5 more poems

by horace p sternwall

pictures by rhoda

sad poem life is so sad sometimes you just want to cry and maybe even curl up and die and then you roll over and look up at the clear blue sky and st michael leans down and says, what's wrong little guy? so maybe things aren't really as bad as all that but i wish i had a press card in my hat and could visit the president of the united states for a nice little chat and eat hot dogs and ice cream all day and never get fat and could walk up to people on the street and just say hi and look them right in the eye did you ever wonder why it's not that easy, sweetie pie? maybe some things are just meant to be dogs bark, and birds sing in trees humans alone in the evening breeze watch the skies and scratch and wheeze and try not to be taken by surprise by fate's sly tricks and reality's lies each in his own pathetic disguise helpless as the waters rise the hammer of heaven is always raised and will surely fall one of these days no more devilish despair or prayerful praise and no one left to be amazed

bad beatnik bongo poem # 2 stalin had a cool hat churchill wanted one just like that but his regimental tie caught the marshal's glittering eye steel drums in the london night bongos in the dawn molotov folded the london times folded it with a yawn soft music through the kremlin played before the final alien raid ant men from a distant star finished off the caviar little angel midnight waited in the rain for raphael and st jerome hitchhiking from spain gabriel in the shadows watching bombers loading ike lit up a lucky with a strange foreboding

zoo i ain't never been to the zoo or the opera either - how about you? awww! when morning comes the little stars go hide in the embrace of dawn - the blushing bride bang! he shot himself in the head one wall turned black, the other red