I under stand!
_____

<>

perhaps I do
not fully,
understand,
but nonetheless,

I under stand!

Legs locked,
shoulders set,
eyes ahead straight,  
mouth firmly wavering,
range bound, between
a back n’ forth,
from grimace
to smile resolute,

my support promised,
here beneath,
is where I am,
you, set upon
my frame,
capable~able,
you, for,
to surmount,
overcome,
rise above,
see farther,
vision clearer,
any troubling
fray and say!
I am risen,
with help
of friends,
to place
my reach
never touched,
or exceeded…
until now!

2:34 pm

walking on the beach,
musing, scheming, always,
writing, grabbing words
from sea breezes,
and gusts that
order plain:
now, now,
now!
is the
time,
to share
that load**

May 26 2024

O.K. God, time to chat: my friends in Australia
asking for rain, and the conflagration has proved
sufficient to press us with your awesome skill set,
your methodology, driving the knife point into us
to point to us
the errors of our owned ways

this has altered the terms of our truce, so get it pouring,
open them skies and let it rain, bringing betterdays

the Day of Atonement (our MUTUAL Judgement tabulation)
is 9 months away, your plus/minus yellow list on lined legal pad
of what have I done this year is badly in the red,
bordering on flaming ******* orange,
I ain’t in the mood for all your
purposeful accidents,
mocking our human ratiocinations

your angels whisper me private like,
you’ve got free will,
the devilishly blessed curse bestowed upon some of the creatures,
but this beef between us could be resolved with a little rain

you want me to pray in January?
something I never do so early in the year,
as my sin chiefest is procrastination, the dire need is greater
than just our private war, so here comes my blended knees,
anger and a begging

begging with a pinch of insouciance of one who knows
your dating profile lies and exaggerations



<!>
The Hebrew Prayer for Rain

Af Bri is the title of the prince of rain,
Who gathers the clouds and makes them drain,
Water to adorn with verdure each dale,
Be it not held back by debts left stale,
O’ shield the faithful who pray for rain...
May He send rain from the heavenly towers,
To soften the earth with its crystal showers,
You have named water the symbol of Your might,
All that breathe life in its drops to delight,
O' revive those who praise Your powers of rain…

Our G‑d and G‑d of our fathers,
Remember our father Abraham who was drawn after You like water,
Whom You did bless like a tree planted near streams of water,
You did shield him, You did save him from fire and water,
You did try him when he sowed by all streams of water,
For his sake, do not refuse water.
Remember Isaac whose birth was foretold over a little water,
You did tell his father to offer his blood like water,
He too was heedful in pouring out his heart like water,
Digging in the ground he discovered wells of water.
For his righteousness' sake, grant abundant water.
Remember Jacob who, staff in hand, crossed the Jordan's water,
His heart attuned to You, be rolled the stone off the well of water,
When he wrestled with the angel of fire and water,
You did promise to be with him through fire and water.
For his sake, do not refuse water.
Remember Moses in an ark of reeds drawn out of the water,
They said: He drew water and provided the flock with water,
And when Thy chosen people thirsted for water,
He struck the rock and there gushed out water,
For his righteousness' sake, grant abundant water.
Remember the High Priest who bathed five times in water,
He bent and washed his hands with sanctified water,
He read from the Scriptures and sprinkled Purifying water,
He kept a distance from a people turbulent as water,
For his sake, do not refuse water.
Remember the twelve tribes You did bring across the water,
You did sweeten for them the bitterness of water,
For Your sake their descendants spilt their blood like water
Turn to us, for our life is encircled by foes like water.
For their righteousness' sake, grant abundant water.
For You are G‑d, who causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall.
For a blessing, and not for a curse -Amen!
For life, and not for death -Amen!
For plenty, and not for scarcity —Amen!

<!>
p.s. allow extra time this September next, when you make your confession, your most irreverent fan

Why* Do You Want To Have *** With Me?


Answer:

Because your poems please me.
And
I want to write one too.





