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!