New poem: "A Pillow to Rest My Weary Head"

 

A Pillow to Rest my Weary Head

 

Where can I find a pillow

that will rest my weary head,

support all the thought’s I’ve had,

and let me fall into a blissful sleep?

 

I turned to Harold Bloom again, Professor

Emeritus at Yale, who died October 14, 2019

but did not believe in the afterlife, just

to stimulate my mind; —

 

His posthumous book, Take Arms Against a Sea

of Troubles: The Power of the Reader’s Mind Over

a Universe of Death, found immortality in the poet’s words,

but not in their immortal souls; —

 

And as exciting to read as his writing is, it only filled

my weary head with needless dread; and I turned to the author

of the popular When Bad Things Happen to Good People,

rabbi Harold Kushner, —

 

In the hope that his fourth book, To Life! Celebration Of Jewish

Being and Thinking, might give me a pillow to rest my head;

but the Jewish way of thinking proved much too busy

for the rest I badly needed; —

 

And I opened up Next Door to Heaven, by S. G. Thigpen,

a record of personal anecdotes told by the elderly folk of the Pearl

River, southern Mississippi region; but it, too, grew wearisome:

different, but same old, same old; —

 

So, I tried once more with libertarian commentator, the sagacious

George F. Will, a syndicated columnist I’ve read off and on for years,

with his collection One Man’s America; but, sadly, this brilliant

soul-crafter too did nothing to ease my mind; —

 

And I turned to C. G. Jung, whose thoughts always comforted me;

but how many times can I read Modern Man in Search of a Soul

and not get bored when I found my lost soul long ago?

I do so need a pillow to rest my weary head.

 

New poem: "A Crisis in Confidence"

 

A Crisis in Confidence

 “Reading you when I’m at work

discourages me terribly—that fucking

fluency!” wrote award-winning novelist

Philip Roth in a letter to his no-less

distinguished fellow author John Updike,

which resonated with me deeply. All

the same, I took a deep dive into his life,

the multiple works of John Hoyer Updike,

to overcome my life-long fear of reading

him, five months of steady reading, short

stories, novels, poetry, book reviews,

essays, travel pieces, lectures, personal

reflections, introductions, promotional

talks, interviews— “Does he have one

fucking thought that he hasn’t published?”

decried Roth; all of his prose, so clean

and tight with that New Yorker polish

where he began his prolific career under

the tutelage of some of the best editors

in the business; but so brilliant is his

writing and so copious his erudition, that

 it snuck up on me and caused a crisis

in confidence, and I had to put his writing

and my new book aside until my confidence,

more bruised than I wanted to admit, was

well enough to come back to me.

New poem: "This Need for More"

 

 

This Need for More

 Is it enough to fill one’s life

with the activities of daily living

to give one enough meaning

to go on living? And if not, how

much living does one have to

do to fill the hole in one’s soul

with wholeness? Must one endure

this need for more and leave

this world wanting? Another

round of golf, another cruise,

another fortune; how much 

life does one need to satisfy 

this need for more?

New poem: "The Curse of Every Writer's Genius"

  

The Curse of Every Writer’s Genius

 

“Don’t be afraid to be personal,

because the personal speaks to the universal,”

bid the imperative of his guiding principle,

his creative muse and love divine, and he wrote

stories on his life to give the mundane it’s

beautiful due; that’s what made him so popular,

so true. I read him in the morning, afternoon,

and evenings too; but the more I read him,

the more he entranced me. So, I asked my muse

and love divine, and what came to me was no

less of a mystery: his mind is his to explore,

as is yours; but the more he explored, the more

Mind he had to explore, and that’s the mystery

of his unplumbable genius. But is it not written

in ancient wisdom that Mind is the Great Slayer

of the Real? He wrote poetry, short stories,

novels, essays, and an idyllic stream of book

and art reviews to explore the existential limits

of his thinking; but his sinuous mind refused

to let go of it’s intimate hold on Ego, and that’s

the curse of every writer’s genius.