Poetry Compilation #1 2014

Why I didnt become a Mathematician

Rolf Auer, 9 June 2014

Well I couldnt map the
curve that is me onto Cartesian
co-ordinates. Not to mention Kurt Gdel.
So I quit and became a poet.
Im happy now.
Braggadacciao
Rolf Auer, 9 June 2014

Youd think you had me at hello, wouldnt you?
Except it was ciao, baby.
Thats what I heard you say: ciao.
Then, you sang it too
to top it all off as in
over the top and
step off.
Im sixty and my childhood smile dimples
are almost gone
from disuse.
The Beginning of Gods Eternity
Rolf Auer, 9 June 2014

Poetry is the little Confession
the little death
before God, who said
Thou shalt not kill.

God is not a pharmaceutical company
bandaging your brain or
giving you ersatz priapism.

God is love, and love will
judge your life, finally.

Love will have a thousand-year-long
discussion with you, post hoc,
this mortal coil, and you will falter
when your temporality fails to
achieve realitys escape velocity.

And then the scales will fall from your snake-eyes.
Bridge of Sighs
Rolf Auer, 11 June 2014

Its true I dont feel emotion.
So what? Do I need it for something?
I mean, is it going to change anything
for the better?
Regardless, youll still go to war, Im just
going to make it easier, thats all.
Ahhh, war. Is there anything better?
The ability to kill with no compunction whatsoever,
if only everybody could do that!
Any questions?
Whats that? Where is the love?
Look, I dont know, okay?
Who needs it, anyway?
Its my world and welcome to it.
We Are The Best
Rolf Auer, 11 June 2014, revised 15 June 2014

An erstwhile suitor of Penelope, Xerxesfatally wounded and
lying in a slowly expanding pool of his bloodwas watching
Ulysses and his wife Penelope right beside him lustily and
noisily going at it.

They finishedtheir creamy sighs of deepest pleasure
contrapuntally setting off Xerxess groans of moribund pain
and turned their attention to him.

So, Xerxes did you enjoy watching the FIFA 2014 Soccer
World Cup? smilingly asked Ulysses.

Xerxes shook his head.

What was it that turned you off? All the poor people in the
favelas getting murdered by police so that you and your sports
buddies could not only watch the Cup in peace, but could also
buy their residences for vacation spots in South America?

Xerxes? Xerxes? Ulysses looked at Penelope. Stick a fork in
him, hes done. Want to go again? Penelope smiled.
Bored, the CIA stages Lysistrata during the FIFA 2014 Soccer World Cup
For William Blum, John Perkins, Phillip Marshall, Aaron
Swartz, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning.
Rolf Auer, 11 June 2014, revised 15 June 2014

You know, said one spook to another, Death
no longer gives me any great thrill.

Dont fret, said the other, The plays the thing
wherein lies the conscience of the king. Lets put
on Aristopheness play Lysistrata.

So, once again Lysistrata and her merry band of women held a sexual
strike against their husbands, who comprised the military
might of Athens ca 400 BC (approx.).

By modern way of response, the men (aka the CIA) held a mass public
gang rape and execution of Lysistrata
as a cheery warning to the rest.

Then they cut off her head
and used it as a soccer ball
in the FIFA 2014 Soccer World Cup
in Brazil.

The crowdswho were exuberantly snorting the finest
Columbianwent wild.
Bridge to Nowhere
Rolf Auer, 18 June 2014, Revised 21 June 2014

Theres a song by the Traveling Wilburys
In it is the lyric, Every day is Judgement Day.
Therefore beware of scenarios involving lack of compassion because
how do you know that
what you do
what you perform
what you think
what you imagine
what you picture
isnt a dress rehearsal for that
One True Conversation wherein
your fate, your every sensation, is etched in physicality, this temporality,
is that handprint in concrete
that leaf imprint in wet clay
which under pressure
becomes fossilized.
Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Rolf Auer, 22 June 2014

A rare jewel is your smile
red joy dripping from
its upturned
corners.

This sunrise is again
unlike all other sunrises
solar gravitational shock waves
fiercely embrace me until
I fall.

