Incubus

This gnome, this charming horror,
That sits Apollo-like upon my lusty soul;
Call him Conscience,
Wryly grinning,
Mirthful as a martinet
In parody of joy,
He slits the envelope and stirs between
A foil to mind and spirit,
Still lustful, lascivious, gross, unkind,
But never lost in dirt or callous suffering;
For give this gruesome little wart of sin his due
The college-taught proprieties were born of him
And tie-clad stalwarts know his school;
Refinement, bred of ease, has coached his whim.

mcmlx

The Teaching of the Tsue

You don’t buy
    you don’t hoard
        happiness
            in this world
you share* good fortune
    you share loss
        as a people
            a people among you
that is the lesson
            we teach by example
singly we are straws
                in the wind
together even straws
            can make a structure
    weak as it is
        weak as it is
    together

*not literally
    not literally
we but walk in shadows

Verbal account of a sailor, survivor of a ship wrecked near a remote inlet on the coast of B.C., who sojourned among the inhabitants for many years until found delirious in a canoe off the land, dying in a few days.


mmv

Alley Loo Yeah Chorus, Part III (Tuesday Blogging)

why does hell befriend fear
   yellow delight mucked up by dearie-me
   yelp tail-tucked between loins
   sliding away from afraidz welcoming charm
   resisting abrading miracle
   of being washed up with aphroditez foam

furrow ploughed ad lib
   greek-fustianed
   share rotating determinate earth
   oxen stubbing hooves on precursory marbles
   writing is writ
   informing terra firma

great gas oven sun eyeballs horizon
   sugar-coated pasteldrawing job f nemesis
   moon twilights earth
   deaf eardrum f star
   paying dues in peripheral dalliance
   circumspect marriage avoiding crunch

touch n go catastrophes happen
   plague f hunches leapfrog to armageddon
   clearsighted window
   gazing out
   reminds us of eye f gods
   looking on from idle end of telescope

if pleading-dumb philosophers re-script no proverbs
   who stands holding oracular telescope
   does watchdog science own no mortal provenance
   is classical clearsightedness looking-glass
   whoz watching whom
   must we solipsize with yeahway:
      “i am what i am”
   and p.s. with popeye:
      “that’s all that i yam!”?

Alley Loo Yeah Chorus (Tuesday Blogging)

Alley Loo Yeah Chorus
   or Sane Tongue Worth Thousand Manners

Fickle fingers at point
   seeking out Tad
      who would stand for Simple Simon yearnings
      stoolbound in corner
      dunce cap anointed

Tad, we proclaim,
   though greater machinations get abroad
   over dead bodies
   than ABC’s abrogated

Oyez   Oyez   Oyez
   Hey man   Hey man   Hey man
   O yeah   O yeah   Oyeah

Thumbstruck Tad
   fundament three o-pinioned
   R for rogue
   R for rebel
   R for refractory

      alley will lull y
      alley will fool y
      alley will school y
      sully me none
      heads will nod
      t’others will roll
      hey ho me hardhearties n bullyboyz
      alley lullaby ‘ll rule y!

Tad, one ear bugged by radio hot line wiseacre
   whoz tossin stone with malapropos zeal
   t’other boxed by Salomez head-on-platter song

      let’s all sing Salome’s song
      let’s all sing Salome’s song
      let’s all sing Salome’s song
         sin, gentlefolk, please!

      if’n everybodyz victim
      all hands turn up clean
      whoz to blame?
      let’s all play hide-n-go-seek-‘m-out:
      anomalees, if you please … first!

