Sometimes there are nights where it feels like my soul is writhing beneath my skin.

Rattling the cage made of bones, banging against flesh, clawing its way out to get to you.

An all consuming condition,
liquid fire roiling through my veins.

My desire for you
Decimating me to ash from flame.

>crumbled, rumbled, street survivors,
paper scraps that took the rage abuse rap,
dead love notes, bills red with overdues,
these pre-poems have traveled wind currents
some in from Jersey, some hailing Minnesota,
ain't never see one that crossed the Atlantic,
but reckon it is not a theoretical impossibilty

unpretty city streets, like a museum, collects 'em,
plenty of exhibition space, forlon, historically
orphaned, disbanded, whose paths all got confused,
some sweet, all beat, balled and thrown, no home,
no more, each a reveille, each humming taps, now,
all scented by strret odors, none pleasant, each was
in its prior life, the meat, the grist, the meal of what
was, coulda been, a poem that would have survived
yellowed in care, tender glanced, tucked in books,
safekept, but slipped away, victims of friction, fraction

look down, be unafraid, unravel them slow, careful,
abused, all these messengers all need a good home,
a box in a closet, a book of tenders, witnesses to what
they've seen, places they've been, hand held, tenderized
by words spiced, variegated, ink, pencil, typewritten, like
their prior human authors, all sizes, all shapes, some on
colored paper, a l l astrayed, accidental, purposed, details
and detritus, once deemed essemtial, important, necessary
and needed, even believed, but times change

you're stuck, brain ain't cooperating, tired of staring inside
your self's self, pull on a sweater, it's a chilly spring overcast air,
that don't natural warm, more naturally warn, be careful where,
you step, your next poem is laying right there, grab a few, take
more than a couple, this is like a school dance, try a few, until
you bank the right one in the till, the connection made, a kiss,
in secret stolen, and the drive, the forces, the perspiration urgency
leads to you desk, nook, granny's cranny, and the world of words
overflow like seagulls in a harbor, so many spilling, hard is the
choosing, but excited adrenaline, free basing, in your veins and
****, you gotta just write again, right now, add a ***** poem
back to its rightful place in a heart, upon eyes, tongue taste them
syllables, clap and laugh as they symmetrically form, subtle rhyming,
the sleeping seeds have sprouted, the brown brain loamy cells,
fertile and potent, energize, impregnate, and you just can't wait
to walk the streets, in search of many, many more

it's ok, you have permission to utter a whispery nearly silent
hallelujah<

I taught children to write cursive.
And how to drive a stick.
In fact, they learned my boomer tricks,
Like reading, walking, talking.
They learned about winning, and all about losing, with dignity.
They learned about friendship, loyalty, honour, trust,
And perseverence.
They learned that truth, as hard as it might be, was ok.
These cannot be discarded.

And yet, today's child is not for these times.
They are time travellers.

Take away selfishness,
and most of the American Dream flattens
into the cinema-real backdrop
against which Boomers matured.

Our grand parents were the last
of the pioneers,
or first
of the labor class immigrants
to be specialized
for urban labor roles, selling ordinary sweat
of the brow for wages
of sin born iniquity jobs.


When all people
on the planet think little
of groupthink effects, one devises effectual,
fervent effort to make wares worth a nickle, or a dime,

or a penny's worth, back when pennies did buy baked wares…

bread of life's basic daily grind,

fundamental bottom mind, superfluous
to say bottom most, basest
ideal standard ration
measured common rationality
built line upon line, letter by letter, plain
let the message be itself the messenger
kind of sapience marking our species
as soil comprised complexities,

which wax old in no time at all, at the end,

the far end, hoary head and toddering gait, sitting,
face to the sun on a April morning,
in a trough between tumbled granite waves, decomposing.

In this position, suppose-edly
my Truth's only ever once
told
upon a time, out past here and now…

I sit, thinking,
reifying realized right thinking, balanced,
recollecting all yester-was
incidents we all pass
as one's own life
time wise
necessary
organic carbon scaffolding - and memories.

A smile,
a suggestion in a word,
a subtle shift on a face,
you see,
you knew what I mean.

A wink, not what you think.

Come let us make a day, imagine,
today, only the good we do gets done,
within the reach of any doing penance.

So, the word of the master, whence
cometh all the wisdom ever we use,
cometh to all, save those brought up

in the school of the prophets Saul danced with

-- the difficult concept, knowledge da'leth,
dabar
רִיב Hebrew reeb, a controversy, point
of contention, an argue-premise point…

Proud child memorizer, reared
to be the reader aloud, raised
to be the reteller reselling past prophecies,

pointed promises perceptible now, as later,
still, the end must come,

the truth itself shall be seen as shown,
to be observed, reverent, wary, watching

all the mobs of mankind been scattered
to and fro, from island to island,
since ever was a story we be in.

Today, 2025 by the church told time, since
the message from the spirit of truth, per se.

Wait, after activation, spirit of curiousity, feel

whatifery, reification risen conception, breath
whispering, really listening,

here's the time, as it ever was,
here's the day, as it ever is,


make do.

I engraved her name on the picnic table
Then I engraved the stone over her grave
I engraved the memory of her face on my heart
I engraved the words on the walls of  my prayers
Then out of desparation I engraved her memory in poem

They hurt their Love, and she forgave them,
All their fears and their whim.
And threw herself as onto a scaffold
To save them both, and not her or him.

They didn't take care of Love, but could be
More merciful, tender and kind to her.
She gave them happiness and so much charity
Up to the last day, while they were with her.

They killed their Love so bitter and wildly!
They ribbed their Love. They burnt her all,
With all their wishes, dreams and chances,
With their faith in Love in whole!

They forgot their Love. They simply buried
Their tender Love. And she went away,
Without 'Goodbye', remained as a shadow,
Irretrievable, lost, forever, noway...