The Collected Poems

By Fran Landesman

Poet and lyricist Fran Landesman occupies the ironic territory between Dorothy Parker and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Landesman’s work combines pathos and humor and glows with the tough wisdom gleaned from a lifetime of riding in fast convertibles and hanging out in smoky bars.

This ebook contains Landesman’s books Invade My Privacy, The Ballad of the Sad Young Men and Other Verse, and More Truth Than Poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504011037

Book preview

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The Collected Poems

Fran Landesman

New York

Contents

More Truth Than Poetry

BIRD’S EYE VIEW

From Dimity’s Photograph

The Grooves of Change

Life Is a Bitch

Cigarettes

The Bitter Joys of Vinegar

Bums Never Get Bald

Make Lemonade

The Code of the West

The Game

Song of Four Women

One Man’s Poison

So Says My Song

I Wrote the Part

ROGUE’S GALLERY

Beautiful Ruin

The Artist vs. Death

Dream Girl

One of Them

Why I’m Not Gay

Caroline Coon

Been Doin’ Nothin’

The Death of the Lion Queen

LOVE LORE

Semi-Detached

Depravity

Come with Me

The Failure of E.S.P.

Missed Understandings

Black Song

Wasted

Motor Lullaby

CITY SCAPES

A Different Dream

Christmas Blues

Yankee Doodle Londoner

One of Those Days

Doner Kebabs

The Early Winds of Morning

London Days and New York Nights

THE MEDIA AND ME

In Bed with a Book

New Wave Film

The Bull Also Rises

Peter Lorre

Christopher Robin Where Are You?

It Beats Watchin’ Television

The Lonesome Monster

Instant Nostalgia

Invade My Privacy

CRIES FROM THE HEART

Invade My Privacy

Somewhere Called Home

I Should Have Been Dancing

Through the Smoke

After Many a Summer

Speed Queen

The Rope

Only Why No More

Cri de Cœur

Unlit Room

A Handful of Dust

CHAOS AND COMEDY

Is the Common Man Too Common?

Lost Lovers

Between Chaos and Comedy

Love Is the Rainbow

Hello Suckers!

Kings of Rock and Roll

White Nightmare

Do a Dance for Daddy

The Past Is a Foreign Country

The Heart of Darkness

The Three Biggest Lies

OLD FRIENDS

Actors

The Ballad of Yesterday’s Idol

Spite Song

How Come?

Christmas Song

The Eros Hotel

Dorian Gray

Jaybird

Talking Big Dreams

A Brontosaurus Named Bert

Second-hand Experience

Lennie

Crazy Sundays

TRUE CONFESSIONS

In Another Country

If Wishes Were Horses

The Argument

Spirit of ’76

And the Birds Refuse to Shine

With All My Hats

Jaywalkin’

Swan Song

Find Me in Bed

The Ballad of the Sad Young Men and Other Verse

PEOPLE I’VE KNOWN

The Ballad of the Sad Young Men

Bogie

She (for Hanja)

Bad Penny

Burned

What am I Doing With You?

Do You Remember?

The Princess from Flatbush

The Prince of Swords

Sinbad Apollo

Boy

Son of a Famous Father

Mercedes-Benz

Mystery Man

She Used to Sing (Another Look at Mother)

Sister Song

A Man Who Used to Be

MOSTLY ME

Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most

Where are You, Darryl Zanuck?

It’s Only a Movie

The Things We Never Did

Dream Love

Why?

Song of the Procrastinating Penitent

Solstice Song

Homecoming

My Lost City

Twilight

What About Me?

One Day at a Time

Killing Time

Gone But Not Forgotten

The If Game

Am I O.K.?

SICK CHICKENS

Song from Salvador

The Minister of Lunacy

Kitsch Death

Sick Chickens

Tennis, Anyone? (a Tango)

Where the Blues Begin

All That Fall (for Ernie)

Personals

Into the Dark

London, Winter ’74

After We’re Gone

Queen of Heaven

The Decline of the West

Not With a Bang

Acknowledgment

More Truth Than Poetry

To Elton John

(Guess why)

BIRD’S EYE VIEW

Deja Views. Australia

From Dimity’s Photograph

The old dears picnic on a tartan blanket

His hairy arm in short-sleeved sport shirt

Circumnavigates her waist

We see them from the rear

His balding head, her spreading bum

The edge of a carton of cholesterol

And a thermos of tea

Growing out of the horizon

Is the fabulous mushroom

Or is it the tree at the end of the world

With an angel in its branches?

(Do I see an angel?)

It is very beautiful and terrible to behold

But is it as awful as arthritis

Or the losing of a lover

Or the fear of growing old?

The Grooves of Change

Familiar faces alter

And familiar scenes grow strange

The great world keeps on spinning

Down the ringing grooves of change

The music of the sixties

Sounds sedate and sadly sweet

The records go on spinning

To an ever madder beat

The skyline goes on shifting

And old lovers disappear

The stars wear different faces

From the ones they wore last year

The punks are in the money

And the dollar’s falling down

The peacock throne is empty

And John Lennon’s out of town

The magazines turn yellow

In the rooms we used to haunt

And we don’t know who to follow

And we don’t know what we want

We muse about the future

And the jokes fate may arrange

As the great world keeps on spinning

Down the ringing grooves of change

Life Is a Bitch

Life is a bitch

From the cradle to the grave

Even when you’re rich

You are always something’s slave

Life is a bitch

Full of hang-ups, full of hurt

First love makes you itch

Then it dishes you the dirt

Just watch how the six-year-olds

Break each other’s hearts

Better learn to stand the cold

Cultivate the arts

Life’s full of shit

Even when you’re in your prime

Though your show’s a hit

Reason never seems to rhyme

Every joke has a switch

Every joker a twitch

Every high has a hitch

Baby, life is a bitch

Cigarettes

Man’s inhumanity to man

Is the curse of the species we call human

A well accepted part of nature’s plan

Is man’s inhumanity to women

He told me he was goin’ down to the corner

To get a pack of cigarettes

That happened in September now it’s December

I haven’t seen his shadow yet

Your man may be an angel, maybe you trust him

But I sure wouldn’t take no bets

When he tells you that he’s goin’ down to the corner

To get a pack of cigarettes

It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s day or if it’s night

A man will get distracted if