Today Poems - Poems For Today

lonely as a dry and used orchard spread over the earth for use and surrender. shot down like an ex-pug selling dailies on the corner. taken by tears like an aging chorus girl who has gotten her last check. a hanky is in order your lord your worship. the blackbirds are rough today like ingrown toenails in an overnight jail--- wine wine whine, the blackbirds run around and fly around harping about Spanish melodies and bones. and everywhere is nowhere--- the dream is as bad as flapjacks and flat tires: why do we go on with our minds and pockets full of dust like a bad boy just out of school--- you tell me, you who were a hero in some revolution you who teach children you who drink with calmness you who own large homes and walk in gardens you who have killed a man and own a beautiful wife you tell me why I am on fire like old dry garbage. we might surely have some interesting correspondence. it will keep the mailman busy. and the butterflies and ants and bridges and cemeteries the rocket-makers and dogs and garage mechanics will still go on a while until we run out of stamps and/or ideas. don't be ashamed of anything; I guess God meant it all like locks on doors.

If Jesus was born today it would be in a downtown motel marked by a helicopter's flashing bulb. A traffic warden, working late, would be the first upon the scene. Later, at the expense of a TV network, an eminent sociologist, the host of a chat show and a controversial author would arrive with their good wishes -the whole occasion to be filmed as part of the 'Is This The Son Of God?' one hour special. Childhood would be a blur of photographs and speculation dwindling by his late teens into 'Where Is He Now?' features in Sunday magazines. If Jesus was thirty today they wouldn't really care about the public ministry, they'd be too busy investigating His finances and trying to prove He had Church or Mafia connections. The miracles would be explained by an eminent and controversial magician, His claims to be God's Son recognised as excellent examples of Spoken English and immediately incorporated into the O-Level syllabus, His sinless perfection considered by moral philosophers as, OK, but a bit repressive. If Jesus was thirty-one today He'd be the fly in everyone's ointment- the sort of controversial person who stands no chance of eminence. Communists would expel Him, capitalists would exploit Him or have Him smeared by people who know a thing or two about God. Doctors would accuse Him of quackery, soldiers would accuse Him of cowardice, theologians would take Him aside and try to persuade Him of His non-existence. If Jesus was thirty-two today we'd have to end it all. Heretic, fundamentalist, literalist, puritan, pacifist, non-conformist, we'd take Him away and quietly end the argument. But the argument would rumble in the ground at the end of three days and would break out and walk around as though death was some bug, saying 'I am the resurrection and the life... No man cometh to the Father but by me'. While the magicians researched new explanations and the semanticists wondered exactly what He meant by 'I' and 'No man' there would be those who stand around amused, asking for something called proof.

I didn't go to church today, I trust the Lord to understand. The surf was swirling blue and white, The children swirling on the sand. He knows, He knows how brief my stay, How brief this spell of summer weather, He knows when I am said and done We'll have plenty of time together.

They tell me that euphoria is the feeling of feeling wonderful, well, today I feel euphorian, Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetitite of a Victorian. Yes, today I may even go forth without my galoshes, Today I am a swashbuckler, would anybody like me to buckle any swashes? This is my euphorian day, I will ring welkins and before anybody answers I will run away. I will tame me a caribou And bedeck it with marabou. I will pen me my memoirs. Ah youth, youth! What euphorian days them was! I wasn't much of a hand for the boudoirs, I was generally to be found where the food was. Does anybody want any flotsam? I've gotsam. Does anybody want any jetsam? I can getsam. I can play chopsticks on the Wurlitzer, I can speak Portuguese like a Berlitzer. I can don or doff my shoes without tying or untying the laces because I am wearing moccasins, And I practically know the difference between serums and antitoccasins. Kind people, don't think me purse-proud, don't set me down as vainglorious, I'm just a little euphorious.