7/7/7:00am

mewing, mooing & mewling*
(~ for Steve Reimer ~)

legged up and in three, 1, 2, 3, +++
count-’em, poems, the third be this,
as the Northwest Pacific reviews a
recent scribble to which I made reference
to a maternity ward of newbie p~babies,
all mine (!) howling write me, write me!

god, what an awful orchestral, tempting
me to pull the covers up as the National
Weather Service 15 minutes too late,
advises of severe weather, lighting and
thunder, thunder, thunder (imagine Dragons)

between the accursed meteorology, and
the heterology of my babies, all so unlike,
born from different mothers and implanted,
by you my brothers and sisters, the cacophonous
phrase “mewing, mooing & mewling” bellows
and bullies it’s way to the forefront of the list

cause its freshest, ‘jess like my 18 oz. of porcelain
encased Blue Mountain Java and Fat Free Fairlife  
cow’s milk, and sadly bullies get away with it far,
far, too many times…

and with that introduction I bid you a fond good day / bye,
as I wimped, whine and woebetide y’all if you’re fool
enough to think multiple births is a piece of cake,
most likely you’ll be howling, not just, you know,

mewing, mooing & mewling

~~~

it as if I am blinded
by the perfection
of the moment

all sensors singly loaded,
yet interacting,
in a buckshot of common cause

my eyes suffused
by sun scattering rays uncovering a day's birth placenta gleaming
amidst the glaring shadows of the refuse of nature's yesterday's
discarded leavings

my eyes reversed,
unsuffused
as it they were a gift,
waiting all this time,
forgoing-opening until
just this moment

my ears suffused
by soft sounds and
swirling ripples of calm waters,
the wind teasing, saying,
move like me, but just so, barely,
the real sounds of the quietude heard
as if for the first time

my tongue tastes you,
wrested from my mind's eye, you are given,
in the everything, skin creme of lapping waves, in the everywhere,
uncovered from within the sun's own departing shadow

my smell
is the smell of life,
nostrils flaring expanding with no limit
to take it all in,
completing, unifying,
a puzzle that never was,
that is now forever solved

my hands fuse
the tingling of life given from wet dewy grass,
shiny and reflecting,
the roughness of the bark,
a natural protective coating,
combining soft caresses and confirming
the necessity of both

perfectly still
I sit amidst
the perfect stillness,
all movement unnecessary,
all my senses reach out and return as one,
bringing me presents of knowledge,
more than suffused, I too,
am trite but true,
dearest god, can it be true,
rebirthed, renewed

this ordinary day
is now extraordinary
solitary figure staring gaze steady,
a perfection ******,
impatient for the
suffusion fix
of this day, and the morrow

~~~

**August 6, 2015
Shelter Island

when I turned eighteen
sadness filled my cups,
for carefree was now gone,
laying side by side
with all my companion figurines,
off to rest in a boy's toy chest
in a backyard cemetery hid,
certainty assured
all that I was, so far,
all that I will be,
uncalming coming forevermore,
unwilling borne upon
the newly time redesigned,
heavy load shoulders of adult responsibility

when I turned thirty,
sadder now by the means and meaning of accumulation,
having thrice now measured the length of a stick of life,
denominated as a decade,
wiser now that the children underfoot,
certainty assured,
would have to pay
bills of lading for cargoes,
not of their own choosing,
indeed, selected unwisely,
by men like me, and men before,
all too old or too gone,
to be prosecuted now for the
short sightedness of reckless timidity

when I turned fifty,
the shoulders slightly stooped and gently curved,
my gait and pace slowed by weight,
pockets laden with undesired memories,
unfinished arguments,
dreams that morphed and morted into
failed schemes that with the
certainty assured,
the tallied ache of known losses
will always weigh greater
than the
unknown of opportune

now with seventy,
so near, onrushing to the sounds
of old men and their noisy excuses
of babbling, ironical,
eerie similar to the parental smiling hushing
of a newborn's squeaking,
a youthful brook,
happily to an open sea arushing,
hurrying in the fullness of innocence to
it's demise

the line of sight to the horizon,
far shorter now than ere before,
with greater certainty assured,
that near my god than thee,
my sadness daren't hope to dissipate, nor lift
as once it did,
an early morn mist rising off the river, 
freshly sun burnished, then miracle banished,
sacrificing itself as a hopeful oracle of a new born day

recurring haunted words
like rest, best and tried,
the only legacy remaining to gift,
but one thing yet measures a comforts,
a red cross blanket round the shoulders thrown that with
certainty assured,
the marvy joy of life all in,
be our given right to err and learn wisdom at our own pace

so here I freely confess
with wry, sly smile that we


proved ourselves to be
victims of our unintended tendencies,
successful in being

**all too human

Silent Labor

both my children came via "silent labor." The woman experiences no visible contractions, until she is almost ready to give birth...we made it to the hospital in time, where the nurses handled the delivery.

