The Lamp of Diogenes
Diogenes went around
in the night
with his lamp
looking for
an honest man.
He could not find one,
We all flatter each other,
and lie about
what we see
or is there
and truly exists
and deny reality
for the sake of others'
opinions and acclaim.
We suck up to
phonies
and the power elite
and deny
the length of a line
if others demur.
We flatter each other.
This world is
mere illusion,
We are not yet
quite real.
The Philosophers Jalopy, II
My guts
are comparable
to the innards
of a machine
with syncopated rhythm.
A machine
is an idea
in sculpture.
The miracle is
when it runs.
The Deviant Universe
Out of the muck
when I ran amuck,
when the sun and stars
seemed to brighten
and dim
depending on my mood
and thought and whim,
I seemed the matrix
of the universe.
I'm incapable
of putting this disease
into plain verse.
All is solipsism.
The cure is self-amnesia
and realizing that
we are all matrices,
while a glimpse
at the true thunder
would frighten
and annihilate us.
I reflect the sun.
The sun does not
reflect me.
Giapetto's Workshop
My father!
Is my father
the tree
from which I,
Pinocchio
was taken
or Giapetto
who carved me?
Is my father
he who pulls
my strings
or he who
sets me free.
My father,
I am a
walking tree
willing this or that,
or I am not.
And we are
all
Pinocchio.
An Asbury Park Day
The boardwalk is desolate now
and the beach deserted.
By sand
and Syncopated breakers.
Once upon a time
I asked her,
"May I write a poem
upon the topic
that would please me most?
She said, "Yes."
Scan then her skin
what I wrote in blank verse
on bare abdomen.
The illusion is over.
By sand and syncopated breakers,
she told me then,
"I am the unobtainable;
we have only this one day."
As I said, now the beach
is deserted.
That day will never
return again,
but I still have this pen.
Lao Tsu
Of all in China
he was the most wise.
His three treasures were
to care,
to he just
and to be humble.
He said,
"Force is not the way
at all."
He detached himself
from the world
into which confusion and alarms
he had been roughly
hurled.
Let us do likewise.