Filed under: Poetry
Alternate Title: Antique Poetry Basement Blowout Extravaganzy
I dug up some old poetry of mine from an anthology written a bit over two years ago. Obviously, a lot of it is trash. However, I picked a few out to post here, both as a reminder to me and a bit of a treat (if you can call it that) for you.
Words are Like a Loaded Gun
Words are like a loaded gun
So Sartre said
And now he’s dead
It wasn’t verse that took his life
But time –
The most uncaring knife
Yet still it’s true
For words have killed
Many a tyrant and have spilled
The blood of those with no defense
Against the hands around their necks
The modern fighter has sheathed his blade
And chosen a more forceful tool
For the pen can easily be used
To bend the minds of king and fool
(This was when I was at the height of my Sartre-worship. Enjoy the rhyming while you can, it’s all downhill from here…)
Thank You Heston
Bang
Blast
Fast – quicker
Than he thought it’d be
The air ignites in reverence of the god that passes by
It isn’t misplaced awe – a god decides who lives and dies
And this
one’s
dead
(Later became a song. Better in poem form, I think. Although, the song does have a great chorus, adapted from Army of Darkness: “Good, bad, I’m the guy with the gun.”)
Denouement
The stars were quoted as saying
“Humanity is a fad”
But stars can’t talk
So no one will laugh
When there’s nothing left
But a barren rock
And fossils from the past
(Inspired by Bad Religion’s Part IV (The Fossil Index).)
EVERYTHING IS ABSURD
The problem with counter-culture
Is it becomes the new-culture
People who hate everything
Their irony
That is
They become what they hate
Poetic rhetoric only takes you so far
And quickly
It too gets old
Stay in the game
Or live outside
In a self-deprecating
Childish bubble of ignorance
Your call
Truly
The cliché lives a sad ironic life
Superman
Unflinchingly
The superman proceeds
He casts aside prehistoric notions
Good and evil merely words
Like any other
Hail to the superman
For he has truly moved beyond us
And lives in a world of his own
Alone
(Is this a reference to Nietzsche or a paean to the Last Son of Krypton? You be the judge…)
Unpoem
Poem
Poem
No poem here
But no-poem’s another poem yet to be written
A poem is only such when called by name
Could just as easily be
Rambling
Rant
Recycled trash
Definition useful to a point
From A to B
The poets write and will be damned
If they’ll stick to a straight line
(I have endured endless mocking at the first two lines of this one. Poem! Poem! Get yer poems! We got sonnets on sale, five pence a dozen!)
$91
Ginsberg Burroughs Cassady Walker
Johnny especially
Knew well but the last perhaps too
Met him seventeen times an hour
And finally killed him
Lowell oh Lowell
Jean-Louis
I apologize
For calling you the king of Beats
(This one needs some explaining — skip this if you don’t want to know too much about it. Jack Kerouac was a beat author who was friends with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady. The “Walker” in the song refers to Johnny Walker, a drink Kerouac knew only too well. Apparently, he once drank an obscene amount in one hour (hence “meeting him”). His alcoholism would be the cause of his death. Additionally, he never wanted to be seen as “king” of anything — yet he is referred to as the “King of Beats” by many.)
Reptile Brain
When I see you
There’s no control
When they say their heart
They just mean primal
Instinct
That is the
Terrifying truth of the
Evolved
When the old
Haunts the new
(I like the second half of this one, not so much the first.)
Republic
Be fair the Truth
is not a tightrope that can be walked
it’s far too slack for that
Neither is it a line which
can easily be crossed
since it was long ago
rubbed out
Some seek to find everlasting
a Truth of Forms conquering
all lower-case truths
found by the non-kings
the philosopher-kings being
Those who have found this Truth
among other things and so
have authority to rule
the world which they say
they escaped to from the cave
A rule founded on superior notions
notions which may sadly prove to
be disastrously wrong
Don’t tell the man
who believes in the World since
he’ll surely call you blind
(Take that, Plato!)
Prelude
Man knows that he is winning
He’s winning he knows
But he doesn’t know where he goes
To utopia maybe
Or likely
More to oblivion
He thinks that he’s winning
Against whom is unsure but
Rest assured that victory is secure
(Ending on a prelude? Am I mad?)
Quite clearly, yes.
