Richard Varron's Poetry
(C) Richard Varron, 1996
Absurd-B
Richard Varron 4/30/89
Why do I write such clever works?
Is it that I wish to amuse?
Is it that I consider the world absurd?
The world is absurd.
Who told me?
I did.
Who are you?
I am what you might be and were.
I get up in the morning and find that fasting is no longer in
fashion.
It never was.
Working on papers and poems:
I was real hunger artist.
You were a freak.
A freak;
I want to tell you about the life I formerly led as an ape.
Yes, let's hear your report to the academy!
I want to thank you all;
you who have been by mentors,
given me some good advice
and encouragement on the way;
Marked my papers with blue scratched ink
scribled illegibly along one inch margins.
Given me the freedom to express my ideas.
As long as they don't contradict ours.
And now as I approach the Master's door...
Approach the door.
Let me in.
Not at this moment.
Later?
It's possible.
I'll wait.
This gate was made only for you.
Now I will shut it.
Adam and Eve Revisited
- or so it may be
will be
or was
You see the birds flying in the air
You see the dirt and litter everywhere.
Fishes that crawl in lakes and streamsg in the air
They lay there to die, to die, to ---
Man drags his feet on the ground
His shirt torn, torn, to --- shreds.
His eyes look up - to see
Land dead! - dead, dead, de ---
Forests burning, timber afire,
Burning! Burning! Burning!
To the left was a house,
It was not a tall house,
It was red, all red -
Not from paint. NO!
From fire, fire, fire!
He looks to the right,
The awesome sight,
Men burning, burning,
But still alive, still alive.
Screams, screams, screams.
It was dark behind him
There were no clouds in the sky.
There was no sun, no moon,
There were no stars.
He was standind two feet from the fire,
But he felt no heat.
He moved his head back,
Across his shoulders.
He looked at the ground.
He saw the dirt.
Then he saw the light.
It was not a red light, but a blue one.
It shone like a blue-white sun.
As he raised his eyes,
The blue light blinded him.
He put his head back into the dirt
He waited, thinking, thinking, just thinking.
"Where in damn hell am I?"
He looked at the ground again.
He pivked up the dirt and then he cried,
"Damn, Damn, God Damn It."
Suddenly the light gre brighter,
And a meek voice said, "Did you want me?"
The man raised his eyes once more.
He threw them into the ground
And he cried, and he cried.
The light came closer to the man,
The man raised his eyesTo see it was a man, another man,
Around him was a band of light.
It was blue-white.
The light had a beard,
It was white and long,
And he was shrouded in the blue robe.
He walked up to the man,
And said "Don't be afaid",
The man dropped to the ground.
He screamed Hell, Hell, Hell!
Send the devil, the devil, the ---
"Yes", said a red light behind him.
The man raised his head.
He lay on the ground,
Naked save for a pair of shorts
He moved his head up and to the bright red figure.
He cried, "Oh God save me."
Suddenly, the bright light spoke,
"I will always be with you."
He looked back - red, fire, fire.
He looked to the left, then to the right,
There was on one.
He broke down and cried.
He saw the blue-white light move away.
He looked back,
The red figure moved back.
Now he was all alone.
There was no one, no ---
From behind a tree came another person,
She wore a fig leaf,
She stood meekly and said,
"Bonsoir, je m'apple Eve.
Comment t'apple-tu?"
The man looked up and said,
"Good evening, my name is Adam.
What is your name?"
She replied, "Qu'est tu dit?"
Name, name, he said.
"Ah, si"
The sky turned blue,
The sun came out,
The moon set.
Eve went over to a tree.
It was a nice tree.
Suddenly, a bright red figure
Came in and said "That little
Apple can make you master of the world."
She looked at him as he turned into a snake.
She took the bite,
As a bright light came in and looked at her.
It was blue and white.
She was nude and ran to a place to hide.
The voice cried out, "You can not hide."
Aflash - and both she and Adam
Were on the ground
They were both naked.
They looked around.
They saw trees
They saw birds flying
They saw fishes
They saw everything
But, the one thing that they could not see
It was not there.
It was not there.
But it would be there.
They stood and looked
Adam took a plant by the stem
He raised his hand
As he threw it into the sea.
It was the beginning of the end.
The blue white man stood and watched
He saw the greatest of men
be born, live, die.
He just stood and watched.