This poem is about none of that, but from whence the title was taken.
~~~~~


my water just broke

the contractions just started and they are coming every three minutes

too late, they won't give me drugs

***, that is the ugliest
poem I just gave birth too.

guess I'll have to do better tomorrow,
now, that I'm done in,
now that, they'll they give me some drugs

Poems
1706 published / 43 drafts / 14 hidden


no matter how much spillage of
inspired words are perspired
into poetic
existence,
new ideas push themselves
to the top of the line,
with every eyelash
flutter to falling,
so there seems
always a restless but consistent cohort of
43 draftees
in my lipstadt persona
(one among so many)
inescapably
demanding,
like a dentist happiest
when commencing to
drill you in to submission
but smiling since
the novocaine
hasn’t fully…


that when
a poem,
even a  new tooth
is c r e a t ed
in the gum of you,
seed~ed but not fully form~ed,
somehow
a new title is
auto~entitled,
whisked into
a never cold cup of
“what’s next.”
a laundry line
of the great
washed
but needy
for drying out,
not yet ready
for prime time

thus this
never endingness
is one more
perpetual eternal,
a cousin to
gravity

a direct order to be
born/resolved/loved/
only to be sent away
with a firm loving
push
with
no word of
farewell

(and not forgetting
to mention the thousand
of half breeds,
started, left
writ incomplete,
in my official
cemetery
a/ka
my actual draft file)

flux.
a word whose very sound connotes its meaning, a sloshing state of change

a liquid moment,
for we solids,
of bone and flesh,

though
we may be islands of stolidity,
entrenched, focused, organized,
when the surround sounds
of change are all about
you too are
fluxed

the serenity of splendid isolation
is not an impervious shell,
close eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth
these liquid times we abode,
inescapable from the roller coaster of
crashing storms of our
environment

try as I might,
cannot recede into a
white sealed envelipe,
cannot secede from
the froth of current events,
in the age of no distances,
and the rotational revolution of
but one lever,
a single beating wing
can disrupt the
the supply and communication
channels of our normative existential machinations

let me retreat unto my poetry trance,
but that choice
is currently unavailable

be wary of the calm of routine,
we live in a time of
the olympics of change,
and we cannot walk
on water,
nor tread forever

flux.

the liquidity curse of our
ever curving intersections

~~~

for S.

~~~


six months, two seasons later,
summer poet,  
now a transpositioning,
chilled, blustered & wind blistered,
winter observer,
arm chair couching,
poetry compositioning,
beneath a cashmere blanket of
the lush quietude of an early
Saturday morning
in the city of eight sleeping
millions

you, poet,
stumble upon yourself,
thumbing upon prior dusty
man-you-tell-all
man-you-scripts,#
recalling the where and the when
of an old ecrire composed,
all the while,
the whole world-arounding,
rests, theater-encased,
in the early morn
sound-surrounding
of

true quiet,

for there is nary a visible
source of sound
in this old citified heart &
house

but

true quiet is not the absence of noise

heat-felt fires on a wintered January dawning,
in a silence noisy,
emotionally reverberate,
wild spreading from icy toes, to red nosey,
heck, the body entire,
quiet sweet jam filling,
with the silent crackling fires
of the metaphors of
love

the mind reversely calmed by
fevered puzzlement
mystified by the mystery,
simplistically complex,
how his soul got married
in manner beyond extra-legal,
an internet irregular,
superseding the less-than-the-so-superior,
superior courts of regulatory
administration

to another
currently sleeping, resting only,
a Fitbit confirmed,
thirty nine steps
away,
but a lifetime needed,
to be taken to her,
hidden in a but-a-block-away location,
to find and keep
nearer

in a way, a way,
discovering Columbus-you,
a cacophony of silent metaphors,
waxing, ruminating,
upon the detailing
of a strange and straining
voyage
to this no longer remote,
undisguised visionary land of
love

in the summer the insects battled,
who could chirp most vociferously,
under the trees of competive birds,
mostly mocking the tiny creatures efforts

while the summer ease breeze called out,
in tunes soul-refreshing,
and you were then
quieted
in remote places,
in remote places within
where calm,
rarely claimed knowledge or
kinship

in the city, with sky undecided,
night to flee, day to welcome,
the streetlights flicker in a muted code,
cold air shakes the street signs to and fro
diligently, silently, working
while its underling humans,
all still noisly
dreaming

the racketing pounding of
a love poem escaping,
the whooshing breaths,
all capitulate to the supremacy of a
new testament definitional

true quiet

is reinterpreted,
better understood,
it is a locale precise, a
terminus finale
where calm intersects, perfects, blends,
with a certain warming temperature,
both being,
natural noise suppressers,
both beings,
a combination reflection,
viable only in a
singular coupling

the ending
reached,
a realization
breached,
true quiet comes best
in pairs,
when the heart and mind are
synchronized with
another's

