137. Among the Ill
The illnesses we drag around through life
remind us that we are merely human.
They cause us to wrest peace from daily strife,
to focus on self-care, which they help illumine.
When sick, I’m reduced to a single smudge
of uselessness - a gray, pathetic stain.
I wait for a kick from my wife to nudge
me out of my torpor, but mostly she won’t deign.
I pine for “something better beginning”
(in the words of Ray Davies and the Kinks).
I hardly care that my hair is thinning.
But Mama, don’t let me be sick no more. It stinks!
It’s humbling, having to swallow that pill -
that we all get to count ourselves among the ill.
138. Sister, Hold Steady!
Art frequently awaits a change of shade.
The last utterance is now in the books
and bears that look of something newly made.
The poet pokes around for other looks,
but the time isn’t right yet, it would seem.
There hasn’t taken place that crucial shift
of weather, current events, color scheme,
or upwind to create that certain lift
that will generate a poetic act.
And so, you must be ready and waiting,
in strict observance of noetic tact,
which shuns premature joy and elating
when the Darstellung is not yet ready.
Said the First Muse to Sappho, “Sister, hold steady!”
139. In Response to a Claim by Neil Young
–composed on the day of the 3rd No Kings protests–
“Just singing a song won’t change the world!” True.
An essential motif of modern art.
But it reflects a limited worldview -
a narrow take on change…at least in part.
For everything we do amounts to change.
Indeed, the world’s the sum of our changes -
rapid, microcosmic, incremental
adjustments and shifts worked by the vast range
of parts from our brains to our phalanges.
Custodians of corporal rental,
intelligence doled out in human form.
Millennia of fumbling and caprice,
reason and progress, error and hubris.
This cycle includes a recurrent beast,
whose time is now. Once again, we must get through this.
140. On Faux Iconoclasm and Emily’s Nobody
"I'm Nobody! Who are you?" - Emily Dickinson
We shouldn’t take anything for granted,
though we all do and there’s no way not to.
Those elders whom we think we’ve supplanted?
Honor them completely. That’s my motto!
We fashion ourselves iconoclastic
and bruit our superiority.
Our contumely is kneejerk and spastic
and signals cramped interiority,
confinement within our own flatulence.
Time to get out and breathe some healthy air,
exercise, and question that fattened sense
of self we fancy lends us style and flair.
Emily deemed identity overrated
and found her inner Nobody better traited.
141. Your Genie Within
Everyone’s born with a genie within.
You, too…but you may not have found it yet.
It’s like that proverbial haystack pin;
you’ll mount and dig and dig and sneeze and fret.
It may appear as Barbara Eden,
who’ll stun you with her beauty and her wit,
happy to have been granted her freedom
and her bottled eternity to intermit.
It may come as Yoda or Augustine,
who’ll lead you to your power, stealth, or grace,
assisting as you blow to smithereens
the barriers between you and your truer face.
I found my genie fairly early on.
They all know each other, as they’re of the same spawn.
142. Remembering Bourdain
It’s hard to tell what will make an impact,
both personally and collectively.
Will what we’ve introduced become a fact,
as if it took place ineluctably?
Or will it sparkle and flash in the pan
of public memory and attention,
then end with the latter’s limited span
and disappear with hardly a mention?
Tony Bourdain spent years in a kitchen
and was discovered when he wrote a book.
They gave him a retirement mission
to explore the world as a retired cook.
He’d no idea then that what he’d do
would change his world, its views, and our worldview.
143. Jones avec Haas
This alter self I’ve exteriorized…
indeed it seems another life apart.
Whenever it appears before my eyes,
I see, inversely mirrored in my art,
a semblable who once began as me
but at some point achieved independence,
embodying every antinomy
through a kind of immanent transcendence -
each contradiction that’s defined my self
since early in life, perhaps before birth.
Gaps that are both cause and concern of health,
flaws through which I’m the butt of others’ mirth.
When I ponder my bones, I often pause
and think, “Are they Jones? Or do they belong to Haas?”
144. On Humor, Truth, and Caustic Clarity
We all need moments of hilarity.
In fact, I depend on my daily laugh!
They provide us with caustic clarity,
whether through pratfall or an accidental gaffe.
Some folks are born with no sense of humor;
they’re unable to tell or take a joke.
You wonder if they’re prey to a tumor
or broken funny bone slung with a darkened cloak.
I know a bunch who are quite literal
and can’t communicate by gist or trope.
Strict denotation is their pinnacle,
and the right side of their brain is beyond all hope.
But the truth is that truth’s quite as funny
as Trump’s name and face on American money!
145. Everyamerican and Rage in the Time of Trump
I’ll be Everyamerican today.
I sure don’t want no goddam Epstein war!
Billions squandered while our systems decay,
and tact and diplomacy now the stuff of lore.
I’m every non-MAGA American
who’s seen clear enough not to have been duped
by this atrocious orange ferryman
who’s scooted us through Hell’s gates while Cerberus pooped.
I’ll script out my own morality play,
with characters named after abstractions
like Pete Pugilismus and Don Decay
and their icy debutante, Blondi Redactions.
