=2fewpoem 
SELECTED SECULAR POEMS, 1984--1989

From:  Only the Whittler's Art:  Collected Meta-Poems
       From Whom Can We Learn
       Collected Satires
       Hock & Soda Water           =hic!(hoc


              
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cooked as good as can be                           
it's still a turnup
but can't throw it out

-------------

Narcissus ponders and polishes his well-wrought phrases,
then wrapt, seals his soul and falls into a love of gazes.

                                ca. 1963
----------------

Ok:  after 40 years
finally can write
English, somewhat
       but
poetry's only an
ancillary language; tacked-on capacity --
the craft of packaging
trivial insights neatly.


----------------

I wrote this haiku
waiting for the light to change.
Stop light's lot sharper.

                                 (Boston, ca. 1976)

----------------

Poems clambering like cats
to be let out:
"What's my name?  My name?  Mine!"

-----------------

Betake we must to wine, bereft of wenches.
The Gallo callow poesy etc. quenches.
The breaking day plays bongo-bo~~ngo ball off all our senses.
Hell, might's well 'scuse the booze; 'twas less pretentious.

                               (Grolier Bookstore, Cambridge, ca. 1974)
--------------

What I learned at the Philosophers' Convention

We seek
a bright white young man
with a proper stopper
to measure fearless ideas through a bottle dropper.
Not like these, please,
that rant, pant, rave, and wave-
r, tipsy--top-
sy, the Raggedy Andy and Mopsy'
s of acadanemia; we
deem decorum seemlier
and procreate a proper pecking order
of minds intense and dry as typewriters.

                                             (ca. 1965)

-------

II.  FROM 'FROM WHOM CAN WE LEARN"

Said my boss Cowboy Jack,
"Your friend in the Big White Hat":
"There's always something to do:
if you don't have a thing to do,
grab a broom and sweep the floor."

     Wolfboro, N.H., apr. 1956               

------

The Kansas rancher I quit cold
drove me to town, cashed my check, and put me on the road
   with a sack of apples and oranges
He said:
"We're all looking for something better.
I figure when a man needs a hand
he needs it right now."
              
                                (Santana, Kansas, apr. summer '65).
---------

My nephew explained to his fasther,
"Don't you understand --
when somebody wants something,
they want it right  now." 

-----

Max Finstein said,
"Rick thought of a commune
as a place to hang out & smoke dope;
I talked him into starting a new world,
alas."
                          
                 (New Buffalo, Arroyo Hondo N.M., ca. 1970)
------

Jane said,
You can fall down
but you can't fall up."

 --------

Chicano Dave says,
"If you're going to be a bear,
be a grizzly bear."
    
(New Buffalo, ca. 1969)

------------

a Zuni said,
"We are a peace-loving people
and so, if somone seeks to attack us
then, if at all possible
we run away."

------

In my mud room at New Buffalo
I built a big stone corner fireplace.
Blond Larry did all the work
but I told him what to put where.
He said
It's a lot harder to do this job
to your specifications.
-----------

Meyer said
"Yup,
sometimes in this country  it can take all day
to make 3 phone calls."
                           (Moshav Shedmot Mechola, 1984)

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III.  FROM "COLLECTED SATIRES"

Running for President in '84
Gary Hart climbed Mt. Mansfield
half-way

-----
Automatic stuck in his jeans
the bank guard
mists the potted plants

------------

FAUNTLEROY is mellow:
he can stand anything,
and stand up for nothing.

-----

P.T. the Executive Elephant
has a staff of 10
to pick up after him.

-----

POPINJAY's cousin the Great Blackbird
has brains enough for two
fortunately.

-----

RAILROAD BILL
don't even piss
without estimating the angles;
and if the sun must shine
he'd prefer it don't do so on his town
without discussing arrangements.
If he tells you the time
request a second opinion;
if he shakes your hand
count your fingers.

-----

Din-din corrals men
into the house of prayer;
answering, heaven sends him down
only daughters.

