gershon hepner Poems

From human speech when moved by muteness
I make my odyssey in verse,
criticized sometimes for cuteness,
lively as a speeding hearse.
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When the sun hides behind clouds
you should not waste time by grieving;
leave this to the madding crowds
who are stuck on disbelieving.
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MY GUIDE WHEN I’M PERPLEXED


I sleep a lot, don’t read Maimonides:
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Human beings, fickle, liars and deceivers,
shunning danger and for profit greedy,
while running from the truth as fast as wide receivers
oblivious of all people who are needy,
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A frown that greets a thought becomes a noose
which, pulled, will strangle all unstiffened styles,
but when you loosen up you can reduce
the risk of ruining a thought with smiles.
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There is a God when joy begins,
but when it ends He disappears;
it isn’t that He hates our sins,
but that He cannot stand our fears.
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Robert Rauschenberg would say
he could remember what he made
'like yesterday, ' but was dismayed
because what he did yesterday
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Don't feel nostalgia for hypotenuses,
or when I see a tangent get a hard-on,
but when I fart I’m square and make excuses
and, radiating, say: “I beg your pardon.”
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A far more lethal weapon than mere raging
is insight. Spare us from its ravages,
because with it we learn while we are aging
that, ape-descended, we are merely savages.
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We need witches more than seers,
and wizards more than wise men,
as we are aging, in arrears,
unable to reject the icemen
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