Life is What You Make It, Innit?

With names like Entropy and Bouillabaisse,
What did you hope of them? They hit the books
Until they bruised their knuckles; they despaired
Of willow, horsehide, pigskin, ping; and pong
Trailed after them like clouds of midges. Good
Boys, strong boys--maybe not Peregrine Fred--
Like freckled trout in dappled streams. They fell
Off the backs of lorries, whence they were rescued
And made to peel graffiti from the wall.
"What do it mean?" they asked each other. "Man
Is born in chains and everywhere tattooed."
No one would tell them, so they pinched the wall
And flogged it for a couple tabs of Spax.
"What do it mean?" they asked about the blue
Atomic cloud, languid above their heads,
Ate each an egg for breakfast, went home, died,
And rose next morning to be done again.

Mannering

Rain penetrates. You wouldn’t think
a solid shell would fail its past.
Back when they built a house to last,
the generations, link by link,

seasoned the walls with soot and steel.
The rats have come. Thick as a brick,
the door performed its only trick.
Now there is nothing left to feel,

no ambience but topless stairs.
The leaves pile up. Sir Morris Grouse,
beneath a stuffed and fraying mouse,
forgets the lineage he shares

with Puddleman and Bundderlice.
Mildew has come. Port circulates,
sinister towards the broken plates—
blood pudding, kidneys, sheepshead twice

baked. There once was a chandelier.
The rooftree sings. A missing pane,
inscribed in diamond, brags in vain,
The Men Who May inhabit here.

Eppur Si Muove

My fellow Americans, I come rehearsed
with lies. I have prepared a tableful
of whoppers for you; if they are consumed,
the presents of your enemies are yours.

Knowledge is numbing. No one talks about
the right and muscle of the full deception.
I bring you what-you-will: turn it around,
read it upside down. It still will be true.

I've decorated it with cloth rosettes.
I've loaded every rift with anecdotes
for which there is no cure. I'll make you sick
with longing never to be undeceived.

The earth is round. The earth is flat. It swings,
it jitterbugs beneath a smoky heaven.
The angels shimmy to be heard at last.
God is because we say so, and he moves

funky, but we are sutured to the spot
provided, swaying, cervically up.
The world is waltzing very, very slowly:
we are because we say so, but we move.

2 great losses

Dear Readers, if there are any,

Go read a couple novels by Elmore Leonard and some poems by John Hollander. 2 great losses.

Where Am I? Or Better, Where Am I At?

After reviewing the information Blogger shows me about who reads here and how they find their way, I have concluded that most visitors come here by accident, thinking it's somewhere else, or because they clicked on Next Blog, or because they're robots seeking ... what? World domination? A lubricating experience? Exploitation of the commercial potential of those who read unpublished poems by obscure poets?

The Girl in Blue Leathers

O great, God, promise more, deliver less.
Sunrise, cool. Snow on the car-snarled commute,
gnarly. But the death of soi-distant stars
rippling the love affairs of unmade species?
Non-phat. The power of a lightning zot,
scrambling the synapses of nuts and gel,
raising the dead a dollar, and then calling
the bluff the fish made, walking home for tea,
what kind of dude does that? I heard a wife,
flipping her hair as though she were unwed,
telling her husband he did best when he
did as instructed. He was praising Jesus
for having built the girl in the blue leathers,
knocking back Stolis, smoking Kools, and swaying.

Best way somebody got here today

By searching for "a poem for my mom about a fern." And by the way, one of the largest sources of traffic for this blog is something called "filmhill." What is that?

The Melting Pit

The population colors history.
I have to know so much to know them all--
The blight rights, the Ugh & How, the 3-ball-
And-guilt-trip chain. Uhuru on the bridge,
Open as sin her hailing frequency.
The nuts who fire dumdums from the ridge.

A man told me all skeletons were white.
He whispered it, tequila-style. It proved
That God uncolored whom He truly loved.
His Son, he said, was white down to the bone.
All coal, I said, is black and only white
Dead. Pure, he murmured. All alone, alone.

God gave Noah the rainbow sign. For Sale
By Owner, said the sign. His light was frail.

The Poet's Biography

Q: What is a poet's biography for?

A: It motivates the poet.

Q: No, I mean for readers. Why do they read poets' biographies?

A: To satisfy their prurient curiosity.

Q: But you read them.

A: I also eat Chili Cheese Fritos. I know they're not good for me, but I do it anyway.

Q: Dr Johnson said that the biographical part of literature was the part he loved most.

A: Then he burned his letters and his autobiographical account of his early life.
"Biographies of writers are always superfluous and usually in bad taste," said Auden, who read and reviewed them with gusto. It may surprise you to hear this, but people are complicated and not always consistent.

Q: So how do you feel about the prospect of your own biography?

A: I fear it to about the same degree as I fear hitting my head on the rim while dunking a basketball. I'm more worried about next month's utility bill. That's going to arrive, irrespective of my opinions.