Poetry

You gotta be lucky to be in love.
Bet on the hot hand, roll the dice,
play hard to be twice as nice.
Cut a two, make it hearts,
you gotta make the bet if you want the part;
you gotta be lucky to be in love.

My family often call me a bear.
Perhaps it’s my grumpy nature.
I’m known to roar if startled,
behave badly if woken abruptly.

The world needs comedians,
comedians need people who laugh,
the comedians have Arlen.

A boy with a big laugh,
to fill a hall, a building, to fill the world

is there not enough glow
not enough bleeding heart?
not enough gold shows through?
blue is blue
blue is blue

A tremulous place of anticipation and dread,
suspicion the colours are changing, are they changing?
What is the sound of a silent train arriving?
Apparently, I’m to depart. I’ve been informed
I have a ticket. I seem to have forgotten

I asked Artificial Intelligence
to write a poem
in the style of Ward Maxwell.
It worked so well
I’m going to use it again.

some people drift through life
others steam ahead, forge their destiny
I’m a pinball

in the midst of our teeming squalor
our inexcusable excesses
the moments when everyone says
shut the fuck up, not right now

I’m seizing the moment.
Not because the Romans told me to.
Because the moment is trying to seize me.

what does superman do when no one needs him
who is superman when he isn’t with us
where is superman when he isn’t here