Its just a phase
I tell myself like all
the other phase
in sync.
Sifting Detritus
Rolf Auer, 22 June 2014

Extracting the
windblown garbage from the small grove
on the other corner.
Sunday, dayday, Sun all day
to a dangerous degree,
the congregation exiting the Church
down the street.
Kitty-corner to it
a confectionary for
smokers and
cross-wearing rootbeer addicts;
the clerk smiles as he
takes your money.
Across the street, on the corner where the
Sun rises, a rose bush with a hundred
white roses. I reach up, pull down
one thorny branch which
bears one perfect rose. The scent
is exhilarating, unlike any other
and I go back at the end of my sojourn
a second time. No love by another
name smells as sweet, no dove in another sky
flies quite as high.
Perhaps you can find someone wholl forgive
your neverending wars, and while youre
looking for them, try to also find someone
wholl forgive your death-
by-garbage destruction of the climate.
I accept neither the dying of the light
nor its rage. I strive to renew myself,
make myself presentable for the final conflict.
Im leaving as I came, naked, except for my
teddy bear which has
needle-sharp teeth and claws.

They did not find a discarded
backpack with a Canadian flag
sewn on the back of it, beside where the thermite
had melted the cruel mouth of the giant thousand-mile-long
lamprey sucking the black bitumen blood out of the Earth.
Instead they found
sharp stainless steel teeth and claws
and teddy bear scat.
Home again, home again, and no knock
on my door from costumed conquistadors
guarding by day the vested interests of the meritocracy and
guarding by night the Vestal Virgins of their minds.
Too bad. I was seeking any kind of publicity for
the environmental eco-action group to which
I belong, the Bad News Bearcubs aka
the Violent Teddy Bears, and their lack of
interest left me feeling unsatisfied and unnewsworthy.

These timeworn castoff thoughts
have aged me despite my best
efforts to remain young. I crave
originality as the elixir of life
and, unable to obtain it, my
fingers unsteadily fumble through my aimlessly greying hairs
hiding my subconscious thoughts from myself like a
bug hides in a snug vug in a rug.
I once delighted in licking the icing
off beater spoons, in the intricacies of
shoelace knots, in the innocent wonder
shining brightly through my eyes
illuminating the earth and the heavens
and reflected by all the myriad stars above.
And now I focus on chipped paint, potholes,
and the unrelenting passage
of time across the March of Dimes. As humans,
we forsook our innocence in our rush to enter the Atomic Age
having in effect only just exited the Age of Agriculture.
We are old before our time. This potters field
of war-torn thoughts has prematurely aged us,
has left me cold and old. I can no longer
face my mirror.

Where has the time gone? Where is the star engine?
Where is the immortality drug? These thoughts are
buried in the debris field under
liquefied layers of languid time, the settling of water table
accounts, the reckoning of the state of progress and the state of the environment,
retarded by war. They cannot
percolate, circulate, nor precipitate. Thought is stagnant, sedentary,
solitary. Thought has not aged well, it is a bitter libation, so
please do not think that The Lord God is not offended.
Oscar the grouch disavows Boko Haram
Rolf Auer, 9 June 2014, revised 24 June 2014

Your false-flag smelly
block app fails to
impress me, said Oscar.

Your flagrant brazen blatant
feeble wordplay marks you
as merely some sort of
post-intelligence laxative
signifying infernal affairs.

Youve been directed to direct
your own deaths, yet at what
expense? Your own innocence.

Innocence is the seed of creativity. Why
did you let them take this away from you? For now
you can only speak in forked-tongues until
the day the scales fall from your snake-eyes.
Leeches
Rolf Auer, 25 June 2014

Say, isnt that
your friend over there with
his hand on your partners knee?

And why is she smiling at him?

Wait
a moment.
O dont look now,
hes kissing her!

Why are you looking at me?
You missed the best part,
see, theyve left together.

Well, have fun, eh!
Im going to join them.
See you around!

Wait, wait, it was just a joke
Chocolate-covered leech? Mmm
Have a little, want a lot
Rolf Auer, 26 June 2014

Hey, are you wanting
something to wrap your mind around?
Are you a noid ?

Better rest up, first.
Better take a lude. Interlude.

Asleep? Good. Pleasant dreams.