Some dramatist will tweak it for the stage,
though catharsis will only serve to fuel our rage.*
[*Alternative ending:
Some dramatist will tweak it for the stage;
it’ll play at Trump-Lincoln Center to Trump’s rage!]
146. Badges and Banners
Mannerisms subside into manners
with age, affectation to mere affect.
Our ego doffs its badges and banners -
souvenirs to be boxed in the attic.
For “I am” now means something more and less
than what it meant when we were young and brash,
mistaking conceit for subtle finesse
and costumed morbidity for panache.
Throughout our youth we try things out for size;
nothing fits very well for very long.
Identity is an elusive prize
to be announced with a bang on a gong
when some god’s judged, “Yes, this is who you are.”
But we slough this off whenever we get that far!
147. Pee-yew! (or, Words in Their Vocable Slime)
Rhyme is a provisional timelessness.
The number of rhymes we’ve generated
for “it’s true” - the weakest and the finest -
by rock star bards and by venerated
poets like Shelley, the Brownings, and Frost
seems endless, though meanings are repeated.
A collection in which nothing gets lost,
as pairs are reused whenever needed.
A provisional timelessness is rhyme -
a claim I’m repeating in inversion.
It preserves words in their vocable slime,
functioning as cologne and detergent.
I wrote this poem in a jiffy, it’s true.
Its aroma’s nice, though some of you’ll say “Pee-yew!”
148. With Bated Breath (or, Trumped Again and Again)
There are rumors that he’s on his last legs;
the whole world is waiting with bated breath.
This personified catastrophe begs
the question, should we be eager for evil’s death?
The logic: Why not? For evil is bad,
and the world’s a better place without it.
And the counter? “But he once was a lad,
and children by nature are good. Never doubt it!”
Nature gone bad is irredeemable,
any number of seraphs would opine.
Such a death to most is ungrievable,
we would say - a conviction that ain’t only mine!
This all may be wishful thinking, my friend.
Conclusions foregone are trumped again and again!
149. Wordless Raga
So many notions, my head may explode.
I need five dupled feet to slow me down.
This frenetic energy may corrode
my ability to copulate sense with sound.
There’s only so much news that I can take
before I stamp my foot, cry “Hold! Enough!”
then retire for good to a northern lake
and write sonnets about wrens and bluebells and stuff.
And it’s not that I blame Wordsworth for that.
At some point he felt compelled to retrench
and hide from every high Romantic prat
who hoped to unseat him from his exalted bench.
Now don’t think I’m threatening to go “full MAGA.”
I’ll stitch my complaints into a wordless raga!
150. A Century and a Half
Each tenth item or so should be a gag,
just like a fugue in some sequence by Bach.
It should stick out from the whole like a flag,
a sore thumb, a post, a rendezvous rock.
Some might be given to titular play:
“Titles Here Are Subject to Removal.”
Or this one - “A Century and a Half.”
One might serve as calligram or cachet -
poet’s stamp of his own self-approval.
Maybe a hidden correlation graph.
Some cutup nonsense ala Bill Burroughs
can serve as a fun and healthy reset.
“A pile, please, of hot chocolate churros…
though a free flight to Cygnus would be better yet!”
151. Inscribed Within Our Verse
You position yourself as conduit
for energies of language and the day.
There’s got to be someone who will do it,
despite our era's commotion and disarray.
An anguish that’s prolonged and specific
(for every age is troubled, as we know).
It’s only potentially horrific,
but potential for horror seems to grow and grow.
Between rich and poor, the gap’s enormous;
billionaires threaten to swallow us whole.
Propaganda outlets have deformed us,
and our morality is one of shallow soul.
There needs to be inscribed within our verse
some action plan for humanity to rehearse.
152. The Peppery Soul Seed of Anthony Kiedis
“The Hollywood hills pre-selected me
to rock them sideways with my saber tooth
with tall Hillel and our bass-brother Flea,
who were assigned the high labor of ‘80s’ youth.
L.A. demanded our vigor and spunk,
and city youths know just what cities need.
From scrap yards of ‘70s rock and funk,
we concocted a jam or paste of soul and seed.
Forty years later, we’re still going strong
and fill arenas like back in the day.
I’ve still got a voice and can sing each song
we manage to coax from this jam each time we play.”
Who knew then, GenXers, how much we’d still need this?
The peppery soul seed of Anthony Kiedis!
153. The Art of Bringing It All to a Close
We strive for an air of finality
to accompany a type of statement
we find ourselves making when finally
we’ve realigned the faulty escapement
and our timepiece is clicking once again.
For we’ve integrated that risk we took
when we opened a new path way back when,
questioning ourselves, unsure of our luck.
And now we’ve successfully reached the end,
which we know is a new beginning, too.
Yes, finality is our faithful friend,
closing the old yet opening the new.
An aesthetic of its own, I suppose -
this art of bringing it all to a happy close.
[Next: Finale: Our Tenth Junana]
[Some Sentences: 170 Sonnets homepage]