I don’t understand poetry. I don’t read it or write it, but sometimes, as a break in writing novels or writing about writing them, I lapse into verse. The forms I seem to favor include philosophical doggerel, blues lyrics and haiku. Here are a few examples. Please take them in the spirit in which they are intended - trivial amusement.


The Devil’s Question

It is the devil’s question
And it will always be:
What is this thing,
This thing that I call me.

It came from nothing,
Lit the sky and filled the earth
With all the things that I could know
And left me with a thirst.

I’m dry as dust,
And in the mirror
I see an empty shell.

The poltergeist
Behind my eyes
Could tease me straight to hell.

But the mirror’s for the fun house,
A way to lose the way,
Reflection of reflection,
A sucker trap to keep me
From the carnival outside.

The light will fade,
And what I know
Will dwindle down to naught.

And still the question
Will remain
To devil other lives.

But I will join the carnival
Where questions are ignored.
The wheel will spin
The lights will flash
And I will be no more.


Haiku - Not!
(a little local humor)

Of Somerville and Somervillens -
Some are vile
And some are villains.

The rest of us are just
As clean and cool as if
We lived in Cambridge.


Talking Like a Fool

Some people say they make things better
With all their running around.
But things don’t get no better
Till we’re six feet under ground.

They say you got to kill your brother
If you want to make your way.
I hear their fear and whining,
And I don’t know what to say.

There’s people selling love, right now.
There’s people selling hate.
But I’m not selling nothing
I’m just talking like a fool.

People talk like fools, oh yeah.
We’re all just talking fools.
If words could save the world, they would,
But they’re just the words of fools.


They send you in a woman
When you’re lying in your bed.
They send you in a woman
Fingers cool upon your head.
She comes in from the cold, dark night
And you know you’ll soon be dead.

The people gonna talk.
That’s what they love to do.
So, let the people talk.
Let them torture, let them kill.
Yeah, let the people talk
Until the dirt has stopped their mouths.

There’s no reason to be here.
There’s no reason to leave.
I don’t want to fight
And I don’t want to grieve.
They say you got to pick one,
If you want to exist.
They must think they’re just
Talking to a fool.

Just talking like the fools we be.
Right now I’m talking like a fool.
Trying to save the world, oh yeah,
I’m talking like a fool.


Haiku

Melting mountain snow
The way of light and water
Endless ocean waits


One Life

Plants and animals live and die
without ever asking why.
The plankton sifts into the gut of the whale
fulfilling its destiny, an end in itself.

We humans alone find nothing in this
endless circle of life.
The vector that made us must be going somewhere.
We study the past, imagine the future
and curse the darkness there.

Rejoice that you live.
Rejoice that you die,
and give it up.
You’ll never know why.