Why is it that this ****** up
world labels all the creative people
crazy?
They do it all the time.
John Nash
Vincent Van Gogh
Poe
Sylvia Plath
Michelangelo
Edvard Munch
Fransisco Goya
Hemingway
Kerouac
H.P. Lovecraft
Virginia Woolf
This isn't an exhaustive list.
I think it is complete
*******.
I think Artists see the world
differently, so it's easier
to call them crazy, then to try
and understand why they
see the world differently.
As long as the world keeps
doing this...they can go
**** themselves with a
copy of On the Road,
and a tube of Cerulean blue
paint.

What is up with hp....something seems janky with the site.......some poems won't publish others have 18 views in 23 hours ***?  Is anyone else experiencing this problem???

Being polite or kind  was
never an aspiration of hers'.
And the level of
selfishness she displayed
bordered on narcissism.
When we used to go
for walks, Tulips and
Daffodils wilted when she
passed by.

And those eyes...
I've seen more
soul
in the eyes of
a dead gold fish.
In the arena of
cruelty, she gave Jezebel
and Nero a run for
their money.

The sun hid
behind clouds when it
saw her face,
and small animals shrieked when
they heard her footsteps.

I chose to write
this in the past tense
because that's what she is...
ancient history.

Your ashes don't speak to me Dad;
they float silent in the ocean.
I need you.
I have questions about
Don Quixote and Steinbeck.
You implanted in me a
love for literature,
and then left me before
the story was supposed to end.

What is the theme?
This plot *****!
I inherited your anger.
I think of you when
I punch the wall and
scream at my wife-
spider web windshields.

I cry through Man of La Mancha,
and laugh at the memory of the
stage you built us in the basement.
Who does that?
Props and scripts were our toys.
I acted and lied my way through my
first two marriages- always on.

You were the great director;
all your trophies are on the mantle.
You thought the pizza place turned
the volume down on the T.V when
your speaking parts came on.

I think you passed me your insanity.
I've been to the nuthouse many times.
I'm a poet Dad, two books published.
I still remember you reading
Kipling and Cummings to me.

In third grade, I read from
Of Mice and Men to my class.
The teacher scolded me for
saying, "Jesus Christ' and "*******."
What a peasant!
She missed the bigger picture;
life doesn't go as planned.

Her name was
Amy, she was
18 and I was 21.
We met the
summer after my
Mom died.
She had a scholarship
to Iowa State for
swimming.
We didn't have
air conditioning, and it was
a brutally hot summer.
I got sick, and couldn't
work; pretty soon
I couldn't get
off the couch.
I had my brother run
to the corner and
use the payphone to call
the ambulance.
It turned out I had
double pneumonia.
They also realized I was
drinking a lot and would
need help medically to
d-tox.

Amy visited me in
the hospital.
She snuck my kitten in.
We made out in my bed.
She was beautiful.
I felt so alive when
I was with her.
The kitten got loose and
ran down the hall.
The nurses laughed.

I got out of the
hospital and began
drinking again immediately.
Amy broke up with me.
She said, "I can't be with
an alcoholic."
I was sad, but I still had
the kitten, until it
got smashed by
a car one sweltering
July night.
Mom
Amy
the kitten--all gone.
Then, I really started
drinking.

I need to straighten
my dreams out,
they got crooked along the way.
In my frozen castle,
in this grueling winter of life,
lies in me an invincible summer
that longs to be free;
scabbed up knees and
grass stains on my soul,
it just itches to run, and
swim the rivers,
and lie long in the sun.

After a tortuous hour of
math (algebra to be exact)
I start dinner; Middle Eastern stew:
Cardamom, Coriander, and turmeric.
Cooking is a little like math, but
much more like art. My mind begins
to ease as Bach pumps out
one of his symphonies from
the CD player. The stew boils, and
I want to go outside and play,
chase windmills. Where's Sancho?
Dulcinea's here, frustrated by my inept
ability in the equation game.
I ******* despise algebra.
Where's the Bluebird, the Sunflower,
Bukowski or Eugene O'Neil?
I want to smell a six-week-old puppy,
taste Van Gogh yellow, **** until
I can't walk, and ease my
way into old age.
Vivaldi plays his victorious song.
And I know I'll conquer the
numbers game, but probably not
before it drives me crazy;
actually, it's a short putt.