~~~
dear god, what you demand of me
is inhuman,
which is likely why
you demand it with
gleeful and gorgeous
word-worthy delicacies

walk forward to the small rise
overlooking the water,
the new cloud variation of this day's
particuliar peculiar moment,
a watercolor painting deserving
of the posterity of oil and
yet another poem...

raise my arms
half beseeching,
half grasping,
you color me every day
with your revisionist perfection
every day, nay,
verily each minute,
a new canvas revealed,
each an indie movie shown
but once,
then never again,
as seen from my reclining platform of soil,
kneeling on the crest of my sheltered home's soul

am compulsed, compelled,
addicted to finding new words
praiseworthy of a unique finger painting,
recombinant blue earth, soon turning, light green water,
all ring fenced
in the white ermine of a cloak of sand,
all worshipping alongside me,
the newborn sky of every moment,
majesty so nonpareil
that it chokes my tongue to silence,
hard slams shut my
desperately, deficient dictionary
to praise proper

yet every pore eager to share,
fall upon my naked knees,
as supplicant and mendicant both
to the majesty of this
particular minute's DNA
tasked to me to regift so pathetically

a man destined to fail,
who in advance knowing
unequal to the task,
grandeur impeccable,
in words henpecked,
mortal kernels of awesome and wow,
just don't cut it,
for this late afternoon tapestry of a
summer day's coronation,
it deserves far far better than this

the now multi-blue shaded water
wears tinkling diamond dust,
perhaps a piece of the sun's tiara
has gentle fallen to earth through
the puffs of Mistress Skye's
white, shift-shaping unceasingly changing
etchings

knocked to my knees,
gasping at the greenery on the far shore,
color contrasts from across the ocean,
raising the bar even further,
enfeebled by a chronic-need,
an aching desire
imprisoned in the right brain's stubborn will
to create,
to write down in words,
the glory of this workmanship

begging impolitely,
please oh please keep on testing me
this way,
so that I might
cry aloud my
failure in words,
just once more,
gleefully and gorgeously

