Kabuki monstrosities of cute

   White snivel, and children who sniffle as they walk.
    The containers used for oil. Little sparrows

shopping-malls of Shinto reactors
tsunamis of Hello-Kitty schoolgirl ****

   Pretty, white chicks who are still not fully fledged
    and look as if their clothes are too short for them

tiny plates of aesthetically-arranged trivialities
meaningless Engrish phrases on T-Shirts

     Last year’s paper fan. A night with a clear moon    
       One needs a particularly beautiful fan for some special occasion

in herd-like apathy, they download Anime Girlfriend App
the robotic allure of the Orient defined

    To wash one’s hair, make one’s toilet, and put on scented robes
     An earthen cup. A new metal bowl. A rush mat

cramped restaurant-bars with detailed replicas of food

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Condemned with all who scrawl their thoughts online

Obsessing over words, revising verse,

This love of poetasting is a curse . . .

(no, wait—I think I need to tweak that line).

Composing, thus, my useless universe,

Convinced that golden musings are divine,

I polish leaden verse to make it shine

So proving that bad poetry grows worse.

My muse may well disown me for my crimes,

Fly off and leave me searching for some word,

Abandon me to unpoetic times;

And yet my lyric soul is undeterred.

My own best lines may or may not show it;

Still, I’ll bear that shameful name of Poet.

Repent therefore and be converted,
that your sins may be blotted out,
so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,
and that He may send Jesus Christ,
who was preached to you before,
whom heaven must receive
until the times of restoration of all things,
which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets
since the world began.
                                                        Acts 3:19,20,21

That one thing we deserve, I dare to name:
Death, and then deathless torment in the flame.

But first, let go of bad theology
(all well-meaning misanthropology)

then send yourself a gentle gift, like this:
click: narcissistic selfie mirror-kiss.

The brightest song a body’s ever held?
The one that broke your waters where they swelled.

You summon joy; that ***** stayed out too long.
Ashamed, she hastens, staggering along . . .

I’d be content to have (besides some wings),
just this: the Restoration of All Things

And then to you, if it were mine to give,
I’d give forgiveness. Seek the Lord—and live.

If you could only let it drop
we would not need to bear it:
that holy hoity-toity
illiberal burden you announce
from where you wear it.

Would you then be able to live
with your fellow citizens:
fellow toilers in rhyme
buying gluten-free time
at Whole Foods
US; your citizen-neighbors
online cloud of witnesses
Looking at used Subarus
and paying our dues
with you
at the dealership.

Could you only see
through deplorable eyes
and love with a deplorable heart
you would appreciate the art
of the real deal,
loose the seal
of your own apocalypse;
let love reveal
landscapes your pride
has kept hidden for too long.

If you could let your hatred drop,
Slough off the smug and the sneer
If you could stop
signaling to your own
long enough to know REAL diversity, and live
perhaps you’d give
a thought to your own fallibility
lost in a forest of woulds, failing to see
Your neighbor’s Tree of Life. . .
But you are busy perfecting strife,
screaming Timber!
before the axe has even been laid
at the root of your poetry.

If you knew, as the rest of us
how often you have shouted thus
you could understand why
we tend to ignore your warning cry.

Perhaps it could be feasible
to stop blaming
that orange source of all unreasonable
derangement, cease from naming
your neurotic projections
as they are unscrewed
to reveal another inside:
crazed conspiratorial Russian doll
of your own
discredited obsessive offended perpetual alarm.

That classic villanelle is hard to master;
alternate lines can drive me up the wall
(but avant-garde absurdity drives faster).

I could just dash off some Haiku disaster,
but that would never hold you in its thrall.
Authentic villanelle is hard to master.

To learn new forms, sometimes all we can muster
is try it out and write; obey our call
to follow, bleating, some poetic pastor

to greener lyric landscapes—or a vaster
universe of verse in which to scrawl.
Authentic villanelle is hard to master.

Breaking the lyric flask of alabaster,
like the Magdalene's perfume, we give our all,
disciples of true poetry, to our Master.

Keeping pace, the muse now urges: faster
I'm sweating now, and headed for a fall . . .
That classic villanelle is hard to master.
I hope to learn from Bishop—yet run past her.