Wednesday, January 18, 2017

farewell song





in the depths of heaven
the ocean roars
shed a tear, shed a tear
for the circus is no more

*

the sun sets over the highway

the last track drives away

the clowns watch the trucks disappear and head off to begin their new lives

as panhandlers and fitness gurus and hedge fund managers

all except one, chunky, the oldest of them all

who is determined to find the last pie baked by the last widow on the last windowsill

and hit donald trump or vladimir putin in the face with it

the big tent has been cut up to make napkins at burger king

the bareback dancers pack their bags and they too hit the road

back to philadelphia and cleveland to get jobs as life managers and creative consultants

the ringmaster and the magician make plans to start a maoist alternative to breitbart

the magician’s apprentice goes back to a trailer park outside elko nevada to take care of her 12 younger siblings

moe, the cook, lies down by the side of the road and cries

manny and mac and mose, the roustabouts, enroll in management courses at the university of phoenix

the elephants go back to africa

the lions go back to mars

the horses run away over the playgrounds filled with needles

the lion trainer and al the acrobat hatch a scheme so complicated it can not be described here.

suffice to say they will not settle for a few lousy billions

ed the elephant keeper buys two bottles of wine and a chicken salad grinder, toasted, with cheese, and starts hitchhiking to the northwest territories

alice the acrobat stuffs the trapeze into her bag, with plans to call it a work of art and get at least 15 million dollars for it

they all make plans to meet again for a reunion at the arby’s roast beef outside las cruces new mexico in 2047



ars poetica





poetry is hard to write
and if you write some every night
most of it is hopeless glop
into the garbage to be dropped

poets who live for all time
only write one or two lines
that anyone really remembers
the rest are only ash and embers

their names are known, but ninety-nine
percent of their well-gotten rhymes
are no more read than the reports
of arizona traffic courts

no other human occupation
produces such a tiny ration
of success to total nothingness
with no excuses to profess

so, poet, persevere
the world will shed no tear
you must weep for your own self
as you moulder on the shelf

your failure to communicate
is only humans’ common fate
like all you take your lumps
as darkness triumphs