NEW POEMS Trompe-l'oeil Laps of Honour Misanthrope Pipe of Peace NEW PROSE The Grace of God Can't Help it Axedent Vigil |
MISANTHROPE
Tous Azimuts (topsy turvy) Too wet to water the garden. So the flowers will have to wait. But I managed to feed the dog to the cat, the cat to the birds, so everything is not all ov- er the place, or up in the air. C’est Moi I am the town revenant. I ride the streets in the dead of night on my chariot of steel. See me coming round the bend with my red flashing light and hear my brakes squeal. You were the accident that was meant to happen. So show at least some fright. Thank you. I need something real. The Poor Soul I’m not hopeful, being weary. Still I struggle on. Where is my heart? I put it somewhere? Have you tried the pocket of your breastcoat? How can I? I left my wardrobe at home. You chose to wander naked in a world that’s made for clothes? I thought it would embrace me. You have to be dressed for that. Conceptual Flowers I am a painted flower. A cut above the others. Not dead. I am immortal. Nature may be wonderful, but art is a more serious proposition. Instead of colour and smell and such, I’m conceptually yours. The stalk is dried out and will last in the seeds of memory. The starched petals presented to the world, crushed between pages, live in the imagination like last summer’s butterflies. Leave Me in Peace There is nothing to celebrate in the superfit veteran body. Scrawny and mean and doomed to decay. Once I had one. It made me aggressive. Perfectionists find nothing right in others, or themselves. All suffer. You’re a one-man, stretch-tone, high-impact nylon body activated by strings of misery. No-pain, no-gain. Springs clock-work you into an artificial paradise or hell, hyphenated to pack you into parenthesis, and break up unwieldy conglomerates. Get down fat to less than two percent, and the blood says to the skeleton, ‘Keep it like that for ever. I’m dead’. Otherly Love I like people I don’t know better than those that I do. That will lose me a few friends. Though most already knew. But I’d rather it didn’t show. That to myself it applies should mitigate the trope which figures I’m a misanthrope. Self-knowledge, of course, is wise. But like love it’s a vain hope. I cannot say that I’m sure how much I know myself or not. And so I cannot allot sufficient of rope to knot my propre to the amour. Eavesdropping a Bad Night To write is to live some on paper. If someone comes to read it, well and good. But give them a hand, says Nuki, who is my friend. Still before I die there’s so much to débarrasse I haven’t the time, alas, to make myself as clear as would be popular. You’re as incompetent at it, boy, to the end as you were in life. Ouf! Low-placed lightning lacks proof. Say No to Negativity Does not being able to do what you like mean not being able to like what you do? If yes, I think you’ve got le grand ennui. Most people just like to do what seems right. I’m no longer able to ride my bike, play my violin and swim on my torso. Still what I like is moaning, something new to complain about always brings delight. Everybody to their own personal hike in the by-ways of pleasure. I don’t know how you feel when your spirits are low. Mine are not exactly flying a kite. Having enough money is to be reich under any regime. Still the healthy glow in the dawn cheeks of your get-up-and-go is pure gold in giving necessity its bite. At four o’clock when you wake at night, save your soul by being your own servant so you are liked, and do what you’ve got to do. A good Bon’s job is to fight the good fight. |