He sent a messenger
To warn them of the danger
Some listened, some did not.
He saw the rise and fall of nations
Rome, Spain, India
Europe, the United States,
The Martian colony,
The Andromeda colony,
And so on.
On the forth of June in the year ----
You could see the firds flying in the air
You can see the dirt and litter everywere,
Fishes crawl in the lakes and streams
They lay there to die, to die, to ---
A man .........
An April Fool
Here I am
Sitting with Donne,
Shakespeare, Eliot and Yeats
Trying to synthesize these greats.
Here I am
Trying to please
Four anonymous sages
With my crisply typed paper of fifty pages.
Here I am
Wondering if it's worth it
On a cold February Day
Knowing it's due on All Fool's Day.
Richard Varron 4/30/89
Bachelor
Richard Varron 4/30/89
Why do I write such clever works?
Is it that I wish to amuse?
Is it that I consider the world absurd?
The world is absurd.
Who told me?
I did.
Who are you?
I am what you will be or were.
To lift myself out of a miserable mood should be easy.
Force myself out of my chair,
walk around the room,
twist my aching neck.
Knock.
Welcoming A.,
pretending that she really wants to see me.
Knock.
Tolerate B.,
even though I don't want to see her.
The best recourse is to meet everything passively.
Make yourself an inert mass.
I see a lady on the train,
her eyes looking at me:
-- You are no handsome man, no man of wealth;
Why should a lady like me go out with you?
I look at her,
She is no beauty with her weather beaten face.
We are both right.
-- Let us walk our seperate ways now that we need't admit it
It is difficult being a bachelor,
begging for an invitation
whenever on one to spend some time with a women.
Who would accept?
Lying for endless nights in one's bed,
always having to say good night at the door,
seeing other people's children,
Saying "I have none myself."
The thought of marriage gets me though many a sleepless night.
Not at this moment.
Later?
It's possible.
I'll wait.
This life is made only for you.
Now I will shut it.
Richard C.
Richard Varron 4/30/89
Whenever Richard slept along main street,
We people in our business suits stared at him;
He was a scrawny soul from teeth to feet,
Dirt gruffed, and incredibly slim.
From within the ally where he made his bed,
He hardly ever looked when we talked;
But still he disquieted pulses when he said,
"Good-mornin'," from his squalor as we walked.
And he was poor -- yes, poorer than anything,
Dirt and newspapers cover his face.
In fact, we throught that he was everything
To make us glad we weren't in his place.
So on we walked, and never gave a slight,
As we entered the deli for our daily loaf of bread;
And Richard, one calm still summer night,
Went out and put a bullet through our head.
Richard Varron 3/26/89
Morning Dog
Richard Varron 4/30/89
He awakens at 5 O'clock,
Stretching out his long, lean body.
Placing his four paws on the floor,
He meanders towards the door.
With his leach on tight,
He exits through the door,
Racing to his septic place,
Where he can deposit his waste.
Returning to his home,
He marches up the stairs,
Scratching with his paw,
On the closed bedroom door.
The portal swings open,
He enters briskly,
Jumps on the bed,
And curls his sleepy head.
He goes back to snooze
Until the paper comes;
From his sleepy doze
Up and off he goes.
Down the stairs
And through the door,
He heads out,
Returning with the paper in his mouth.
Exchanging paper
for biscuit,
he heads back upstairs,
Past the lovely chair.
Settling in comfortably,
He wiggles his slender body,
Stretching on his master's bed,
Waiting to be fed.
Richard Varron
4/30/89
Let's Drink to the Hard Working People
Richard Varron 4/30/89
In the dazzle of the early dawn,
With the glittering jewelry hanging from her ears,
And black leather reflecting in the moonlight,
The student in her classy clothes invades the campus.
She hears the chimes of the stately clock
As she passes by the night janitors
On her way for a morning drink before class.
She glares at the old black men, rags in hand
hears the broken English as they speak
sniffs the stench of these swarthy slave
tastes the aroma of ammonia their tongues
feels the sheen of their swept floors
And moves on.
She asks herself, "Who are these people to litter
my campus?"
Why must I share my morning walk to class with them?"
Sipping her drink, a voice inside her answers:
"These are your fathers,
working, so that you can learn".
As she orders another round of beers.
Invocation
Waking up with my dog just like everyday,
him rushing out to fetch the newspaper.
