11:00 PM July 7th 2011
Outside Delacorte Theater,
Home of Shakespeare in the Park
Central Park, New York
~~
What wretched wags
we have become,
sold rhyme and couplet
into slavery and meter sacrificed,
upon the altar of expediency.

LOL and BRB, the hallmarks
of our
insincerity,
forgetting that civility
is resurrected when
we employ the poetry of speech
in our plain and
simple communiques,
most especially in the simple,
please let beauty hold sway.

Brutalize our tongues,
thus our lives,
compression of our language
into single words that celebrate
the mundane, as fashionable.

yeah, yeah, yeah...

Our speech, its fragrance lost,
sublimates but does not sublime,
one liners demean our humanity,  
grunts of yeah and cool,
are awesome not,
our future hope is in
the details of our expression,
whereby we inject
into our verbal demeanor
a grace that sets human
above the existence animal.

So touch this screen and
let us begin,
to take our measure
by our measure
of the care we demonstrate
when we communicate.

These words have transversed
from weekday to weekday,
soon at morning prayers
to the gods inside of me,
David's hymns and poems
I'll recite,
a slow eloquence will infuse
my hallelujah eyesight.

Plain truths will be spoke,
in rhyme with
diction apace,
transfuse my soul
elevate us
severally and jointly
above the confused noises of
the prison of nondescript lives,
leaving me a believer that
all's well that begins well.

How many days left in my body?
How many poems left in my body?
One and the same, one and the sane.
My body is my poems.

You cannot distinguish me
in any other way.

eye-scans, fingerprints, belly buttons,
areolae.

all possess, all differentiate, none suffice,
I say it thrice, still you do not understand,
none not a marker singular,
they are not me,
nor are they you.

so if you read but one of my poems,
my body,
you do not know.

but when I find you perusing, exhuming,
the-ones-that-went-before
then you will, can know as well
as I know myself.

each poem a pore,
each pore a poem.

How many days left in my body?
How many poems left in my body?
one and the same, one and the sane.
my body, my poems.

my body is not episodic.
turn on the tv, no imagination leaps needed,
but each and every contingent on the prior,
each poem a stepping stone to the in side,
insight to the story of the body.

more story than poems,
I began in the beginning,
believe me there are thousands
of writs that lie about, lay about,
that sunshine has n'ere exposed.

but enough survived
enough shared, enough spent,

You have never seen my face,
what matters that,
when you have seen my poems,
my body, more than windows into,
they are the very pores of me.

Jan. 26, 2014

dying and living in a pantheon
~


a dusty storage place
for basement keepsakes,
somewhere out back,
full of emeritus stocking stuffers,
an ex-trendy,
royalty-dethroned room

where kept
ancient scriveners,
last year's flash frozen princesses and
plastic wrapped scribes,
cloud stored,
on soft decaying hard drives

prior renters, leases unrenewed,
now pushed aside,
upcoming upstanding upstarts,
looking to trade up,
let bigger quarters,
an existential reminder,
that in the word game,
no perm-press recognition,
in today's poetry biz,
it's what ya done lately

deaf dumb blind,
unsung former idols,
talk to mirrors
that no longer answer,
dial 1-800-pantheon,  
sorry, number no longer in service,
so you voyageur-visit
the other side of Styx,
a bluff overlooking
a body's work,
where glory fleeting
comes to rest,
where time judges well,
partiality impartial,
selects thy best