for what,
for this,
dear god,
that you demand of me,

I thank you...

~~~

Shelter Island,
this moment,
this Michelangelo ceiling,
this
August 10th,
and days, years, centuries,
yet to come,
et en passant,
2015

~for mark john junior~

the spigot turns counterclockwise,
oft I wondered why,
is it the magic way to make
things rise...

'pon occasion, the water shuts off,
turn left to right or vice versa,
no juice no bath and life starts
to stink, especially under armpits

and you think
how many love poems does one soul
in his lifetime possess,
and can I do better than my last...
if at all

sometimes you stare at a blankenship
ocean adrift, pirate hijacking victim,
no grub, no paddle or map,
but an empty water bottle

baffled you ask it
to point north,
laughs at you, asking,
"am I a compass,
or you,
a complete ***,"
a seismic groan out loud,
registers on
Florida's hurricane wind watch

how come this to be
meteoric loss of metaphor bridging,
search the Internet for the ******
of poetic inspiration, and an
error message delivered:

"plagiarize, or better luck next time sucker"

patience, football, thy women,
will in time realize the artful truth realized:

"Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes; art is knowing which ones to keep"

Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert)

so
go forth,
make mistakes plenty,
keep some good,
the pink ones fyi, my fav,
look that quill in the face,
and give the lazy ******* some lip,
reminding it,
it gets paid and ink drinks,
by the word

for Joel Frye

whose bear roar will n'ere be diminished,
for one who  has the good sense to laugh at himself,
is destined to live in the permanency of the place where memories smile and our
hearts store our affection unlimited,
for this earth, better for him

Deities and Muses!
you are herby responsible to guarantee this quality will never be lost from him and his residence, his near and dear, or else!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

in my mind a thorny paw
is irritating my most private
mirror-revealed thoughts,
asking me to fulfill obligations

oft have I writ of our chosen crew,
daily do we cement bonds,
with winks and nods and
meet away from the
glare of likes and reads

we exchanges vows
with stronger than the strongest words
for
there in not a single letter,
A's, B's or
even C's
that give us pause, no terror,
we bend them to our will

Betterdays wrote:
"i am a word written down.. any word, any word.
i am undeniable, desirable often incomplete
always open always waiting
for some one.........just like you ...
to open your heart let me in
to recognize a new start
to have a play, a scribble,
doodle, pen jive. to become
alive.... to thrive, just begin with a single letter.....then another,
go on be brave.............grant me liberty......"

the alphabet,
is the grantor of freedom,
for the component integers,
sum of the words
is greater than any all of us...

your words, her words, my words,
all of the crew's speak spokes
a language common but peculiar,
we transpose and borrow,
transgress and combinate,
all the better for interaction
that allows the *******
to the places we want revealed,
indirectly, we shine the light on our
recesses and are unafraid for it,
indeed we are better for it...

these poems are the streams and
wellsprings you know well,
lay your body upon these verbal waters
and float forever, though deep,
they are the fluids of your soul,
permanent poetic nourishment
and your claim upon them
all the greater for having three years plus,
added to and lived their pleasures...

for did you yourself not write your place is where

"The ocean's pulse, the ebb and flow
of constant waves' re-nourishment
bespeaks to me of life, although
an undercurrent message sent
in whispered sighs of Gaia's breath
upon the shoreline where I sit
relates a tale of bounteous wealth;
the wind, the rain - that we exist
at all is purely by the grace
of Nature's cycles. Also heard,
a gentle, soft, disturbing voice
reminding me without a word:
when we have come and we have gone
the ocean's pulse continues on"

perhaps you forgot!
you are part and parcel
of that ocean's pulse,
waves of letters forming and reformed,
your simple words above
re-nourishing me constant and even,
perhaps,
*their author?

~dedicated and gifted to Alyssa Homes Underwood,
in perpetuity~
<>
this one, like so many others, is
for my inestimable~faithful friend
who asks, listens and never sings
out of tune,
always lending me his ears…

<>
the 7:42 am train is pulling in…
the tracks run by the soundless waters,
directly through the spaces
called my mind

<>


sun begging come out & play,
“c’mon baby, you know need warmth,”

(even if mine ain’t the kind that realizes
real dreams, the kind that exhale healing,
but come out anyway, take what you can get,
put off the pains of haunting curses, sins that cannot be erased, random emerging like jacks-in-the-box that were cranked, but just waiting for the right moment to fk you up…try putting them bastids, back in the can with  aplomb & composure but you know it’s way too late..)

Van Morrison serenades
“These are the days
(of the endless summer),”
it is a hymnal
in / of the church of blue sky,
birch  white pews, voices choral…
the caucus of birds who are crazy flitting, cawing, cracking,
making an unholiness mess unsuitable to the moment’s serenity,

the rabbits, seeing if this idiot threw out some
baby carrots (he did), Van singing of love of the one magician, who would turn my blood into wine…

the whistle blows, a one-minute-warning, train
a-leaving,  so is this poem, and the randomness herein is not a poem, but a cry of the mind,
”un cri de l’esprit,”
may it, it may resonant or fall, face~flat to the ground, the sound of the mind,
the train whistle, the symphony of mother morning nature, the quiet lapping waves,
all acknowledge their “failure to soothe,” them, relentless, will return later, on the morrow, same station, them, who
will never concede that they can be beaten,
to superimpose, a mental purity in the recesses
of where the screams crawl out of the mind’s
cemetery, them unmarked graves, of babies that
did not survive to be named, and yes, that’s a
real thing…shhhhhh, them say the triumvirate of the natural forces state with equanimity
”write, let it out, let it go,”
you
hope no one reads this…but it’s far too late
it is
for~formed, created,
on this the seventh day of the week,
when the Maker rested from his
creation~work, and you think maybe a day of rest, not a bad idea, smiling cause, someone is playing Joe Cocker singing,
“Have a Little Faith in Me”
and then,
“(Try) With a Little Help From My Friends”
confirming, in the governing firmament of this world there are no coincidences…*

<>

8:10 by the sky, and
checking out the sky holes and the holy,
seeing the sight lines to souls gone but always,
well remembered…they too shushing me with
loving kindness…and the next stop is
Nazareth

~~~
"And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest."