-----

IV.  FROM HOCK AND SODA WATER, Collected Secular Poems 1984--1989     

 the way your cat                    stops
eating 
       some unexpected delicacy
and looks up
              quizzically
as if to say,
"you know, this is really quite nice."

(West Medford, 1983)

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*The Poet as Movie Extra 
                    (Murder on the Orient Express (Golan/Globus, '86)

"Fools' names, like their faces
oft appear in public places"
obviously; but why?
Consider the matter in abstraction:
Kilroy was everywhere
yet never was...
or all those plaques
grasping for imortality...
and don't overlook concealment
(autumn squirrels hiding nuts)
the charm of buried treasure,
however trivial.

------------ 

Rain and Miles Davis
Torn lily drifting downstream
Brandy in the glass

         23.02.88

-----

Quintessentially macho
our cat Spunky
padded purposefully down the road
each morning
and returend in stoic dignity at evening
having slept all day
behind the first big rock.

------

One day
when I was 10
my father treated us to Pizza in the Italian Seciton.
I said, "I suppose I should thank uyou."
He replied,
"Of course; it was very nice of me."

-----

things
seemingly take too much time
but
't ain't so much the heat as
the circuitious logistics of poverty.
     
------

Supper of bread and garlic
my boss walks by and says
"Good appetite!" 

-----

In a Latin mode

Only at my poetry
not old affairs
do I look back now in admiration --
how well I spoke then
and how childishly we acted.

-----

The great white horse halts
mightily whinnying
gulping in air
and dreaming of water
while rider relaxes knees & reins
removes a mask, and rubs his brow:
"Shit," says the Lone Ranger,
"lonely night with no TV." 

                                :White Knight off-duty

-----

Embarassed by that uniform,
Superman regrets
his granted wish:
to masquerade
in blue-serge suit and tie
as Clark Kent.

------------

"Left me high and dry"
Skipper sailed off north.
Sailed off into the rain.
Sure glad I ain't out there.

                              Sami, Kephalonia, Oct. 6, 1988

-----

A Pornographic Movie

gives the Devil his due:
the set of sex sans residue
of love, and freed from complication
or art, angst, or even procreation.
                                        (ca. 1973) 
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FROM =metapoem

If 'n my craft or sheepish art 
mask extras overused
and half my word-plays twice-told tales unfold,
the err-er, Reader, 's you:
could ever art perennially spring
without recycling?

-----

Fragments:

 ....when pitter-pattering iambs serve as flats
to set the stage for literal entrechats...

 ... he'd like to take a stand just like   The Fool
     while dropping rhymes like combo shots in pool. 

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           Damn your tranquilizer
           Now every time I try to drop a note to my soul
           A cherub floats by on a pink cloud
           and catches it in a gold wastebasket.

                                  (NYC; Sept. 23, 1963.)

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FROM =mopo8992

Flying to my home
mourning a lost love                          
consoled by the stars

       Do not forget how your souls loved
       nor that her heart has left you.


                                       Dec. 4, 1984, El Al 
                                       (rev. 1989)

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Resented for 50 years
your refusal to negotiate,
Time, but know now
relief at leaving
done deeds behind.

                      Harwich--Hamburg Ferry
                      Winter Solstice, 1990

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**Four Star Night**

Sasson the Mad Russian
's wife says
they're out
on the street
but
not quite down
in the gutter;
last night they slept
in the Kings' Hotel.

                            (Cf. Catullus)

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Like a cat awaiting grace
from the refrigerator
I sit on the walk-way mall
before a Magic Money Machine
marked 'Closed'.

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News Item, Decembear 1991

The complete Buddhist scriptues
once written on palm leaves
will now be inscribed
with concentrated light
on a CD-ROM tree.

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MORE TALES OF MODI'IN

Reggae Tune

Eliahu got no shoes
     Nu -- he
Jet-Set it to Italy
maybe 
      to bring us back currency.

------------------------------------------------

"You ain't talked to me in 11 years
 and today all you said was,
 'Don't talk to Leon.'"

