Dark Matter
In the darkness there exist
the objects only light
can indicate that you have missed
when they were out of sight,
and in obscurity were hidden
as if they'd never been,
unheard, unspoken and unwritten,
unsatisfied, unseen.
Go seek what's hidden, try to find
the matter that is dark,
the marvels waiting for the mind
and spirit for the spark
that shatters dark and lights the world
with brilliance from dark matter
which, when thought thunderbolts are hurled,
makes light from darkness scatter.
7/25/98
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Gromphadorhina Portentosa
Gromphadorhina portentosa
is a cockroach hard to miss,
evil, as in Nostra Cosa,
you can tell one by its hiss.
Many evil people are
friendly when you first approach,
but a wise man will stay far
from them like this hissing roach.
If you’re forced to shake their hand
afterwards you have to wash,
but don’t let them understand
that you really want to squash
them like these roaches. It’s forbidden
by both State and Federal law:
best to keep your feelings hidden—
hurt no feelings, and withdraw.
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Ogden Gnash
“Ogden, gnash your rhyming teeth! ”
the scholar of religion that’s comparative
declared, and gave me laurels, him a wreath,
ending gnostically this narrative.
In response to an e-mail by Charles Vernoff, a Desert Hot Springs-based scholar of comparative religion:
Ogden Nash, gnash your teeth! C
In a message dated 6/17/2008 10: 41: 43 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, gwhepner@yahoo.com writes:
FAKING IT WHEN DELUDED
The lady who deludes
herself when she denudes
herself, fake it
when she is naked?
6/17/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Cuban Crocodiles
Gliding in swamp waters till
It smells a mammal in a tree,
a Cuban crocodile can kill
by leaping in the air. While we
glide in the swamps of platitudes,
we sometimes with imagination may
leap high above the multitudes,
our faith a Cuban cabaret.
On the PBS program Nature I saw Cuban crocodiles, of which only about 3,000 survive, leaping six feet above the water to catch mammals hiding in a tree, using powerful thrusts of their tail from below the surface) and snatching the prey from overhanging tree branches.
3/30/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Moral Instransigence
Wide-gaping gaps
between moral intransigence that’s sterile
and intelligence, which good scholars abhor
but fanatics totally ignore,
can’t be bridged by bigots, causing peril
to everyone, perhaps.
Richard Bernstein reviews 'The Burden of responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron and the French 20th Century, ' by Tony Judt (University of Chicago Press) in the the NYT, January 6,1999. Judt writes that to Aron the French revolutionary myth was to “bridge the gap between moral intransigence and intelligence”.
1/6/99,6/20/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Born In Baryards
Born in barnyards, see how roosters strut,
searching for a hen that is a slut.
Wherever men are born they do not care
about most women till they see them bare.
Their eyes that flash like moonshine look around
like roosters for a hen, and once they’ve found
a bird they like they do not need to beg,
and leave her long before she’s laid an egg.
Roosters in the morning crow in time
to wake their counterparts who’re with a hen,
ridiculous sometimes, sometimes sublime,
like roosters always, born as barnyard men.
poem by Gershon Hepner (19 September 2008)
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Like The Burglar
Like the burglar who distracts
the guard dog with a piece of meat,
the poet, serving meager facts,
intends the words to be his treat.
The words are music that should wow
but their meanings’ mist and fog
if higher than the reader’s brow
may leave him barking like a dog.
TS Eliot in The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, cited by Mark Ford reviewing Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form by Helen Vendler, compared the ostensible meaning of a poem to the bit of meat with which a burglar distract a guard dog.
3/22/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Bride Of Brent
Unlike Lucia from far Lammermoor,
fair Linda, hailing from chill Chamounix,
excels when she’s preparing salmon or
deep-frying spuds and spinach that aren’t gammony.
She tried to keep the frog which wooing went
outside the net she guarded as a goalie
till she became the Bride of River Brent
and played the role of Princess Rowley-Powley.
The frog, he always used to say “Heigh-ho! ”
because he knew that he could never find a
more lovely princess once she’d kissed him so
he was more charmed than Chamounix by Linda.
6/5/06
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Oh Nein, Oh Nein, Oh Nein
She said, “Oh nein, oh nein, oh nein! ”
and since she was a German girl.
he wouldn’t do what seemed not fine
to her, a charming chap, no churl.
He let her go at once, but she
felt devastated. “Why don’t you
continue making love? ” Said he:
“You thrice said ‘Nein! ’ so I withdrew.”
“You Dummkopf, ” she declared, “I meant
09/09 ’09, the date! ”
September 9th it was. Consent
renewed, they screwed till it was late.
Written on September 8th,2009, in anticipation of tomorrow’s date, which is 09/09, ’09.
9/8/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Once You Touch A Butterfly
Once you touch a butterfly
it often, flustered, fails to flutter,
and cannot soar into the sky
without a sputter and may splutter,
because for butterflies the touch
of humans, friend or enemy,
can be calamitous, the clutch
of humankind’s hegemony.
When touching those whom we befriend,
no less than those whom we betroth,
we must take care lest we offend,
for, whether butterfly or moth,
the ones for whom we care may find
it hard to soar if we should brush
the dust, though trying to be kind,
from wings that, having touched, we crush.
8/3/00
poem by Gershon Hepner
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