“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualities are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good silence,
and nothing too much.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

<>

A late-in-life walker, the words above resonate in my mind,
with a check, check, check, check and a voluble ding, reading

and nothing too much”

many a poem mine labored, birthed arrhythmically walking,
eyes see verses, verses fill the mouth, mind desperate as
the feet unceasingly trod round new corners, new visions,
Emerson’s words remind my well worn weary path daily renewed, a vocabulary child re-newborn, and how to keep all this forever,
until tomorrow, and nothing is everything all too much carried over

and nothing too much”

speaks to an openness in every orifice, be prepared scout-boy,
to adapt to nothing too much as hours earlier now recalled are ancient history, mind staggers at the minuscule differences tween yesterday and this exact moment in this exact place that has been reimagined, deserving of recording, notating, and my desperation struggle to
semi-successfully delineate, report, on all these
mini-magnificent miracles countenanced, overwhelms…

the brain furnaces/furnishes a thousand thoughts, a million worries,
slew of infinity-sized emotions like love of children, so it’s confusing to window-peeking  strangers watching for the walking man with tears pockmarking his cheeks, unaware that his each stride is a story, a unique grace forward and too, backwards, history mine, reviewed, graded, and the comfortable shoes, the old sagging clothes well worn and beloved, fit like gloves, whispering in the good silence,
a lamb sacrifice to the

good silence,
“human, your foibles and deeds, admixture of
blood inherited, a morality crafted by ancestors,
so the next step is
alway$

and nothing too much”* and everything…

Sat Dec10 2023
Shell Beach, Central Park, in my mind, and nothing is perfect

You say I am far away,

that would be in error,
close, so close, that our words
kiss and create...

my feet firmly planted
on a pathway, a bahn,
that leads to a mystery...

despite all that I possess,
what we need most in our garden,
is but a simple
daisy.

there.
a mystery,
unravelled,
a kiss ethereal
shared,
but the taste of you
on my lips, sincerely.

~
requested by the Musician,
Robert C Howard,
who likes my poems well enough
to correct my typos -
no greater compliment
~

once again,
the co-conspiratorial muses of island
tender my one human self
unto the
noisy, visible island gods
whom, with
habitual invisible trickery,
proclaim themselves landlords, masters,
rightful owners of this
sheltering isle,
to all its taken, temporary and temporizing
human inhabitants

these gods,
so well disguised, hidden in,
mournful morning gray glorious fog,
cawing crows providing
staccato morning stale news alerts,
coming and going glints
of burnt orange hints
of a sun-perhaps-yet-to-come,
tenderizing breezes
as if they were charading
a heavenly, gentling ceiling fan,
cricket chirpings,
unfettered cries of definitional, Einsteinal
repeating madness,
accompanied by an
orchestral society of unknowns whistling & trilling,
assorted residential animals slow awakening,
all resting, relaxing,
in-the-dew chilling,
a marvelous din,
a perpetual mystery-to-me,
this softest of rackets of nature's calling card,
these godly muses each,
I imbibe

all conjunctively quietly embrace
this meagered, shop-worn human,
laving its mournful mind
with the noisiest of medicinal stillness,
unlaving grime of cares, worrying woes,
though still extant,
those bills-due-too-real,
admist this troupe of augured island calmers
troubles are deep-surfaced cleansed, their roots re-routed,
swapping speeding consternation for slow restoration

Blessed art thou O Gods, Lords, Spirits
and Muses

who created both,
hard and the soft,
illness and the cure,
quick cutting and the slow healing,
anxiety and the relief,
instilled eyes in the mind
that need but imagine
vistas of breathable places
that reinstall a deep tissue serenity
stronger than the soiled, awful losses of
ever-enduring
fouled memories
and oppressing
city streets of sweaty, summer heat,
both the mainland and

its child,
this sheltering isle

herein are its blessings
resifted and regifted
via this paucity of worthy words
to those
who are not here,
yet gladly are they given
to those who wish
to sit astride and aside
an isle of
unlimited shoulders,
embraceable arms,
sweetly gift wrapping
any
who join in with a
cacophonous wonder-saying,
acknowledgment of its
sanctity
saying

Amen, Awoman



~

May 30, 2015
6:30am
Shelter Island, N.Y.
(a very real place)

~~~
someday soon gonna reread
the many poems over lifetime inked,
divvy them up by what's it about,
assemblage of the themes of me

review the who what when and weird
of this guy through his own eyes
confessions
~~~

blind all my life,
spent my capital human,
a life entire,
asking how, how does one see, ascertain an image's
veracity

guidance counselors counsel
see like me, but there was no guidance
in seeing whys through others eyes,
here now, creeping closer, and still unlearned
in the ways of vision visionary unique,
now the eyeglass case is closed,
that smack shut noise hearing,
and it occurs to me just now,
hearing my thoughts is a kind of seeing

