January  2004

13 Poems on Inspiration

  
Pizzaphilia: Copyright 2002 Jimmy Warner Design

1. Open Window

Smells like a cold rainy night

In front of a bus station.

I’m in no mood to go anywhere,

Too tired to sleep;

Caught up in a cloud

Hung on a whisper

By a thread of freedom.

 

2. Four Directions

The ones you face

And the places that ache

When you get there,

Effects of weather

Same on weeds or waves,

Following in your wake

Just to breathe.

 

3. Party for One

Stomp and liturgy

Of learning to play a horn,

All that jive on hand,

Lost cause for celebration

Singing to the woodshed,

Praise be to the future

Before it catches you up.

 

4. Poetry Shelf

Forgettable anthologies

Collected whispers

Treasury of dust

With endless questions

Places to go

When sex and pizza

Are not enough.

  

5. Robert Motherwell

How much time does an idea need

To become a preconceived idea?

How sensual is sensuality that’s been

Smacked around by worldly symbols?

What part of ART is so non-verbal

It makes people become antisocial,

Gut reactive, knee-jerk politicians.

 

6. Picasso

Picasso falls flat on you;

Too big and too much painting

For one day’s lesson.

So much soiled linen to you

The fabric of transformation

Is like a down to earth woman

You will never get to undress.

 

7. A Seagull Cry

A seagull cry

May cause the composer to insert an oboe

Make the poet write a wizened tome,

The painter, to hurry the gray of his daybreak.

You give me no choice

But to chisel my way

Out of stone.

 

8. New York Isolation

I could lose all ambition

Sink to the bottom

Be happy as a delta  * 

Let New York forget about me

Idiotic society of risers and

Sinkers competing for

A lifelong supply of ego juice.

*(Brave New World)

  

9. Instructions

I’m getting tired of your

instructions on how to be unhappy,

your mistrust of creation,

your reasons for it and

No excuse to be part of it.

Stop teaching, ask more questions

Come join the students.

 

10. Lightheaded Muse of the Woods

Does the muse appreciate what she inspires 

Speak wistfully about her successes, offer

Regrets for those who fall short of the mark?

When she comes to your neck of the woods

Does she seem dizzy, like talking to a dream?

Do you remember things choked off and dark

Suddenly like finding a cave to buried music?

 

11. Ravel

Ravel doesn’t deserve

A whole afternoon.

Perhaps a quick listen,

Curious check of the head phones,

But one afternoon spent with him

Points out the stillness in your blood

That needs another composer.

 

12. Initiation

Muses who live in caves

Mineral deposits for a soul,

Stalagmites rising floor to ceiling

Change color in the dark,

No awe to inspire till now.

Drop your torch, melt in my arms.

Let the mystery begin.

  

13. Horse needles

It’s pathetic, like a Virgo’s love letter

Moonlight critical to its probing mind

An Impassive battlefield with ray guns

Natives blowing spook dust in my face

A repetitious child dangling video clip

Brave, obsessive poetry, dead awake

Craving you worse than a pizzaphiliac.

 

Copyright Jimmy Warner, 2004