author an audience of sole one
that be more than
good and plenty,
a heaping teaspoon of sufficient,
glance back at discarded, outdated maps,
glory may transit
but satisfaction eternal,
when you read the old writes thinking
****, did I write this?
"Yes," answers a creased smile
cracking crusted lips

~~~~~

then blood of pride and satisfy, rejuvenates

chest warms, heart thumps,
quill beckons, tablet charges - jot hot

write for whom the bell tolls,
knowing full well
this raucous bell tolls for thee,
you re-become an
irrational ill-defined room possessed

heat,
this realized, fevered and fervent, physical pleasure,
sensory gladness,
the fat fullness of creation,
flooded breathable sunlight,
stormy uncalming indigo waters,
a natural disquietude beckons,
arousal of an old-friend welcoming

this encompassing emotion,
no-direction-known fearful commotion,
your mind, all skin,
tissues enflamed,
your ears speak,
your tongue listens,
five senses unified in
disheartened happy discordant perfection,
this you recognize,
this familiar,
is not a storage place
this, your true everlasting pantheon

glory glory - expel thy word works,

*the burnishing of fain fame
is not walled jailed,
but in-deed
actionable and transitory best honored,
peaks of mountainous-emotions, homeland, motherland,
recording, recoding in words-vision notions,
this is the one,
the inky clarity pantheon place
of the living poet

A ton of poems,
all feather weight,
your breath upon them
to release, up-float them,
they all patiently await.

A glance,
a catch in the throat,
the noises of you ,
rumbles from the kitchen,
dishwasher unloading,
creating a racket,
creating a new poem,
for in the sounds of
disbursement of the dishes,
this poem doth originate.

A ton of poems,
like the white blanket
in my bubble bath,
a puff, a finger kick
and up they go,
a feather trigger,
and a new one-ton,
free and gone,
a poem free, newly born,
from my surroundings parented,
and given up to you,
a foster child, to keep, raise
and hold close.

It's Been Awhile

since I wrote a love poem.
after all what needs this world
yet another Declaration of Inter-Dependence?


Lazy afternoon, sun kicked out the overcast drizzle,
that made you decide to cook, my heart sizzle.
You bang honey, BBQ sauce, tomato something or other
into one of your own poems, I am a couch potato observer.

Strumming my thoughts, note plucking,
Looking for two or three chords to
Basis-form a shapely container ship
For sharing what I am feeling.

A Dylan-like tune of my own growling,
begins to format, and next,
(you know what's a coming),
start singing my very own verbal song,
Nat-named this lyrical beat,
A Declaration of Inter-Dependence.

If not for you:

I would weep more.

I would weep less,
(so many tears of joy!).

My carousel, horse back riding days,
would be over, ended.

I would never make a bed unasked
(but it gives you so much pleasure).

I would live on Frosted Flakes
and microwaved hot dogs

I would die w/o ever seeing
someone weep after reading my poetry.

For that alone...

I declare my whole state of being
being dependent on another's existence.

Ok. All done. Sneak-peeking in the oven
To see what my love is poeming for our
dinner.

You may now move about the inter-dependent cabins of our
heart.

Something’s changed.


6:00 AM Sun August 16 2022

The temperature today will baby step
up the kitchen ladder, careful, senior slow,
to hover at a pleasant 79 Fahrenheit.

But, I am unfooled.

‘tis the birthing of the
changeling of mid-Augustus,
June’s initiating summer solstice,
an intimate longing now a long
gone forgotten memory, now a
calendar X a valedictorian graduate.

But of late, the sun has lately been
heisted by late afternoon by a batter
thick grayish cloud cover, right here,
hovering upon this godly place on earth.

there is a underlying fragrance, familiar,
an unmistakable chilling odor of cool fall.

an urgency emerges, hurry up you,
pluck the blueberries, harvest the peaches,
because trace hints of crispin fall apples,
falling browning foliage, curling leaves,
pumpkin flavorings and yellow gourds
is unjustly barely there, a definitely discernible.  

Back-to-school ads replace banners proclaiming
bargain prices for summer necessities, vin rosé.

Even the squirrels are enjoying a Sunday rest,
after mornin’ worship, no feverish acorn collection,
a subtle hint, winter supplying must be nearly done.

dare not superstitious say out loud, the **** geese,
have made themselves scarce going on two weeks,
having learned a trick or two from the Ukrainians,
I chuckle to think that we may have regained territory.

But, I am unfooled.

Morning boats of all ilk and demeanor ply-plow the
bay waters, but all seem less hurried, savoring the pretense
of forever long summer days, beyond-belief sunsets, soft white
ice of creamy calming waters, no impasto^ seas wintry rough.

Return-to-bed, coffee mugged, I await the Dumps early call,
the sorting done, metal, plastic,compostable, so easy to bring
order to our daily detritus, thinking if only one could sort the seasons then I would be a forever summer man, here,
on this godly place.

But, I am unfooled.

7:06 AM Tue Aug 16 2020
Shelter Island, N.Y.

————————
^Impasto is a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface thickly, usually thick enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. When dry, impasto provides texture; the paint appears to be coming out of the canvas.

dreams in colors that don't exist,
and 'mares re dear sir, deadlines missed,
wrestle~arrest poet,
instant awake
in the wee time,
pouring liquidity,
fluids and words,
puddling, stinking,
coming,
from the
always dangerous,
always interesting temple inner inside,
sanctimonious no more sanctum

this particular sleep,
shortened, irretrievable,
bookmarked "closed,"
chapters,
hours too soon,
this rest business,
arrested
filed in an ugly
grey metal file cabinet,
in an unfinished manila prison
with your other unimportant poems

the dark room universe
populated by
hints, shadows, voices,
waiting, welcoming,
mirrors on the walls
unified in one voice
deep, obtuse,
demanding recognition
"hither hither come"

forced march
to a visitation,
to the the parition,
of your reflection,
clearest ever seen,
in the black pitch,
uncovered by guise, feathers
the clothes of normative pretenses,
the man-made borderlines of
preservation falsehoods

seen your own semblance,
parts rearranged,
uncanny,
the mirrors are screaming:
shameful lovely,
this, our artistry,
your apparition,
now accurate,
reflecting your under-
lying
condition,
at last,
an accurate portrayal,
of your inaccuracies

do you find yourself attractive?
this new balance,
the unregulated pieces
of you
before your dissembling,
discerning,
dissecting eyes?

feeling the valence,
an introduction,
a physical magnetism
any attraction
any resemblance
to the semblance
that writes
this s.o.s.?

answer us thus,
do you up
and like yourself
unvarnished,
grunge, swag,
truth  trammeled,
don't you want to kiss yourself
goodbye,
or better yet,
fare thee hell?

go ahead,
ask yourself now,
that one question
that prevents conception,
from your inception,
what is it that
makes you exceptional?

don't you realize,
everything about you
ends in a question mark?

how dare you write poetry?
you are the false poet,
you live on the division
tween artifice and self-deception,
this, your only precept,
and now that you are
clarified,
answer this,
knowing you know
nothing
but artifice,

**how dare you write poetry?

for lovejunkie...amidst this parliament of words,
I am selfish,
but not always blind...

