Poems by Louis Phillips

 

THERE IS ALWAYS A SHIP SAILING
SOMEWHERE OVER CRAZY WEEDS

Lifting up the skirts
Of the cheerfully invisible.
My life is never so bad
As I make it seem.
It is, however, a mess,
Un bordel of unpaid bills,
Gods grinding & grinding,
Making mash of my days.

Of course, there is the sense
That someone is missing.
Every day someone vanishes,
900 immigrants
Falling off a boat, capsizing,
Drowning. But what’s the sense
In holding back?
There is always a ship sailing

Somewhere over crazy weeds.
Wind takes the sails & we go.
Few persons insist that Life,
Textured with yearnings,
Has to last so many yrs
Or that we must forgive
All the cruelties laid upon us.
Each day contains some act
That will not be tidy.

---

WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD
IN THE BETTER PART OF TOWN

I am alive or dead?
Do not be hasty. Take your time.
The answer may not be obvious.
I am like a young child
Whistling past the graveyard.
A north wind rattles the gates,
The padlock is rusted.
The company that owns
This vast acreage,
Does not make it easy to get into.
Every time the Earth is opened up
& a coffin is lowered,
Grave voices whisper:
Location, location, location.

---

SATURDAY MORNING IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM

While I deal with the All, sorry
Stains of my life deepen, & my thoughts
Rise & fall In a tumble, &
Pygmy armies are put to flight.

O why I am not waltzing
In bloody Transylvania hot spots,
Or digging pits
For Mastodons? or building huts

On the edge of some savage country,
Where I cd. be a philosopher-prince?
But no, I am stuck with Brite,
Doing my starch-legged dance

On the Rialto of Rinse.