Raymond Keen- Two Poems

A Tyrant’s Dream – (Originally published in my book, Love Poems for Cannibals – February 2013)

You leave home.

You hate them

For not understanding.

You return, but find

You are locked

Out of the house.

Now you remember

Your mother is on vacation.

You notice

This other woman

Has more hair

On her arms than you,

But you “let that dog lie.”

Then you notice

These other women

Don’t shave their legs.

But they are weak!

You are strong!

So you climb up the tree

In their back yard.

You peer through the window.

Suddenly your path

Seems more certain.

Because you realize

That you are also weak:

All that ability,

But no authority.

Once you were

“The Favorite,”

Simply by playing

A parasitic endgame

With your chameleon host.

Now in this hell

We call heaven,

She can’t even remember your name.

You were Ahab

Trapped in the birth canal,

First-rate spirit

Waiting to be born second,

Swallowing your twin’s shit

As he was born,

Waiting, deciding.

Now you are the Robber.

Now you are the Thief.

Now you have

Blue eyes and blond hair.

Now you are utterly fearless.

Now you are Ahab

Astride the White Whale.

Now you play God with Mother.

Now you shit Truth.

He’s a Fat Boy, and He’s Getting Fatter – (Originally published in my book, Love Poems for Cannibals – February 2013)

He’s a fat boy,

and he’s getting fatter.

Each fat boy

has been given his own instruments.

“Aren’t they pretty?” Nancy asked.

“I help other American children behave,”

the fat boy said, spitting on the flowers,

wiping his mother’s kiss from his mouth,

splashing his urine on the edifice,

his fingers continuing to tremble

from the maternal embrace.

“I want to be famous,” he said.

“He is shy before the cameras,

but not too shy,” his mother said,

running after him, her large teeth

yellow from smoking, not

an original bone in her body,

but without sin.

Some would say another lost generation,

but without sin. 

So we invite him into our house.

We give him vitamins.

“Now my body will be perfect,” he said.

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Bio: 

Raymond Keen was educated at Case Western Reserve University and the University of Oklahoma.  He spent three years as a Navy clinical psychologist with a year in Vietnam (1967 – 1968).  Since that time he has worked as a school psychologist and licensed mental health counselor in the USA and overseas, until his retirement in 2006.  

Love Poems for Cannibals, published in February 2013, is the author’s first volume of poetry.  He is also the author of a drama, The Private and Public Life of King Able, which will be published in 2015.  Raymond’s poetry has been published in 30 literary journals.

Website:  http://raymondkeen.com/