~~~


from our bed, I see witnesses,
a small stand of trees,
no parliament these,
but a scattering of
oak~men and birch~women,
who shade and defend us,
a few good marines on duty,
standing between us and
our beloved but ever
dangerous tempestuous changeling child,
the one we call,
with well-mixed trepidation and affection,
the sea change

this small stand,
throws all caution to the wind,
remnants of a once great army
upon my forested isle,
these proud stragglers,
refuse to desert their
human worshipers and century renters,
giving them aid and comfort,
from the sum of
sun, wind and the
ever encroachment of waves,
who would and
will
own all
eventually

they look out,
this stand of trees,
facing away,
lookouts for us,
watchmen of the day
and still on duty,
even when the day's nethered nemesis
returns

this stand of trees,
they look back as well, upon me,
even as I catalogue them,
distinct even now in the tomb of midnight dark,
facing me simultaneously,
self-appointed witnesses
to a man's thinking
of his:

binding and unbundling,
the tumult of the fusion
of the pros and cons
at the intersection of
love and memories

where ancient needs and memories
clash to rehash past victories and Waterloo,
all the while, the cries of the
perpetuity of future desires,
incessant demanders of
fresh refreshments of love,
shout out
"more, more,"
ever so softly

perhaps this is why they stay...

voyeurs,
to be amused by selfish humans,
denying their very built-in natures,
addicted to the elusiveness of romance,
wearing pretend masques of self-blindness
to the devil-may-care,
unpredictable seasonality of loves
comings and goings

and yet how clear recalled the
unconcealed passion and gleeful gratitude
when we tuck a beloved's locks from
their eyes, to the safety of the
crook of their ears

the stand of trees,
strong tall, plain big,
compare and contrast
to the infinite smallness
of merest seconds
of loving tenderness
etched upon the firmament permanency
of the
mind's eyes

perhaps this is why they stay...

perhaps this is why we cannot renounce
our never wreaking addiction to love
and its cocktail of
torments and fulfillment

trees - perhaps,
they better understand our frailty
than we do,
do trees love humans so much in return
for all this love we give them?

we chop in hurry fury down,
only to repent and replant tenderest of seedlings,
like human love,
we chop in hurry fury down,
only to repent and replant tenderest of seedlings

for are we not all selfish, all blind,
all needy, all defenseless,
all cautiously defensive,
so much
and then again,
not so much
not so blind or selfish,
that we cannot use our word tools
to grant ourselves,
we aching creatures,
grant ourselves
a few small chances,
to pry open both
recollections of our heart's delight
and the seeds
for its
renewal

perhaps we are all witnesses?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"but oh if fate threw caution to the wind
giving this parliament of trees their hearts' delight
how wondrous to these eyes would those boughs be
smashing through that firmament, that light."

