To hear this poem go to
http://ronkozloff1.wixsite.com/curriculum-vitae-r/audio-poetry
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SURVIVAL AND SOME
To hear this poem go to
http://ronkozloff1.wixsite.com/curriculum-vitae-r/audio-poetry
SURVIVAL AND SOME
He huffs and he puffs and he blows
The house down
He sings for his supper
He’s a rare clown
He has a girlfriend who hates him
She has good reason to
She calls him a transparent fake
And a certified Jew
Not a juggler or philosopher
He ever was
Not a lover of the lofty life
That was just buzz
He always salts his beans
and peppers his hair
He comes on time
And pretends to care
But he doesn’t really want
To save the world
That’s just a line
If the truth were told
He has a crush on Satan
Not a thing for Christ
He calls himself an agnostic
Unless it’s a bad night
He’s been a con-man forever
Never held down any job
He’s done time for nearly everything
And has no connection with the mob
Though you’d never suspect it
He has a tender side as well
He blows kisses to the moon
From his apartment in hell
His childhood was rather lazy
Though it’s gotten sort of hazy
His family was middle-rung
His mother was slightly crazy
His father was a barber
Who liked his steaks rare
His mother was a janitor
With a big pile of hair
As a boy he always played
On the wrong side of the track
As a girl he always played
With the leader of the pack
Then came the crash
In his late teenaged years
The suicidal mission
The solitude and fears
That landed him in the middle
Of a psychological ward
With old people who slobbered
While they played cards
This was just the place for him
To chill out and think
This was just the place for him
To get fat and pink
The doctors had the cure
For the illness in his head
Stringy food and pills
Yellow green and red
Which cheered him so much
He slowly exploded
Into the next century
All arsenic coated
He eventually straightened out
His curves and his kink
Went straight for the bottle
And started to drink
The years have not always been kind
to this boy
The poisons that he swallowed
The means he had to employ
To keep right on going
The measures he took
Were not easily come by
Were not found in a book
If it all works out in the end
It’s too soon to tell
He’s not dead yet
And he’s close to being well
What is true for certain is
That he’s paid his dues and some
What is less sure is why
He didn’t turn around and run
There isn’t much to gain
By beating a dead horse
There isn’t much left
Besides dying of course
Whoever may want to take a lesson
From this saga and this man
Might just as well forget about it
As fast as they can
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NOVEMBER’S CHILDREN
THE WAITING GAME
POETRY BOOK
THIS IS MY NEW BOOK
Listen to some of the poems in this book on the website:
http://ronkozloff1.wixsite.com/curriculum-vitae-r/audio-poetry
Twilight Dances is a collection of poems which explores the dark side of the human experiment in a serious lyrical fashion. In it the author allows thanatos, or the instinct toward a worldly death, take over and color many of the poems from various points of view, and people, some even from a comical perspective. The book is divided into three parts: Identity and Aspiration; People Known and Dreamed; Observations of Culture. There are a total of 140 poems in rhymed and free verse forms. The style is spare and transparent, though sometimes bordering on the lyrical and romantic. This is decidedly not a light read.
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HOW IT HAPPENED
We sit in opposition
Like cars gearing up for a
Game of chicken.
The wind blusters in your
Eyes, your piano voice comes
In crystals. I feel the years
Between us that have
Fallen off, revealing a hard
Skeleton of love in place.
But
How we try each
Other for fault! Your vanity,
my hands cut off at
The wrist. I have no
Stomach to pick through
These remains again or retrace
Plot points on the map
To here. I see it as a
Happy accident that
We have survived
Together at all,
Certainly not any of my
Doing. Was it the god
Of inertia who intervened,
limited horizons pressing
Against motion?
Were we not brave enough,
and if so,
Has it not taken us down
A step?
Or
Was it something else entirely,
A flame of recognition
That held a mutual gaze
And burned everything else
Away?
==========
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SIGNATURE
You wait
And if it doesn’t come you wait some more,
It is something like fishing
Except you don’t do it in the sun.
It is not exactly pleasant
And it is not exactly unpleasant either
And
Why you do it
is difficult to answer.
It has something to do with compulsion
Your having to know that you can,
On that day
come up with something
That will definitely surprise you.
So you court the gods gravely and fervently
Because you know that it is not really
You at all who is going to do the work.
It is rather a chorus of Voices somewhere
Inside your nervous system
that will come to visit you,
Bringing with them words as gifts to you,
Which they offer in muffled tones or
In fits and starts, or in lengthier
Instalments that you take down
At your keyboard you hope in the right
Order.
You want to receive the message correctly
not mishear it,
And you have to learn to trust that what they tell you
Is in fact the truth because you have no way of verifying
It.
Of course there will be at some point an overseer who
tinkers and censors
And deletes
A sort of Father Figure editor
Who must get the package wrapped correctly.
But that is the easy part really because the gift is already
There,
in whole
or in part.
Later, you and others will determine whether it was
A cheap gift or an expensive one.
You will provide your signature,
The Voices will be relegated to obscurity.
But
You know in your heart that you are probably
an imposter,
At best, an interceptor,
And the Voices will not be there to either
Confirm or deny it.
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