If’n everybodyz victim
then everybody can be predator
But top must be on bottom
   bottom must be on top
That’s the rules of the game!

babe in manger
   idiot on stool
   what do they have in common
   when one was born to rule?

tother was not meant for throne or parliament
   he was taught misbegotten role:
   how to play the fool

shapes!   we come born in shapes
   some shapely, some misshapen
   by whose standards?
   critical eye! prejudicial I!

exception to rule of order
   Tad by election
   posted kittycorner to schoolroom
   pilloried figure of shun
      for pointed sniggers and gibes

here he reigns
   anointed with generation’s dust
   dunce’s cone for crown
   he shall moan
   he shall whimper
   he shall not cry uncle
   with temper main gauge and helpmeet:
   to hot blood and cold circumstance
      he shall knuckle down

come! sez alley-loud-yeah prophet
   i’ll spin you tuppeny dream
   i’ll box you shadow play
   i’ll sing you te deum
   i’ll hymn you alley-loud-yeah anthem
   yeah

Is it for heydays

Is it for heydays that I seek?
The stimulation of the racy life?
This vice, that satisfaction, the urge to be or have
Or do as I would do?

"More haste less speed," like shuttered slides that catch
The instant broken moment
That stirs to mind then goes;
The replica of all our yesterdays.

Turn a page, turn a page,
Another leaf, another thought,
Of what lies forward, a glance behind
Taken in the extremity of our advance.

Who cares for "sober thoughts and calm desires"
In these our busy days?
What price the aching forehead
That relates the pressures of the evening spent
In search of fond amusement?

Where to find our bearings?
What star to sight and keep a constant watch
On moods of destiny?
Juggle the stars! Reorient the sun!
Turn somersaults upon the lazy pole,
Our vantage-point for flags of nation-hood
Fixed upon the station of our brows!

Well? What god?
What GOD?
What ideal path to walk upon or from?
Who dares to march in unison with troops
The legions of the damned or dead
In favour'd obsequy, the leading principle unread,
Which states the golden rule:
"Belong or else be spurned; behave or else be turned
Upon the spit." You learned a lesson sullenly.
Throw caution to the winds. Grasp the lean bottle
By the empty neck. The heck with heroes!
Swing wildly, mow the crop like tares
That pall and fall in orgies on the stairs
To upwards swarming mountaineers, in freeway
Desperation. Visitation of the fevered mind.

Look on. Look up. In verses loudly call
The mess to order. Let others sicken on the sentiment.
Muses, poets; idylls, dreams of troubadours
In love with romance.
What the latest breath can tell
As I expire upon my bed of nails.

c. 1960

Alley Loo Yeah Chorus (Tuesday Blogging)

(Note: this is a long poem, in 50 sections plus prologue. I will be posting one section per week, on Tuesdays. The cumulative sections to date will be posted in the sidebar, under "Alley Loo Yeah Chorus".)

Prologue to Alley Loo Yeah Chorus

i laurie fond old man
    eking allotment of sand in hourglass
    reminded of surplus
    how soon permission for astonishment
      diminishes
    search for foot-on-neck remedy

big z wunderful
    infra dig z mean
    big z little hierarchy
      writ large on silhouette screen

when bottom line
    reads in red
    “bottoms spanked”
    arent further bottoms
    with common weals striped?

peckin order scores big
    among mates
    who figger to rate higher
    on richter scale
    attendant fallout from causalties
        discounted
    by rogues, bullies n ingrates

i fond old man
    exchanging baton
    meant for play or war
    hand down to successor
    soldiering on
    in fellowship anon

this my prologue
    this my witness
  written under rubric
    of westering sun

mcmdcccviii rev. mm

to rhyme's a reason for making sense

Whoa! wot me, bend the knee to deity
because top of pecking order
as far as eye can see --
or stretches bestial herd mentality?

   stripe me pink! i can think!
venerate power for brute's sake
might as well pity the lake
for not being as big as the ocean
or shed a tear over small beer

   i drink when i list for thirst's own sake
and heed my thirst my thirst to slake
one notion is to and another is fro
where has that logic got us ... yo
into palace, city hall and gutters!

   dry up rain! cease storm! sunburst vanish!
what's left to cherish:
deserts seabeds and darkling hours
naked stripped of their potency
like a hired whore's quenched fire
a violation of love, will and desire

   we come to grief and loss   lament the cost
unappeased by reason we beg to heaven
for amelioration
why? let me guess--
as if ours were the deity's business

   top dog or bottom   win or lose
to be born we share the risk   no shame
welcome to breath, spirit's vital sign
never blame candle's fluttering flame
no sorcery exists up yonder
beyond the magic of our wonder

mmvi

Keep Off The Grass!