"and oh if fate threw caution to the wind
granting this aching creature just one wish,
i'd be content with much less than your kiss...
for i am selfish, but not always blind;"

**from "wish I may wish I might"
by lovejunkie

inspired  by“Blame It on Kristofferson” written by Byron Hill and John Wilken,
released 2010
(lyrics below)
<•>
A young teen listens to the
folk/rock during the Sixties,
five few years later,
now all growed up and living, crazy,
on Bleecker Street, the very same,
where these songs were being sung live,
by the artists, songwriters & friends
on the streets’s bars ‘n cafes

And Judy sings a ballad, mysterious,
‘bout a Marianne and all the tea in China,
words written like it was a poem,
and the infection was silent transferred,
still ‘fected, even now, in days sooner to
be reporting to heaven’s door, this blessed
curse will be unrelenting coming along,
we blame it on
Leonard Cohen

Knew the words, learned the secret chords,
which was easy, a-direct line between us,
knew where he got them holy tunes, and the
words he stole stealthy from our prayerbook,
went to Montreal, visited his home,
it was no accident, just the hand of god,
but don't blame the divine mystery being,
nah~nope, half~century, later, this dope
still blames it on,
yeah that’s right, on
Leonard Cohen

And here we are, the two of us, probably
smiling, gesticulating and gesturing, who
in fact is truly responsible for our crazy gene,
that pursues us, to create,
to mate words with
music of the deep soul, and here me be,
I am,
grateful grasping for each latter day to birth a new creation,
going out smiley & feeling kindly and fulfilled, now more than ever, and
zero doubts that the person at fault, fully blaming it all on my Canadian soul brother,
Leonard Cohen

If you come to my funeral,
Come by train.
Even if inconvenient.

Take the time
To come slow.

Read my poems,
Read yours,
Mash them up,
So they become better
When joined at the hip.

So be ready,
Be Cub or Girl Scout prepared,
To laugh with crinkly eyes
At private memories,
Recalled stories.

Yes, one can cry and laugh simultaneously,
Perfectly sensible, when on,
Especially when on,
A slow, aglow, train ride,
On the way to a beloved's funeral.

*But this trip don't involve any travels
Its your heart that I am trying to reach
To touch it and fill it with a
Feeling so sweet
Where heartache and pain
Can no longer dwell
So your heart can smile
And only feel well
To find love
For every living thing
And for yourself
And of course for ME

Hardly Hidden

for Helen,
the High Definition brunette momma among us

there are tracks in your arm
ready visible
to all those
with a personal microscope
if one
optically
examines the empty spaces
tween your poem-words....

the exterior all smiles,
whooping it up,
children, all smiles,
tumbling, breaking things,
ceilings collapsing, winters arriving,
as is the way of the kids
and nature,
inexorable,
occasionally
breaking you to
smile too

Abut to all this
is the contentiousness,
the aboriginal sense of loss
for what once was,
plain out in
in the secret messages sent
and
you know
you own
my all
unuttered utter devotion

we need no qualification
of what we are

we are friends,
not drinking buddies,
the straight out
semi-secret fans
of each other

thousands of miles apart
of simple purity borne,
you warm me
with endless jokes
and familial tales

and I thank you
for sharing, for trusting,
me with that troubling notion
that I am missing
a sorrowful deepening
that is
after a wellness examination

hardly hidden**

but t'is heard around the world,
gunshot to my heart,
come to me when
ever
is understood that this
paean ~ pain ~ poem
is a simple wayfarer's way
of declaring
forever

I know you are sleeping now,
but when  the fall sun breaks,
here is hoping me that you
break into private tears
in private places
like the ones decorating me,
celebrating
the best of what
humans
can be