I walk down the street, side-stepping Richard C.
Pass the nightworkers as I sip another glass of beer.
I recall the changing seasons:
The autumn leaves blown to the ground,
The winter snows trapping me on some dark street
The spring ariving with its newly sprouting leaves.
I sit preparing my paper like an April Fool,
Hoping to please the odd mentor or two
Only to be disturbed by a phone seller,
Falling asleep in the arms of a dog, never a women.
Richard Varron
Poetry Seminar
Spring 1989
Just Another Day
Just before the dawn,
when the sky is still black;
All is quiet,
with not even a passing car.
The first rays of the sun
burst forth into my window;
The dog shakes his sleepy head
as the newspaper lands on the walk.
The radio goes off
blurting out yesterday's stories,
forecasting today's sports scores,
analyzing last week's weather.
The sun came up,
The dog got the paper,
The announcer played a record
And I got up.
Richard Varron 4/30/89
LOST AND FOUND
RICHARD VARRON 4/30/89
L ead down another dark, dank street
O n a windy winter's night with
S now falling all around
T oward the place I can rest my weary feet.
A round the corner
N ext block approaching
D own the street.
F or one more snowy, stretched out mile
O n this cold and windy night
U sing all of my senses, I
N avigate home,
D espite all, I arrive
Marraskuu
It has been a fair wind that has blown,
The trees are alight with fire,
The orange and yellow mist above the valley grows,
And sees the sights and yellows the sun,
That rises above the earth.
The wind rushes from the North,
And hides the beauty of the trees.
The rain comes pouring down upon the earth,
And widens the trees.
And sees not now what I have seen.
The birds fly South upon the wind,
And see the trees flow like yellow breeze.
Trees upon trees and branches, leaves.
Go forth and see the winter leaves.
Go forth and see the trees.
Mentor
4/30/89
Richard Varron
Why do I write such clever works?
Is it that I wish to amuse?
Is it that I consider the world absurd?
The world is absurd.
Who told me?
I did.
Who are you?
I am what you might be and were.
I get up in the morning and find that fasting is no
longer in fashion.
It never was.
Working on papers and poems:
I was real hunger artist.
You were a freak.
A freak;
I want to tell you about the life I formerly led as an
ape.
Yes, let's hear your report to the academy!
I want to thank you all;
you who have been by mentors,
given me some good advice
and encouragement on the way;
Marked my papers with blue scratched ink
scribled illegibly along one inch margins.
Given me the freedom to express my ideas.
As long as they don't contradict ours.
And now as I approach the Master's degree...
Approach the door.
Let me in.
Not at this moment.
Later?
It's possible.
I'll wait.
This gate was made only for you.
Now I will shut it.
The Phone Call
(With kind thanks to Bob without whose timely
assistance the third stanza would have lacked some
autenticity)
Phone rings,
dog jumps up,
barks loud,
master slowly rising from his computer
console.
Moves slowly, shuffling his feet on the shaggy carpet,
Dog prances,
yaps wildly,
master reaching the phone takes the receiver off the
hook.
"Hello," he says,
Dog yaps,
- Hello, my name is Bob and I am calling to ask you if
you would like a free demonstation of our super
deluxe vacuum cleaner.
"But, I already have a vacuum cleaner that I like and
...."
- At the sound of the tone leave your name, your
address and time that it would be most convenient
for our sales representitive to stop by and show
you our product. Beep ...
"I don't want fucking vacuum cleaner and you can take a
..."
- Click.
Master meanders back to his keyboard.
Phone rings,
Dog jumps up,
Barks loud, Richard
Varron 4/30/89
"This time, you get it."
Sanity
In the insanity of life,
The sane man looks at the world,
He looks at the world with the eyes of a madman,
Cold and calculating, he glances back,
Refreshing his view, he looks, he stares
Into the emptyness which is, at once, his life.
He chooses to be sane,
To look at his insanity as the realness of life,
The life which, to him, is a mere shadow,
A shadow which follows him down his path,
A path, filled with all the terrors of existance,
As he glaces, not knowing what he will find.
Is his sanity but an illusion of his insanity,
Filled with all his fears of life,
A life he will never really know,
A view, merely a view, a facade
To be looked upon, yet not really understood,
A way to go yet not to have gone?
What is sanity but a reflection of the insane.