Contradictions
   dear to mores
contrary to writ
rarely fit our earthly pleasures
lasting as they do
eternally in thought
   but deed is over momently
and so adieu to prohibitions
solicitor of hangups
mentor of repressions

   it's hello to franker feelings
and how to deal with love and lust and arrant rage
acknowledging our passions unashamed
and unafraid of social duress
   barbed wire barricade
to thwart our predilections
   a press of pressgangs
printers inking laws for whores and witches
indigents and sons-'f-bitches
which we take for granted
inescapably as ours

   finality is banality   don't you think?
so tip me a wink my merry lasss
and together we shall pass our laws of liberty
by coaxing what we will to be
free of logic's anonymity!
   walking if we care on grass
or lying on it
just as suits our fancy
like a pretty woman's bonnet

197_ (rev. mmvi)

if, generally speaking

if, generally speaking, in the main
and not as a general directive from Heaven
virtue is its own reward
then surely virtue reverts to an earlier meaning
a potential capacity to act of beneficial value
and not a gift requiring a gift in ceremonial exchange
such as a salute from those who watch unobserved
over our good moral behaviour
that tiresome facility acquired by paying attention
to the strictures of one's elders
though how our elders know what the unobserved observer
expects or demands     i am at a loss to explain
perhaps none of us is to be trusted
rotten to the core, originally deceitful, froward and recalcitrant
bad boys and girls
though that's not what i have noticed
could it be virtue is its own reward when it's not regarded as a virtue
but a simple act contrary to our originally sinful nature ...
oh dear, my mind is tied up in knots!
i'm inclined to believe the scholar monks and friars were right
when they dumped reasoning as a path to Heaven --
and isn't a virtue
i've eaten of the tree of knowledge
rotten apple to the core
and time to spit it out --
bluntly, to hell with rewards
they select the few with whom i am not generally on speaking terms
exceptional behaviour is its own reward, nobody wins or loses
though benefits may accrue
moral: don't expect any special favour for favour given
    let things fall out as they may and will; that's virtue
and do me a favour, forget i uttered a word

Easy rider

Saturday sunday sanity
where have you gone?
      america marches on
from a.m. to p.m. to the sound of a drum
   pompoms on field of play and battle
   marching in like array
   before the bug-eyed black box
      chips off the old block ready to turn
burn baby burn! till even a liberal worm will squirm
   tail up escaping the insanity of bloody humanity
      seven days a week of wonder
      fifty-two weeks of fear and anger
   for a year's annual return
      the holocaust
the holy cost of dying
   bits and pieces flying
   miasma of plasma
   shit and buttons mixed
      hallelujah     son-of-a-bitch     ditched
   pitchforked into purgatory
git along little dogie!     the all-american west
   just went thataway!     unbutton your vest
you stink without the sanctity of saturday sunday sanity
       deodorant vanity?     ugh!

mimlxi

We people - you and me - together

We people     you and me     together
we know the whether and if
that govern choice
not a reedy voice from god
nor a living-up to morals
(little red devils pointing the finger of scorn
wishing we were not born)

    what we want are mights and mays
these oughts are ways like pilgrim's progress
better left for them that raise
the hallelujah chorus
for us exactly-made is tailored to a fashion
fit to preach
we seek a definition like the sun that's out of reach

    at the cockcrow
we'll not beseech the keeper of the gate
for just desserts
no more of psalms or qualms or laud alarms
straight in the eye     shoulders high
we'll march to oblivion
which suits our mettle
boiling water never melted kettle

1970, rev. mmi