Bad Poetry

Written in 1993 in a depressed state somewhere between half-altertness and dream. New York, I think.

Empty

A hovering incompetence.
Drivel to the sap of
Warn witness.
Feed the urge to purge
The gray-green drones
Of yesterday’s sick head.
A tender spasm leaves
Personal stains—
And reminds the gorgeous
Orb
That despite the love,
There live the pains.

Weak knowledge belies
The quiver that frets and
Cries.
Under no mask can he utter
The sound of degenerate
Goofiness that flutters
And dies…
An immediate connection trolls
The stream of
Thoughts that rip and double-team
Down the pit of fallen hopes that
grip the rope that

ties the dream.

Enter the crude:
A sloshing glunk-glunking.
Drain the tube to lube the
Prickly friction
Of grinding years.
A sweating heart seeks a harmless tool,
And without a care (’cause
Fair is fair)
Knows that an empty beat
Knocks out a fool.

Sweet, simple sustain
Lulls and drifts—
Unfallen rain.
With the swollen clouds of
Unvanquished verve
He seeks a nerve for thoughts
To drain
Away from grief and self-contemptuous
Ire—
Like melting a leaf to
Drown the thief
In a pool of fire.