Oliver Sacks


I hope you read the entire essay at the URL below.

~~~
humble humble,
jester self-mocking, calling out, giving oneself the bird,
who me?

indeed,
the greater fool,
utilizing, thriving on self-contemptuous thoughts,
you are no Oliver Sacks,
what are you doing
messing with his essaying,
go back to being a standardized human,
the detritus of thine mortal coil,
that employs you as a full time slave,
a scab-working seven day affair,
is that insufficient?

you,
in your sixth
decaying-decades day,
forsook the ancient Sabbath long ago,
keeping it for ****** rest,
cheaply tired from the liturgy of
straitjacketing of do's and dont's
of excruciating detail,
that put only distance tween you and
your essentials

Sacks invades directly to my eye's clouded storage,
two brains cross wired,
histories, his story, my story,
all too familiar,
indecently similar

here I am
nearer my god than thee,
for on this Sabbath day
of my ancestors,
(a hand-me-down gift to the world's conceptual heritage),
working hard,
as an everyday day laborer,
looking for work on street corners,
busy busy searching my conscience,
angel wrestling,
sacked by questions -

is one’s work done,
and when,
may one,
in good conscience, rest?

this is work,
hopefully, that is not
a violation of the Sabbath commandment,^
even if it is, no matter,
for by now,
this lifelong dialogue
whose contradictory dialectical
does not contain the word
final or finished
~~~
as I essay out this poem,
(this work?)
in a place of beauteous natural calm,
so easy to agree with the passing schooners,
whispering via genteel breezes,
later, not sooner,
no need to decide, let it ride,
answers will come,
perhaps all on their own,
all on that day
when,
you're within hailing distance
of the shores of the Isle of Surcease

the answers will come contemporaneously,
when you have leave to
exorcise from your calendar's,
Siri's spouting, inexorable,
pop-up perpetual reminders,
that today's first thing on your
to do list is

"relearn the meaning of
good and worthwhile"

for then,
you will have all the answers

~~~
^ "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates."
~~~