Dedicated entirely to and for Marisa White

So many human cells,
trillions, not billions

staying alive, a constant balance
between losing and making more.
when young and growing,
like you babe,
like you babe,
making many more new,
than we lose.

when we "advance"
to advanced ages,
like me babe,
like me babe,
when old sick,
either body or heart,
starting to die,
losing more than we make.
new cells, no more,
past
tense,
yet, still have colorations of all kinds,
streaming residues inside yet thrive.

the youthful biologist,
you, know all this,
yet still needy seemingly,
for gentlest reminding,
by an inexorably dying man,
prime declining,
so care for these words well,
they won't come again.

for you to imagine a grain
inside you,
so wonderful envisioned,
that the yet uncorrected words
limbo, stasis,
are deleted from the textbooks
as yet unwritten,
on and of you,
writ by you.

I need
but one cell,
of your DNA,
freshly birthed this day,
a canvas of only you,
unsullied by pernicious infected hopelessness,
where, under the microscope electrifying,
I will paint with scalpel and brush,
away the limbo,
injecting the blue dye of
happyness,
to course through your red veins.

how cannot you see,
the potential vastness of the trillions
that awaits, so in need,
needy for coloration by a scientist~poetess,
when a lover good and true appears,
you will birth trillions
new cells in a new body, imagine that,
using only the brightest hues of your untapped potential.

which cell?

so many choices,
so many possibilities,
why that I leave that
up, to you babe,
up up up up up,*
up, to you babe.

the earth world retains its soiled crust,
more polluted than just a few weeks ago,
meaning me is meaner, an iron irony ironic,
madness and meanness anger me more
than-ever-before turning me sour, an infection
and an self-inflection point, forgive me cause
I no longer easy forgive, starting with me, here.

it is so easy to be easier, but the creeps creep in,
what they possess interdicts the free
flowing blood of what we could be,
maybe, even
what we want to be, for some of us,
so I’ve come to display,
come to splay,
come to say,
nice has
been disposed of, in overflowing corner city garbage can,
spilling onto the street, madness and meanness,
littered and the lies sugarcoat it with veneers of
righteous, cause anyone can claim the moral
high ground, but find me the low places, where
honesty is not defined by an ism, or in only your opinion,
and right and wrong are so oft
so easy distinguishable…

yeah, soured on many things, and what hasn’t changed
cannot be shared, for too many will seek to pollute these few
good things remaining.

and the mirrored reflection of my inflection point
is my soiled infection, red, swollen,
and being this away is…new

