Bach

Dear Jenny,

 

I am listening to Bach (on the computer) and I have  never enjoyed Bach more. That is because one hour ago I tried to get this program and I couldn't. So I thought maybe, maybe a connection was disrupted (unintentionally of course) when we disconnected the Laser Printer.

 

It took me about 3/4 hour to fiddle, to search, to plug and to unplug ...

but suddenly I found a male and a female socket unconnected (if you know what I  mean), connected them, restarted Bach, and he blared forth as if he had known all the time what the trouble was.

 

Bach is still playing and the UPC and I are friends again.

 

Love

John

Phone

11 May 2013

Phone

I have become as suits a man

Approaching his centennial year

A servant to my mobile phone

Securely attached to me.

It dangles loosely from my belt

Or in my pocket sends vibrations

Alerting me that someone would

Engage me in a conversation.

Let me not denigrate its use.

It makes you speak – you’re not alone.

For these two reasons I propose

That I be buried with my phone. 

Easter Eggs

The Easter bunny sat and sighed
And scratched its silken head:
“Here are some fifty residents
For whom I've made these eggs.
I know I ran a minute-mile
Before the humans (sob!),
But this is not enough to feed
This chocolate hungry mob.”
But on a magic cloud appeared
A dozen pretty girls.
They were the cream of Rosstown staff
That heard the bunny’s call.
And clever as becomes their sex
They prettied up each breakfast set
With shimmering golden chocky eggs.
Thank you.

Naked Truth

4 April 2013

The country you will visit

For pleasure, education, and experience

This country is the same

I fled

For want of same.

Pleasure was found in hate,

And education was constrained

And witnesses, albeit still alive

Refused

To tell the tale.

It is the grimmest tale

Of which faint echoes sound

In archives, books, and court proceedings,

Proclaiming

The naked truth,

But also I heard voices

Condemning the horrid past.

And promise resurrection and reform

Towards

The love of neighbours.

Moses Time

5 April 2013

If all the dead that died since Moses was a boy,

Came back to life,

They would congest the highways, roads, and rivers,

And the Atlantic Ocean

Needs be drained for space.

But as I do not hold with concepts as prescribed,

For instance Hell and Paradise

And Charon paddling his canoe to Hades,

I visualize the resurrected dead

Like paper thin, but printed on.

To wit a walking library, their thoughts and fears,

Their aspirations and conclusions

Easily read and shown to be unchanged

From Moses’ time

To our days.

Fairy Tales

7 April 2013

I've come to the unfortunate conclusion
That parents never die;
That is to say that graves some five feet deep
And filled with hundred shovels full of soil
Do not prevent
Their calls, their sermons and their admonitions
Resounding, so that my inner self will cringe
And curl up like a child that seeks escape
To fairy tales.

Lady Requests

26 March 2013

The lady said: “I want …you write

A poem just for me, about myself …”

And in a closing chord she stipulated:

“It must be funny!”

The lady left. The poet sat confused.

Had any lady throughout history

Put such demands with such precision

And contradiction?

Had any lady …? Would the Queen of Egypt

Have begged Marc Anthony to write

A poem about love with funny quirks …

I have my doubts.

Consider Dante Alighieri

And Beatrice, famously extolled,

Walking the bridge across the Arno…

No fun, not even her address.

And yet the lady said: “You write …!”

And unlike Beatrice, unlike

Cleopatra, stood before me

Her figure and her voice enveloping

Her charm and beauty… I declare,

Who needs the girl from Florence?

Or from Alexandria?