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/oliver-sacks-sabbath.html

~~~

Please retain this document as proof of your induction.**


you are an inductee,
part of the tinkering crew,
high giving, high fiving
globally is your locally!

we know where you live,
Google mapped and sleep kid-napped from under that
shady radiata pine tree

more than sufficient,
your poetic revelations,
to know the you and the where-hereabouts of the
lives you handle with
wondrous word-care.

care taken, if you want hide deep,
but to late for thee and our world,
your name on the roster
of poets by night,
tinkers, soldiers, and some who tailor
poems bespoke for the ones who
dare not reveal their true (s)elves
in the words they write.

but you do.

so the
ticK tocK
(never forgot the Special K)
of your clock
synchro us
so too late,
we can call you anonymous,
if that be your preferential suffice,

If that makes you happy.

but what we need to know,
already planted by you,
in our soiled heart,
growing steadily cotton-higher.

When you are ready,
you will dispense with
your leafy nom de plume,
tell us what we don't need to know,
tell us what we already knew,
three boxes checked,
you are
poet, wife and mother,
suffice suffice suffice
the three stripes thrice
sewn on your skin,
inductee into the army of the
fly-by-night,
word~tinkers

guess you can say,
you are a tacker now,
tacked onto this crew,
watching over its
individuals,
therefore, say no more,
but write
a poem a day,
that, your tinkering dues.

did you ever write poetry?(1)

once. but everything of earthly substance,
destined to fade into the ignominy of forgotten
vaults, where time takes it time and erodes all
into dust. here,

every word preserved. there is no time
in the dominion of creators, and you friend
are numbered in their midst, enshrined in many
hearts and eyes, and

with every
reading,
each reimagination,
you are a reincarnated being

disclaimer:
a long poem, tumbled out complete,
feel free to *** along

<!>

a poem that does not need writing,
scripted once before(1), sung this song,
nonetheless the heart purges,
then
newly urges
for fresh eyes to revise

for each second, four new babes come
into these world, estimating that one
will be infect by poesy, and there is
and yet,
no-known/cure, there be no disturbance,
no Cain mark distinguishing,
no sign from heaven,

so this enlivening disease, sometimes takes
almost a generation to bud, blossom (4) and pollinate the world with its unique nectar, uncontained, unconditionally & uncontrollable, and naturally,
incurable

by you awoken & aware of yourself
as a carrier, the strange heart rate
display of your EKG, that the doc
cannot explain, with that extra heart
beating beat (2) revealed, tell them not
to worry
it’s ok,
it’s a genetic
that makes you
tick
that’s yours
distinct,
and

there is no cure expected, no foundation advertising for dollars to lead the fight,
maybe one that does exact opposite, but no
matter, the infection becomes a condition,
with symptoms diagnoseable by the
colored gleaming lights in your
aggregating eyes

then comes the days of
frustrated declination
when every undisciplined
***** ditty wordy rejected,
crumpled and to the round
container sailing,
that’s the pain for the gain,
though all natural talent marked
by higher standards
self~imposed,
for only you can judge
when it’s good enough to satisfy
the judges observing,

the ones astride you
on each shoulder,
censoring the trite,
******* you back into the fight,
and soliciting you to go easier
on that body
for it already contains
all the nutty nutrients
that will combust
into a poem
that will be any equivalent
to an
******  of
new life breaching the
mind’s cautious customary warnings

so much more to tell,
by way of example,
who are the
predecessors that give me instant inspiration,
in the expectation of periods of
Saharan drought, (3)
the need to jot every random thoughts,
for oft
we compose in drips and dabs,
every birth owns its own timetable,
took Cohen ten years
to make Hallelujah satisfactory,
theiving so/too much of your time,
until the best distraction arrives,
announcing the following;

“if I did not truly loved her
it would be causas belli
should I fail not to
bring her an ember of
coffee”


but writing in the moment
is a stupendous momentous
so smile sweet,
tell her where to go,

where
the mug with Hawaiian scents
awaits, and let her lover
decompose what needs saying

immédiate
right now!

so by way of closure
I ask you
why
are you still reading this too **** long
soliloquy
and not
stariing into a world
of words
all your own?
<>
for
inscribed upon your every breath,
are
your words,
a trickery uniquery
to which

nothing will ever compare

one more for five year old Ian*

he is the little boy, on an
I-don't-want-to-go road trip,
yet inside happily,
pretense outward poutingly,
yet he is nosed pressed straining onto window,
so hard, it's window marked, stain leaving,
absorbing, being absorbed by the fresh
flowing of air currents of new scenery

little boys of beauty,
of beauty,
what do they know?

life is action figures,
videos and toons,
colors vivid but manufactured,
daddy hanging them upside down,
coloring books less than quaint,
few museums bid then enter...
how do they learn what needs
remembering, celebrating...
differentiating tween mundane profane and profound...

some say there are pleasure chems,
the brain releases when the
San Fran sun contacts all flesh,
when California coast surf
beckons claiming splashing
and attention demanding,
when nature offers up
mountain trails that insist
one of any age climb her offerings,
to make them "ours,"
if ever so briefly,.

to be map marked upon
cerebral tissues and
leave the boy and the vistas
neurally connected perpetually

of these matters, I,
no certainty possess,
though I well recall
my nose in that windowed position,
the clarity of Atlantic Rockaway
fresh salt breezes
entering, being stored inside
my five year old brain cloud,
so it could be true