Or is it the insane's reflection on the sane?
For all we think, for all we know,
The sane and insane reflect on us
As they reflect on each other, as complements,
Each with no existance save for the other.
RICHARD VARRON
(Class of '81)
SIGMA I
Last summer a meteorite landed on the moon. The
scientists found that it came from Sigma I, a srar in
the Orion system. Inside one rock they found a poem
which was estimated at 4,000,000 years old. They were
surprised to find it was written in perfect English.
Here is is:
They were they and we were we.
We both looked but could not see.
They said it was a battle to make men free.
This story was written by me.
A small squad came into sight.
They came with guns loaded, full of might.
They pointed their guns
And started to run
And so began the final fight.
They searched the ground and tried to find
The bombs and traps we mined.
They dug them up
With a stroke of luck,
Then set up their tents and dined.
In the early moning of the next date,
The men awoke to fight the ones they hate.
They loaded their guns
And started their runs
To kill every man was their fate.
They shoot from the valleys and the hills.
They shot from the factories and the mills.
They fired thrice,
And paid the price,
They pulled the trigger and found it kills.
A wave of jets in the sky,
The sound of war, that awful cry.
They dove and struck,
They hit wit luck,
Everyone they hit was left to die.
A fleet of ships out at sea,
People on shore begin to flee.
It fired its gun
With the glow of sun,
They hit everything from man to tree.
In an instant there was a silence,
A sound the whole world could sence.
They whispered a psalm,
Then dropped the bomb,
They said it was in self defense.
A mushroom of red, yellow and black;
The ground trembled; it had no slack.
Streams of bright yellow
From clouds it bellow'
Kindness they did not lacl.
It's getting hot; oh, it hurt,
The air around me full of dust.
Why is man here?
Or is it that I fear,
What's going on, on our first outpost, Earth.
This was the end of the first poem. Only one verse of a
second poem was found. It was speculated that it was
written by the leader of the winning forces. Here it
is:
Two weeks after the holacast
The air is daidly; both sides have lost.
The air is becoming cold, full of frost.
Sigma I has paid the cost.
Tomorrow's Reflections
The world was destroyed yesterday.
How do I know?
I destroyed it -
I, with my mind, I caused its nihilation.
I thought it out of existence.
I saw it slip from view, my view;
I felt it vanish into the inner depths of my
subconsciousness.
Am I glad I destroyed the world? Am I sad?
Do I have any feelings at all?
Do I miss that which I have just destroyed?
Do I care for the existences that might have continued?
I do not know -
Or, more precisely, I would not have had to know,
For I had ceased to appear in it - before I destroyed
it.
RICHARD VARRON
(Class of '81)
Autumn's Trees
4/30/89
A fair winds blows over the land.
The trees are alight with fire,
The orange and yellow mist above the valley grows,
And sees the sights and yellows the sun,
That rises above the earth.
The wind rushes from the North,
And hides the beauty of the trees.
The rain comes pouring down upon the earth,
And sways the trees.
The birds fly South upon the wind,
And see the trees flow like yellow breeze.
Trees upon trees and branches, leaves.
Go forth and see the autumn leaves.
Go forth and see the trees.
Twilight
In the dazzle of the early dawn,
With the glittering jewlery hanging from her ears,
And black leather reflecting in the moonlight,
The student in her classy clothes invades the campus.
She hears the chimes of the stately clock
As she passes by the night janitors
On her way for a drink before class.
She glares at the old black men, rag in hand
hears the broken English as they speak
sniffs the stench of these swarthy slave
tastes the aroma on their tongues
feels the sheen of their swept floors
And moves on.
Into the cold, dark morning twilight,
With the dim, cratered moon setting in the West,
As the sullen stars shrivel into the sky,
The hirelings of the night fade from sight.
She asks herself, "Who are these people to litter
my campus?"
Why must I share my morning walk to class with them?"
Sipping her drink, a voice inside her answers:
"These are your fathers,
working, so that you can learn".
As she orders another round.
What Is This World
The waters afar,
The earth below,
What is this world!
The ships at sea,
The men on land,
What is this world of ours!
The launching of torpedoes,
The firing of mortars,
What is this world!
The plume of smoke,
The craters of dust,
What is this world of ours.
Dropping an A-bomb,
Dropping an H-bomb,
What was this world?
(C) Richard Varron 1996