                            (Atty Wm. Richman, Esq.)

------------------------------------------

     'Oh Pious Ones'
      how continually you invoke, how rarely attend
      wishes of heavens.
                                        (Cf. Rumi)
-----------------------------------------------------

Today we went out to the shooting range
to learn to shoot
3 shots apiece
so we can all carry guns
but it was raining very hard
and so somebody asked the Rabbi
and he said we could all go home
so we all went home and the sun came out.

We will go back out to the shooting range
next year
if heavens permit it.

                                         27.12.91

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For four years Roy
lived like a perfect English country gentleman may
in a little 2-room cottage
with his 3 big Doberman watchdogs
in his little 2-room cottage.
On day Hai asked,
"Is that normal?"

---------------------------------------------------

Today Roy graded his lawn
Like a helicopter landing pad.
He stays here to guard us
from 'weirdos'.
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Portrait of the Poet by the Lawyer for a 4-year-old

"He comes from way up there
 and sometimes his mind moves so fast
 you can't even see the wheels spin."

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Honest Ulysses, cast ashore
wonders:
What are all the plastic people
laughing for?

(UCSB '67; Prof. Paul Wienpahl, who lived Zen and Spinoza.)
                  

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How to Pick Apples

If you know where you'll be
if the bough breaks
and if the bough beaks
where you will be
then you can pick apples.
                                     (Derry NH, 1964)
----------------------------------------------

How to Play Basketball

If someone's closer
pass;
if you're closest
shoot.

---------------------------------------------

To play football like a gentleman
don't ignore the sidelines
nor tackle the spectators.

---------------------------------------------

How to Play Baseball

look dumb
stay loose
and try not to swing before they pitch

---------------------------------------------

How to Go Hiking

If you've lost the trail
go back to where you were
when you were on the trail.
                                 (Campra, 1999)
------------------------------------------

How to Work   

Take down the tool [ kelim ] you need.
When you're done, put it back.
Too heavy to carry around.

-------------------------------------------

Every job has its bad points
and some good points.
Every job you want
has its good points
and some bad points. 

                                    (July '03)
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How Paris celebrates
each house where every poet died
of its high prices.

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The sun scuttles across the gry sky
like a hedgehog crossing a snow-lined road.

                                (England, Dec. 11, 1990)

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Frying bacon, honing poems --
trim off the fat.

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soft wind, summer clouds
rumble of a thunderstorm
red fox running home
                                            
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Watched by cows and mule
I stumble down from the pass.
soft bells in the rain

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Lovers in the Morning

"Before I know who I am
 you ask me how I am."

----------------------------------------------------

"garlic"
                       "Darling..."
"Not darling, garlic." 

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George Bernard Shaw, a bachelor
romanticized such liasons
as 'maximized chance of accepted advances' ...

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"My housemate's cast-off room-mate sat
 inside and watched TV all day,
 as in and out you do it to
 my CPUnit VDT."

                                          (Hamburg, 1991)

[Notes:  In German, VDT would be sounded, VDTay
This is maybe the closest I've come to the intricacy of Catullus':

Nulle potest mulier tantum se dicere amatam
  vere, quantum a me Lesbia amata mea's.
nulla fides ullo fuit umquam foedere tanta,
  quanta in amore tuo ex parte repara meast.   

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The day love you
left I
raided your pad for food; found
a stewing chicken with your name.
So Sue, though
split, chick, you're 
keeping your cool ...

                       NYC ca. '64
 
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BAGATELLE

Cats nap
where whim of the wave of the day betake them ...
even in Egypt, posing as deities
they
eschewed formality;
'the cat's pyjamas', then, were mere
hyperbole.

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Discussion with a young Englishman:

"          'owdy Mite:
 I'm off to the   h-airport
 to get me         'air cut.
           Cheers.            "

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A 1940's childhood --

I miss now my
comic-book world
a Flatland of basic colours
interminable as a country freight-train
an eternal World War of good-&-bad
where one needed only to know
Who's Who.           

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