what all the grandmothers
claim!

but this know with soul surety,
there are few things
more beautiful
than a five year old boy,
inhaling the passing scenery,
redding his cheeks even more rosy...

he, a painting, forever stored,
summonable with a single blink
of my mind's eye,
perhaps this is how
he will indeed learn too...

May 16, 2015

the waters of the Sound, churning,
make my hands a five-in-hand knotted,
full of writhing wriggling writing poem
lines with an go<hesitant~go  slow, knowing that,inspiration is daring me, just as the  whitecaps are, troubled trolling so nearby,
gone can hear them mocking me with their
17knot  ‘breeze,’ your lyrics are but
blowing in the wind, soon enough will
shift to someone else, leavening your
deflation with a non~riser sour-dough mix
of unfinished sadness

in advance, knowings that every poem
more like a Monarch butterfly, here but
for a momentary traversal travesty,
gone faster than the eye blink, and this
infilling fleeing fleet urgency more
likely to die on the pyre of unfinished
rejected draftees, unselected for service

nonetheless ~ “follow” lyrics refuse me
to let~leave a poor tribute to vine~die, the
fingers speak in unison, urging me on,
not wanting to escape from this fantasizing
moment, urging me to tap tap tap
evermore!

“ Come taste and smell the waters of our time,”
Richie invites us all to find our own water,
let it work its magic upon our
nerve endings, but,
mine full of sendings, how?

can one sit seated in the Poet’s Nook,
same vista, no visa required ~
just to see it each time
differently, only the truly creative can love it
so much, that they tip into unexplored unexploited
veins of fresh blood and words
and eyes that discern and earn the ability
to write of the old with new inside insights

those! they are the ones you need to follow!
creators! with a small C, see them feel, see them divine with rod, their original water,
from which they emerged, and drink once more, for the water follows them like nutrients, raw materials that nourishes
and they in turn, return to their watery
birth site, their emotional placentae,
drawing from, returning to it new creations

for all of us to follow, fire our senses,
make us!
make art in all our hearts,
and don’t mind me, just

”close your eyes, child, and look at what I'll show you;
Let your mind go reeling out and let the breezes blow you,
And maybe when we meet then suddenly I will know you.
If all the things you see ain't
Quite what they seem,
Then don't mind me 'cos I ain't nothin' but a dream .
‘cos”

We
ain’t nothing but a dream,
our disguised muses visiting,
pleading to be
usefully used…

The Mysteries Between

You all write, ponder the story of your heartbeats,
The signal beacons, the lighthouse beam of your existence,
Playing with emotions, fooling around with notions of cease and desist,
Russian roulette

I wonder about the mysteries of the silences,
Between the beats.
What happens in that momentary space,
When you cannot say I am alive?

So her is the answer.

That!s right.
Her is the answer.
That's when your lover sneaks in, climbs aboard,
And holds your heart with palm-lined hands plein d'life-lines,
So long may you live together in harmony,
And cracks that may appear from time weary woes,
Are kept from spreading and endangering her object's desire.

Know you now.
Now you know,
It is in the silences that the true joining is confirmed.
Which is why I call her,
My Wonder Woman..

<>


(for patty m)

"always love hearing from you,
it's like a kiss in the wind"


we are intimate
though never ever close,
but faithful closer

familiar,
though our convivial roads
are uncrossed, except and accept
in the delicate pearl inlay
of our poesy path

our common way station,
where can we exchange private confidentialities
publicly, above and beyond,
the plain and ordinary everyday
intimacies

from the balcony of the sixteenth floor,
I can see the horizons holding
our shared land together.

the wind blows by,
from the Atlantic crossing,
continuing on its
westward ** way

wind comes inquiring as is its wont,
as a faithful and familiar evening-tide messenger,
desirous, needy for its wantings fufillment,
to be a deliverer of
deliverances and
all kind of tidings,
sent by the
in absentia

I post a poem

the letters scatter heavenward,
no worries,
the amorphous wind,
will Oz like
reassemble them
in holy order and
brush them
across your face,
tickle the lips and eyelashes,
still moist from
missing a man who was
intimate different,
in a lifetime way

and that kiss,
that postage paid,
the meager cost
the wind receives,
for a mission well accomplished,
is transferred to you and yours
to enable you to decode
this implausibly but-all-to
plausible,
devoted message

~~~

(This one is for me)

~~~
The hardest thing to do,
being strong,

for everyone else

~for Paul & Art~

<>
melancholic, contemplative, introspective,
put on the songwriters of the Sixties,
looking for the comfort of old songs
that I once knew complete, from the days
when I believed, knew my own true self complete,

the tablet lifted, the spirits keening, a forth
will be coming, to soothe and purge, commence to dress my own wounds,
Whitman would be attentive, perhaps
a tad sympathetic, tho my wounds are
entirely self-inflicted

and alone, cry out for an assembly
of words, well chose, smoothly chaotic,
mirroring the lathe of my sharpened
disarrayed confusions, two old troubadours
come to comfort, with sweet harmonies,
and simple, but novel rhymes &
syncopated rhythms that all can
carry, sing along, all of us smiling

with ease, we cross the borders of each
other’s mind, paring snippets into
poetic clasps that keep us well attached,
filing away the roughened edges that
we all in common posses, and like
jigsaw pieces, we finish each other’s sentences, and we emote satisfaction
with smiles, laughs, sighs and sarcastic
groans, our words grasp, connect and

ease is in the air, there but for this grace,
we go together, you and I,
sailing away from
troubled waters