8:04am
Sat Oct 21 2023

~

~ for my knowing friends~





~~~
so simple the notion,
that healing's potent potions
are non-directional portents
coming at you
like a Bob Dylan, Avettt Brothers,
rhythm and rhyme,
tunes injected from the outside knowing,
from the first time
that they were residing inside,
all the time

in, on and under the skin

the conflicted battle rages between the
coursing forces of

I believe

and the low grade infection, incurable return of

faithless disbelief and irreconcilability

a parental entry knowing,
despite different routes of administration,
there is no pharmacology for a limb lost,
any prosthesis healing supplanted
from without,
never achieves
anything approaching next to normal

but from within,
the heart can heal itself,
trying a natural bypass,
doing its imperfect best
to correct the uncorrectable,
resigned to accept the unacceptable

the slight edge felt from
cutting a garden's new growth for replanting
an act of belief in the future,
witnessing a sunset's nightly color sky's return rebirthing,
knowing, admitting to oneself,
that miraculously better than all ever seen prior are

medicines that come from the outside,
and inward bound daily injections,
they are:

"healing, from the inside out...
just as it was meant to be!"

•••

"on some days, I love you more than others,"
an early morning uh oh
IROLO
(instantly regretted out loud observation),
of the potentially ruinous kind,
spoken with malice towards none,
and obviously,
no forethought,
firmly but modestly muttered
over the modestly rumpled
courtroom battlefield
of sheets, newsprint, mugs
and Bocelli on low

smockingly,
(a slow spreading smile of mock),
she turns her gaze upon
the presumed guilty, querulous,
soon-to-be-ruined ruminator (me),
and asks with
disdainful derisive decisiveness

is your first cuppa too hot darling?
has your uncommon sense of non-sense been burnt?

t'is true I reply,
I feel the burn!

for am I not sworn
to tell the whole heated truth
and nothing but?

my love for you is simply
a mathematical additive,
progression series

every new day I love you
is forever
a mighty mite more
than the prior,
a smudged smidge of a penciled line,
taller than the
higher higher notated
upon ancient yesterday's doorpost

ergo,
ip so factoid,
and therefore,
by definition

on some days I love you more than others
    •••


p.s. never have conversations like this in the presence of within-reach newspapers,
for they be
easy rolled and revised
into fearsome weaponry,
suitably for handy smacking"

It’s only a short straight hill
(First Poem.of the Year)

“I'm 69, newly homeless, and can't wait to start the journey of a creative life after being asleep for so long. It's only a short straight hill and I'll be on a path into a new life.”

Jeremiah B Xxxxxx Jr.

<?>

it is
4:11am
on the
first day
of a new
year.

a year
is a unit;
mathematically
measurable,
defined,
calculable,
divisible
by seconds,
minutes,
hours & days,
all artifices,
mutually
acknowledged.

you,
& others,
remind
me too easily,
that the
creative
is the only
path
to endless,
(a unit immeasurable)
reinvigorating
life.

your fragrant
optimium optimism
is stun
gun overpowering,
the ill defined,
but instantly
understood,
immeasurable
distance,
you foresee
to life better is
conquerable!


”only a short straight hill”

imbues me to lift
head, heart, arm
& unloved dried ink pen,
to pen,
to unpack,
to speak,
of all that
needs climbing,
over the
artificial lines
of the first unit
of time:

a new year.

thank you.

Sun Jan 1 2023
NYC

<>>
Jan. 13, 2014
<>

a  flawless poem

if such there were,
will always be,
the next one

my poor soul,
my rag tag heart
has no censor,
so careless, reckless,
as if words were but
frivolous treasures,
easy spent, easy get

if only, how I wish I
could harvest my best,
with golden cutlery excise
the single flawless poem,
that I know is in my possess

lay down this hand so weary
from cupping tears,
be satisfied at long last,
so much so,
that when my casket lowered,
hands in repose companioned,
clutching his best, easing his rest,
a paper record to join his dust
with ash,
his flawless poem,
at longest last

this is an excerpt from a very long, (shudder) private poem about a dinner party with visiting friends, up from Memphis to celebrate their birthday in NYC.
Unplanned,  I gave them all gifts without hesitation from an unusual collection of mine that they were admiring.  
When questioning my unexpected generosity, by way of explanation, I jokingly said
"there is no room in my casket."

~

sweetly thanked for the unexpected gift,
the poet replies comically,
"there is no more room in his casket",
for even these, small trifles

later in the quietude of
late night contemplation,
comes a greater realization,
the truth was unseen
in his offhanded remark,
now, gives him pause and cause
to capture a greater  revelation

there is insufficient room indeed,
for accompanying the poet on his finale,
an uncharted encore voyage akin to
Tennyson's poem of
the famed voyage of Ulysses -

thoughts yet unthought,
a few thousand poems,
that time forbade completion,
all must yet reside beside and inside his soul,
timed-released escapees
from the real yet artificial limits of
physical deterioration

these,
be his boon companions in arms,
his banded-brothered company,
purposed for inspiration,
his lasting re-actualization

so plentiful, indeed,
there be no room in the casket,
for the merely beloved,
beautiful physical objets d'art,

they  too must give way
to the natural law of
"unto dust returned"
but poetry
*never dies