~

pass him the newborn,
not the first, indeed, the third of five,
almost a regular comet occurrence,
happy poppy,
grizzled veteran of the nine lives foreign wars - then

The Inexplicable  

Yellowstone geyser eruption,
Vesuvius of wet tear ash Pompeiing,
overfilling the overcrowded hospital room,
brilliant flashes of eyes emitting lightening,
tornadoes of an unpredicted hurricane,
that no weather service forecast,
hinted of imminence,
unprepared, thus, for which
they had no name but Baby Girl,
but the older man turned sudden singer had one,

The Inexplicable  

for as sudden as thunder,
the hospital room is an audience,
the old man, a bawling crooner
stunning the assembly into
nervous tittering laughter,
backslapping self-comforting,
so out of character
for the usual so quiet workaholic,
the secret poet whose shoulders
upside U-bent from decades of writing and
recording the momentous, the

endless worrying,
the foolish fleeting scarcity of joys,
the slowing ways of sad aging to wisdom gained,
foreseeing the struggle/joy inequivalent insolvent equation
of love and loss,
the forever pleasure of hopeful rebalancing,
a perpetual motion machine,
the seesaw of torrential ups and downs,
of the yet-to-come
for which he could compose, recite, in formal rhyme,
stanza and line,
chapter and verse,
blessings and unheard of
original poems and curses
and this peculiar blessing

this old man lad could so easy close his eyess,
recalling being
seven years, ageless and sageless,
sure in the ways of a cocky confident boy,
who is now succumbed to

The Inexplicable  

singing - humming - gasping - weeping - wishing true
the oldest rocking, children song in the entire world

"row row your boat,  
gently down the stream,"

but choking on,
unable to release the songs signature line,
from within his body,

then finally,

the truth and the lie,

"life is but a dream"

so the watchers do it for him;
unintended but fully comprehended!
the crazy man formally anoints the child's forehead,
with handy tears on a pointer forefinger,
a salt solution upon a slice of flesh containing
secrets and wisdoms
knowledges of historical continuations

nervously, they ease the babe, prying her
from hands tremblingly, his and theirs,
too late too late!

the secrets and the history personal
has been passed, the bonding genetic certified
the oldest fool in the room,
wise in the ways of the now transferred

The Inexplicable  

*dispatched home,
go, write a poem, they say,
to late too late!
it has been writ,
in a coded inexplicable manner,
that only two humans
can proper read

Of Baseball, Poetry and the Human Condition




~~

From  “The Art of Fielding.”* by Chad Harbach

"You loved it,” he writes of the game (baseball), “because you considered it an art: an apparently pointless affair, undertaken by people with a special aptitude, which sidestepped attempts to paraphrase its value yet somehow seemed to communicate something true or even crucial about the Human Condition.

The Human Condition being, basically, that we’re alive and have access to beauty, can even erratically create it, but will someday be dead and will not."

~~
and thus, the circling noose grows ever small,
binding the obvious and unblinding the oblivious

more than the mere, poetry in baseball, for both forms of art,
knowledge intuited from watching the catcher's body weave
this way and that, a dancer en pointe, arms raised in worship,
addressing the heavens with a body's broad brush strokes,
all to catch with concentrated skill, a lazy, towering popup,
climaxing oft with an exclamation point -
a perilous desperation leap
into the dugout encampment of the inimical opposition

yeah, yeah, sure, sure,
you knew that,

tho daring to verbalize same,
before the age of thirty,
presumed maturity,
was not an act of the sane of heart,
or the sound of mind with body melded

what you dared not admit was that the conditional principle,
was primal and not tangential, though perhaps,
some itinerant fathers foolishly mumbled incoherently
of life's linkages and motifs parallel

of
that desperate beauty, the ferric magnetic irony,
that our full access pass to envisioning the finery,
imaging the stuff of our own daily creation genesis,
whether concocting undisciplined disassembled parts,
called words,
into a singular line, a stanza that froze your lungs from
the boredom of the regularity of heaving and breathing,

was in no way different
than the curvature of the boy's arm
in desperation outstretched, seeking spectacular safety for
a well hit ball of cork into a worn leather mitten and thus
confirming his humanity to the watching tribal membership

and these momentary moments of momentousness,
will live forever until we die, judged of equal stature,
a soldiers stripes, ribbons of his theaters of service,
medals of the honor and the errors of his own
truthful, youthful and crucial
human condition

~~~


reaching hard for words

