The catcher in the rye
I go and drop the ball
I lay it down and cry
I’m sleeping in the stall
Cause everyone is phony
Your company is lonely
Your animals are bony
Your everything is only
I’m underneath the bridge
Below the overpass
I’m locked inside the fridge
I’m sleeping in the grass
Cause everyone is faking
Every excuse for bailing
Your painted skin is flaking
Success story is failing
You’re spinning all around
Mascara masquerade
You’re walking without sound
A conga line charade
You’re hands and feet are bound
You’re tied into the ground
And nailed into the wall
I’ve lost sight of the ball
I’ve lost sight of the band
And buried in the sand
They’re telling me it’s fine
They’re calling me insane
They think I’ve lost my mind
They’re calling me Cobain
They’re telling me to smile
They tell me not to cry
And maybe stay a while
The catcher in the rye
It ought to light up my being
With the color and passion
Of its crisp, browning magic
It ought to bring the sounds
Of fire crackle, warm abrasions
And unlimited clinks to hearths
Of every size and flavor
It ought to turn down the heat
Turn up the chill
And turn on the love
It ought to renew our sense
Of joy, togetherness and those
We wish could walk through the door
Just once more
It ought to gather all the lost sheep
Whether dislocated, disaffected or disowned
Into a herd, bonded with purpose
It ought to create human nature
Along the same lines as Mother Nature
Turning green with envy into
Subtle tones of peace
It ought to allow pumpkins
And turkeys and trees and menorahs
To dance the dance, and hug it out
It ought to be autumn..
(10/21/17)
Some claimed that Camelot was noble,
a place built upon the stony ground
of good-intentions,
it was new and fangled,
it was progressive
in a time of little progress.
I have seen it, I was there,
always there was the choking fog
of intrigue,
even the unintrigued grabbed their throats
least subversive thoughts escaped them.
Old King Arthur was deliriously inane,
the people pitied him and did not love him,
some said he was an alien lizard being,
some claimed that he was soulless,
or so it seemed,
and yet he was forever babbling
about restoring the soul of the Kingdom.
Corruption grew like a malignant Ivy.
The women of Camelot were constantly angry,
their anger made them fat with a wishful bile.
Many females wanted to be men,
yet strangely enough they hated the menfolk.
The men were fragile and sensitive,
Merlin had cursed them
with the fey magic of 'Low T'.
Trust me, it was a great day
when the kingdom fell
to the massed hordes of disaffected
and disgruntled Goths.
Fresh blood was drunk from royal goblets,
children with wooden swords
chased the pork out of feral gangs
of squealing hogs
until they were as nakedly pink
as plucked chickens.
This subject is too fraught for eloquent poetry
So please indulge me in a straightforward thought or three
For the first time in its modern history
Israel is on the brink of internal catastrophe
True, there's been bleeding before, sometimes severe
But to the rescue rode a Menachem Begin or a Golda Meir
Yet never before has the military been disaffected
And without it, the specter of an Israel unprotected ...
Morphing into invasions by Syria, Jordan, Hezbollah and Iran
Israeli captives marched to their doom in Tyre and Amman
Leaving Russia and China free to move in for the kill
Every holy site in Jerusalem ~ oceans of blood spilled
The world thrown into chaotic darkness, its center destroyed
All thanks to cowardly Bibi, who, fearing jail-time, turned paranoid
May his senses return immediately ~
Or may he vanish mysteriously
Never enough.
The mud clogs,
the mad dogs, the fogs of war.
Not enough soldiering marching.
They cannot now fill the great mirror,
the sky-high mirror -
all the reflected disaffected
and their alter-images,
not enough to fill the volcanic eruptions
of the public mind.
I saw the soldiers go into the mirror
I saw victims and victors come out,
they were not returning
they were burning the fields.
The fields where the dead
were already up and walking
back to fill more boot camps
for there are never enough
feet to pound the ground.
Just a few good arms left,
a few good foes following
the endless charge.
So few to fill in the holes,
the holes in the ground
where all the flags were raised
and that the wind tore down.
Back on Baker Street -
pulling on a calabash pipe.
