SPIRITUALITY OF EXCESS

Artists pinch the tube sparingly,

daubs of paint on a hungry pallet

thinly dispersed by careful strokes.

Spare not want not--divine advice.

But the tulips I saw today were spared no color,

the golden grins, a billion stars exploding on a pasture

of bottomless earth. Such effusion--

dispensed by generous fists, omnipotent palms and fingers

crushing tubes of acrylic bliss,

squeezing as though the source would

never run dry. Pools of infinite hue

saturating crepe petals, field upon

field, air redolent with surplus scent.

Where is this frugal deity?

Wherever did this ascetic spirituality originate?

Surely, the Universe does everything to excess.

end

michael bogar

EGO, GOD AND POPEYE

Have you noticed how the ego gets such bad press,

telling us to abandon that old notion of selfishness,

Shrinks and priests always telling us to give up the ‘me’

if we want to move forward toward maturity.

Tis true that purposeful service is good for the soul

making body and mind healthy and whole,

But some saints and sinners are so anxious to arrive

that they forget to relax and just be alive,

Many of us are like riders in a prolonged bicycle race

sprinting to perfection at a breakneck pace,

Constant accusations of massive masculine pride

ruining my journey on this miserable ride,

Sometimes I simply succumb to the lusts of the flesh,

and square off with some moron in a pissing contest,

Then in comes the guilt and my lover shakes her head,

says, “Save your bellowing for when we’re in bed.”

I occasionally despair at the defects of being who I am

an arrogant proud cockerel, a self-centered man,

But is God that concerned about the self that is me?

Is not my ego an indispensable and vital necessity?

Then God whispered, “Take it easy on your jaunt to be good,

ego is training wheels on the way to sainthood.

Ignore those who keep track of your sins in their meddling

just be who you are and don’t stop peddling.

Remember I made you, it’s none of their goddamed biz,

Like Popeye the sailor-man, you am what you is.”

.

end/michael

GUTTER PUNKS AND YOUNG ARTISTS ON BROADWAY

 She wore a tank top

which read "LIFE SUCKS!"

asked for a quarter,

I gave her twenty bucks,

then read her a poem

from my purple poetry book,

she said, "Thanks dude,"

then gave me that look,

reminding me that rhyming

was just so passé,

that old Jack Kerouac

didn't write that way,

for we need to be released

from the ordered page

deconstruct by randomly mingling, 

a la Dali and John Cage.

Smash a Pumpkin,

put Alice in Chains, be obscene,

puke your bourgeois rage.

I said: "It seems that alternative is now mainstream,

everyone is wearing black, shaving their domes,

piercing clits, navels, nipples and scrotums."

Suddenly she winced

in a burst of realization

engulfed by twenty one

years of revelation, exclaiming:

"Holy Gothic hell, you are so damned right,

you melodic fossil, I am seeing the light!"

She ran to the corner of

Fourth Avenue and Holden

found the poetry section

at Barnes and Noble,

pulled out the twenty bucks,

bought a volume

by Emily Dickinson.

Smiling, I proceeded

down the crowded street

sharing the Gospel of Rhyming

with all I did meet.

end/michael bogar

EULOGY OF A HYPHEN

I saw her internment, again

in the cemetery today,

withered remains crated

cradle to grave.

The granite read:

Born September 7, 1927

                 -

Died September 8, 1996

That’s all the marker said.

I thought about that all day.

Sixty-nine years of life,

summarized for all to see

by a single hyphenated line.

Truer than any biography.

end/michael bogar

DEATH POEMS

I grow tired of writing love poems

because I know adoration,

I grow tired of writing God poems

because I know Spirit,

I grow tired of writing erotic poems

because I know touch,

Perhaps that is why

I never grow tired of writing

death poems.

end/Michael

CHRYSALIS OF A MADMAN

Deep, or not so deep, within

there forms a storm in the corner

of some cryptic galaxy.

 On tilting splintered shelves are

jars of contagion

packed with impending insanity.

Artaud or Van Gogh.

Art is merely an postscript.

This six foot frame contains madness,

latent lunacy cranked low

and coiled tightly, exchanging

love making for screwing,

petting flesh for chewing,

rapacious appetite for impropriety.

Don’t look so shocked, the pupa of

psychosis resides within you…too

and every other sane citizen you meet.

Morphing Mephistopheles,

butterfly with the stinger of a wasp

and the dissecting mandible of a mantis,

crimson eyes and vulgar intentions--

one good blow might just crack the

chrysalis wide open, spilling social

derision from the reeking shroud.

Immune? I think not.

There are those days you feel it emerging.

I do.

Wings scuffing the concrete webbing,

kicking at night covers,

yanking me from my placid dreams,

that image scratching

against the fragile shell of my skull.

No, that t is not Athena rising,

it is hatred for caring about those in pain.

end/michael bogar