You: get prints. You: go through his wallet.

The Sun puts a stop on his raise
Rolf Auer, 27 June 2014

My boss and I were
on the edge of
the desert when the drug took hold.

I decided to
carpe diem
seize the day
and demand he give me a
raise.

Thats exactly when
the solar eclipse started.

I could feel my
second-sight wither
under the onslaught
as I turned to heap
scornful and scathing looks
upon the advancing enemy troops.

I recalled that I had buried
myself this morning, pulling
pulling the grave dirt over me cozily.
I could still sniff the dead flowers I had heaped
up top oer me through the
dank soil.



Lugubrious and salty, the floral corruption
managed to drown out the more
lusty common scents.
O the memory of their perfume
whilst alive heady and meadowlike
it was, and sang out
the promise of a sweet, pure future.
All that was gone now.
Depression was setting in.
This must be what it was like
to die, I thought to myself.

Newton theorized that for
every action there is an equal and opposite
reaction. Thus the death I had inflicted
instead of belonging to another was my own.
The shuddering afterimage glowed
silver around the edges for a short time.
The evil one had tempted me again.
What recourse had I
except to die.
Vampire Children Are Innocent
Rolf Auer, 29 June 2014

We hold this truth
to be self-evident:
that all children are mostly innocent
except vampire children theyre
completely-etely totally innocent. Man. Like, 100%. Eh.

How do we know this is true?
Well, have you ever heard of
baby vampire bites? No? Thats because
theyre none. Kiddie vampires dont bite. Q.E.D.

What about werewolf children?
Are they innocent, too?
Well, I suppose so. After all, you
never hear about tweeny werewolf attacks, do you? Q.E.D.

Does this mean
Im afraid so.
All children are innocent.
Its that adults who claim they must kill
in wars, via the state, via accidents, whatever.

This much is clear: children are saved
Yawning, White Roses Awaken to Sun-sweet Kisses
Rolf Auer, 1 July 2014 Canada Day

I nodded off
and the dream reality
in which I found myself
was more real to me
than when Im awake.
A friend whom I love
dearly and madly
called out to me
from across the way.
I rose to my feet
and started to join her
when I jarringly came awake.



This is who you are.
What would you do?
What would you do?
Would you in this awake reality make
some attempt to contact your beloved,
to explain how you feel? Would you
do this no matter what her circumstances were?

On my street is a white rose bush.
Of the hundreds that are accessible,
there is perhaps one perfect rose.
Youll know it when you see it.
What would you do?
Fireworks
Rolf Auer, 3 July 2014, revised

Sparkles shot brilliant white
lines throughout the
night sky.

Everyone ooohed and aaahed.
I saw the silhouette of a couple
holding hands, reassuring each
other with the closeness of their
mutual warmth.

I rarely attend events such as this.
Seeing the moon as a cankerous
sore doesnt exactly turn my
crank.

Out of the darkness came
a small, wavering voice,
Is it time to go home yet?

As if by way of reply,
the first large warm raindrops fell,
signaling a coming downpour.

Recess
Rolf Auer, 15 July 2014

Too bright
the sun
Harsh light drying the skin
on contact

Time is liquid honey
sweetening all our dreams
Sweltering heat gives
scents to the heavy humid air

Now
during the Canadian summer
no one thinks to
winter.
Dont Look Me Up In Heaven
Rolf Auer, 19 July 2014; For PJ Harvey

A book of
inspirational war speeches
open on my chest.

Roughly:
We shall fight on the beaches
We shall defend our honour
We shall never surrender.

We shall fight
We shall
We

And Im looking down the
same mount as
Christ did
onto the bloated
stinking bodies
piled everywhere
like so much
discarded cordwood.

I cant help but
get a sense of
disappointment
at your unfulfilled
promise, humans,
and you were
so promising.

Verweile doch, du bist so schn.



No, Im not blaming
you for thinking with
your cocks and pussies
instead of using your
brains.

Its just that Im
wondering why youre
pointing at me.

Oh, I get it now
you need another
scapegoat another hapless
victim to blame.

Well you just continue
to put your cross
up
Im outta here.

Dont look me up
in Heaven.