Sergeant Gilkey

Got to go to Vietnam.

And when he was listed missing

And then he turned up dead.

She said “I was always lucky lucky.”

And then was quickly wed

To the guy across the street

Who had the Army Surplus store.

If you don’t find that just and meet

It what this country’s for.

She was in my English class

Before these sad events.

It was time for her to give a speech

And she seemed somewhat tense.

“I was at the movie.

On Tet.  We in Saigon.

Big noise.  Scream everywhere.

Go up a big bomb.

Kill everyone.  My mother!

My mother, my sister died.”

She looked at me and then sat down

And never never cried.

And I remember young John Kostovich.

He was from Chicago.

He had a Ford Econo--Hippie van

With the usual strange cargo.

On one side was the Peace Sign.

On the other side a frog

And underneath that was the line

”Onward through the Fog!”

He drove that van to Mexico

And came back with some grass.

He told me “Joe, I wanted to just go.

They all can kiss my ass.”

And I remember him a year from then.

On the phone.  I heard him scream.

“My brother got killed in Fucking “Nam.”

It all seems like a dream.

He ran right out.  Got in the van.

Screaming all the way.

Jim Linden said to me

“Do you think he’ll be ok?”

He got a “compassionate discharge.”

And then in 71.

I got a letter.  “I’m living large.

Up here in Oregon.”

The real war was still going on.

Then Sergeant Davis said “You losers.

Grab your packs and get you guns.

We’re going on maneuvers.”

I was in charge of our two squads.

Prayed “God, I thee implorest.

Enlighten all the little gods

To get us lost inside the forest.”

I told my guys.  “We’ll need a lot of beer

For this goddamn fake war

And guitars and books and a lot of grass.

What are you waiting for?”

So we drove off in our Army truck

And I did not feel bereft.

Said “Damn, I can’t believe our luck.”

When they turned right then we turned left.

The real war was still going on.

The fake war did not alarm us.

I lounged outside in the Texas sun

In my Grateful Dead pajamas.

I had brought along “Ulysses.”

Joyce was always such a charmer.

But I lounged outside in that Texas breeze

Reading Philip Jose Farmer.

And that night Tom played his guitar.

Beneath the Texas moon.

So far away from the real war.

“Lay Down Your Weary Tune.”

“Lay down your weary tune, lay down,

Lay down the song you strum,

And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings

No voice can hope to hum.”

Thirty years ago and more.

Some are dead. All to me are gone so long.

What in hell was all that for?

I end this weary song.

“Lay down your weary tune, lay down,

Lay down the song you strum,

And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings

No voice can hope to hum.”

I