“What does baking require of us?
It requires patience, thoughtfulness, an eye to your surroundings, otherwise known as
simply paying attention and responding accordingly.”

more gourmand than gourmet,
who believes like the firmament above
that the transportation of
the human soul is enlightened,
enlivened
by the aroma of scent of
an endless freshly baked loaf of bread

need to confess,
never held
a rolling pin,
nor had a mustache white
made of flour
upon my face,
and if ere the toaster oven
had not been
installed invested or even invented
in a kitchen,
the only thing
I would ever have
preheated is the body
of a woman who truly
was loved
complete and insane
daily for
sixteen
years

but the perfume of a
newly baked brioche
can bring me to
tears
just as a newly unearthed,
the child of a poem
writhing within me
emerging, even surging
from the soiled placenta
of my
souled~soiled mind&heart,
borne and born
yeah,
even
bre(a)d

so I read an article about
a baker from France,
reading the words above
and wonder
what did I miss,
forfeit,
after a lifetime liftoff of
a badly chosen careered life
that i did trust love
or so I thot!

“wondering why bakers are the way
they are. There is a quietness, and a kindness, to their lives that veers into almost monastic behavior. Perhaps it is simply the ancientness of being a fire maker — tending a hearth really brings something out in a person.”

how I glowed and flowed
with recognition of the
esprit de corps
(borrowed identically
from French to our
Anglais lexicon)
in all acts of creation,
a fabulous trade,
a new conception
eye spied on the streets of
My Manhattan

understood the mesmerizing
heat of a crackling fire
for children of all ages
and the why~when
the birth canal opens,
I must be alone with
the quietude that
tries and fails
to hold the raging
heated hot juices inside,
kept nope, not in check,
so formatting them into
a disc shape,
lest they spill unseeded floored,
a pour of ooze,
crisping the lost flesh
of flames eradicating
from
the plenitude distractions of
short term, this modern life

<>

Sunday,
in my America is a holy day,
a sabbatical
marked by rituals sacred,
brunch, football games
or maschostically
even two on a
Josephian
coat of
many colored  channels

all this followed by
with a desert tray of
patisserie,
PBS (1) ****** mystery tv shows
of British origin
for a somewhat lessened
yet still violent contested cultural
amuse bouche

In between,
the ladies squeeze in
a Great British Baking Show,
which says when suggested
you’ve been bested
and
‘Yo Boy,
time to ****, Nat
them deserts make you fatter,
by mere visual osmosis’
and contemptible contemplation

and that contested kitchened
atmosphere
antithetical to introspective
inspection
which life ingested in you
overly oveyly
aplenty
in placed,

so now I wonder
if this,
a career chosen
by youthful me,
the maledom masculine shouting of the
traditional trading room,
where ego was nourished
within a veneer of analytics,
rationed rationales reasoned,
was down to the nearest $ sign,
was it
the right place for me,
and how it sponsored within me,
a need ultimately
to sit
in ancien worn
by fig & vine
in uncomfortable Adirondack thrones,

a bright need
to sit by  the
saluting salutation waves of
a constant lapping bay,
and the conversation of
a current thrusting empowered
tidal basin rivers
waters both
lightly salted fresh water
in piety poetic
combination,
all fed by genteel
small mountain streams,
all flowing, by gravity sent,
to assemble ingredients
of
verbs, noun words in
an adjectival temple,
unkempt kept simple,

in different voices
well  hid **** deep
beneath his skin, his bone,
for to simply order up;
a bake off up,
a meringue of
poems

and to better understand what
our well definable,
oh so human
l i f e

requires,
even demands
without surcease,
of us?
all the while
we
twogether
areexpelling the rap we
breathe
and the scented heaven
of holy wine and
unlimited
loaves of
yup,
b r e a d


nmlipstadt

Always!*  
fall in love with a poet,
they cannot disguise the truth,
yet, soften it when needed, somehow,
for the only words they possess
are kindness and kindness...

Should you travel with a poet,
new ways of seeing will they introduce,
delighting you, and for ever in you, delight,
for every word that passes thru their lips,
gifts to keep, for the days of when...

There cannot be always good times,
poets know, so they write today,
for when tomorrow's intrusion is
the other end of life's continuum,
their words recalled, restore, revive...

Poets are the predecessors,
your torment, anguish, they have known,
so when they write today, it is
preparation when the future demands,
changes that require tissues, shoulders, arms...

Worry not about their torment,
t'is a seasonal change, comes and goes,
but in the winters of your life,
yours - warm fire, warm poets, summer kind words,
so, always, always,


Always fall in love with a poet...

genetic & embedded in both
the left and right brains and
heart muscles, pores and parts
that participate in the body’s
daily ritual colloquium regarding
the necessary amount of magic
needed, upkeep required,
to please the Lord, 
whose designers were
co~missioned,
tasked-to make a self healing
being, with a reasonable shelf
life but with built-in imperfections
and to struggle and to
honor  that idea that we born blind
and our goal is
learning to see,
envision
our better
version

the
correct redirection of
constant course corrections
using the
secret compass chord
playing on the harp of our
heart strings

<•>

903am
1/23/25
on a day of addition and sub traction