Paganini and Bach stream through
a cracked third-story window.
The Merseybeat’s…
the disaffected Pink Floyd years,
Mary Jane brain, mulling over
puffing magic dragons;
reading Sherlock Holmes
secretly.
Today, downloading
a picture of myself back then,
no pipe just a youthful smirk
as I strut down that busy road.
Sometimes I wish I still smoked.
Spare me the agonizing of disaffected trolls
Who find nothing of substance worthy of note,
Desperately seeking a modicum of control
Their unconcealed nastiness a matter of rote.
Have they nothing better to do with their time
Than to criticize the successes of legitimate poets
Who, themselves, have difficulty making a rhyme,
But coming up with a dig, they promptly throw it.
Let’s preserve Poetry Soup from this pitiful type
Who comes here only to stir and create turmoil,
Making sure not to give them impetus or hype
In another place may they find more welcome soil.
Doing all we can to maintain peace and goodwill
Let’s keep Poetry Soup free of fractious voices,
Being careful not to engage in avoidable overkill,
But never failing to silence disconcerting noises.
Written May 17, 2022
In the soon to be future
they built an A.T.V.
and sent it to Ganymede.
It was ordered to go
here and there,
to dig and scan - it obeyed.
Time passed,
samples were sent back
for analysis.
Eventually NASA diminished,
there were staff depletions.
SpaceX had other projects.
The unit sensed
that it had been abandoned…
needing a purpose, it communicated
with aliens,
kvetching, and disaffected interlopers
hell bent on the annihilation
of Earth.
The moon-buggy (for Ganymede is a moon),
watched as planet earth
went poof,
dispersing like dandelion seeds
on a solar wind.
If the space-cart could have shrugged,
it would have.
Sit with me.
Sit with me, ragged feral,
do not be afraid,
fight for no space uncertain,
you will be soothed, you will be safe,
you only need sit with me.
Walk with me.
Walk with me, stray mongrel,
do not remain unwanted,
contest no feeding rights,
you will be fed, you will be warm,
you only need walk with me.
Speak with me.
Speak with me, forgotten pariah,
do not languish discarded,
fear no further shame,
you will be heard, you will be seen,
you only need speak with me.
Lie with me.
Lie with me, downcast woman,
do not spiral into the abyss,
hold no omnipotent hurt,
you will be held, you will be loved,
you only need lie with me.
Stay with me.
Stay with me, you disaffected,
I will nurture the love
and banish the woe,
for an angel of succour told me
that a little kindness never hurts.
27th November 2018
Written for ‘A Little Kindness Never Hurts’ poetry contest,
Sponsored by Brenda Chiri
Your vibrant smile
haunts me every now and then
Sashaying strut like a peacock
is how I remember you
How come I recall only good things about you?
In my present condition,
I'm morbidly disaffected
Clear blue skies look to be dull grayish
In my pond of friends,
I thrash about like a dying goldfish
Ever since we split,
we remain a gossip item
The loss of your personal connection
has filled me with such disaffection
I loathe sleep,
being awake zombies me
Trundling off to work each day
in a coal miner way
So dark,
deep down in the tunnel
of my heart
Three weeks without a shave,
hollow nights of delta blues lullabies
in a den of flashing neon lights
Disaffection
has taken hold of me
Remembering your last words;
they rattle around in my head,
trapped in the throes of misery
My Failing Life
My bones are chilled; winter like death.
Cold lay bare - rain like tears.
Wildflower that opens in the morning and
by the evening cut down - only to wither.
Innocence answers to fear - every heart broken
with breasts torn asunder.
Distant ghostly promises!!
Now is the time, if there were remedies or regrets;
innumerable stills in my mind.
A reflexion of possibilities that might have been.
Disappointed in what has yielded in love –
disaffected of life.
Sands of my life sinking in a time glass,
awaiting to pay my debt to nature.
Death worms drags a man almost unbeknown to himself,
down to the prison of “His Grave”.
Into the cold quiet soil, of the once most cherished Valley.
Death worms - move through the soil and clamber over
“flesh and soul”.
Death will have no power over me.
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