~~~

enter tip toeing,
the loudest noises off,
save for a silent, seriously-forming smile,
re-designing your face,
while in the orbit of early morn,
mapping your return to the planetary
bed
all the while,
observing her
while closeted, comforted and cloaked,
upon their/his
landing zone bed,
honing your return re-entry voyage
home

the blonde in her traditional,
sleep arms slung in wilding, disarrayed
repose,

and
her breathing stride,
regularized and still,
yet so humanly unpredictable
wild ride

and your are surprised

by surprising yourself,
once again,
that you're in this position,
when an unforced, yet an enforceable,
warm hearted girl-glad,
chest centric?
envelops and coddles
and yet
shocking you,
that this never-expected-gift is capable of being felt

at in over up outside inside
below across beneath above and the
all encompositional prepositional,
throughout

forms of its own accord,
not asking permission,
to exist within

your body that not so long ago,
forgot where it kept
the
how-to manual

and you,
obligatory poet,
noblesse oblige,
try reaching hard for,
top shelf, newly combinated,
adjectival adverbial nouns and
verb words
to encapsulate this
shocking development

but finding none,
save for the the silent, seriously-forming smile,
busy re-designing your face,
quiet like,
it,
thunder claps slaps
in your mind

enough!

your smile is
this time

self-speaking sufficient
and
there is no need
to reach for words

~~~


9:03am
The Sabbath
1-15-16
nyc

for bala, one more time*
~~~~~~~~


*humans
secrete and excrete
humans
ingest and imbibe

only a few,
select and exceptional
only the rare,
incomparable and imbued

can pour oil
from the heart daily

they, the oil-anointed ones,
marked as future kings
singer of songs,
poets and psalmists,
return their anointment
to the people who granted it
by pouring oil from the heart,
daily

For most, a cruise speed,
with an occasional disruption,
tap on the brake
then reset the cruise control with a
finger flick, all it deserves

and on and on

then there are the points of inflection,
when the trend direction resets,
you know it too, it's not a
"when did this happen to me"
sadly, most oft, not of our choosing

then there are the oft, silent, self-reflection moments,
when you think cruising, it's ok,
but rumbling around, mirror bound,
you see in the fear view, I mean,
rear view, the direction is
the one you just came from,
and you purported poet,
chooser of each word you write
so carefully,
thinks only,
*****

and on and on

not quite right,
but what ya gonna do?
give up?

Whatever,
the new maybe,
Whatever,
the new who gives a ****

here I am
falling over the double-edged
borderline,
another alone morn in a hotel bed in
not-my-city,
slipping over both sides,
unattractive new direction tracks piping up,
boy,
"bond and band with me,
me, me, take me"

every day every word mine
I question,
you see the cruising on the surface waters,
underneath the propeller, churning,
what is it all worth,
when crap and rap and rant
rule the day, and you rue the day,
you thought you were a poet
amidst the undiscerning,
you the solitary sock,
washed (out) but useless

it could be an inflection day
or just another internal investigation way,
report issued and recommendations ignored,
and it's back to the side views mirrors applauding
a ten round bout ending in a no decision

just when you are found out,
by yourself and his friends,
Me, myself, I and buddy depression,
that its time to shed the proposition
that you can write to pleasure the world,
be a cut above, something special

more than

and on and on

and this pesky little message
comes and changes everything
someone tells you in a sentence
a saving grace that you added quality
to their lives and you gather the crew in
the corner of the ring,
for a huddle, and say let's go for it all
on this our last round,
cause if we don't,
we've lost anyway

You read, disbelieve, but here you are
writing again and the chest is gladden,
the words, like they used too,
arriving fedex,
and you put aside the naggers,
asking who cares,
for the eyes see this,
Re one of your very own
poem~children:

"I think of this poem so often, some days I find myself
reciting it at work"

and the sprinklers in the
yellow stucco ceiling of room 1531,
sudden spilling rain tears,
and tho showers not in the forecast,
here you are again,
scrivening, writing, scribing,
giving hope another say,
giving hope its due, it's day

maybe you are an uptown boy now,
from downtown,
but today it's ok,
being in midtown,
direction,
but more important,
the choice,
in the making,
still unknown

cause in the mid,
that means that today,
you will

*go on and on

for our beloved Rebecca,
one mo' time,
until the next,
one mo' time



taking my time,
tho propelling compulsion
not just strong, but un-denying,

but care, Muse, warns,
be taken
when scribing re
one of my chosen ones

when you are
drawing from, drawing down,
dancing, edged
just one whisper
away from darkness
in order to homage the
brightest truth

the girl driving the dust,
the girl driving
the Canadian plains,
looking ages ahead,
ignoring the rear view mirror of
no fun house past distortions

who am I,
unrighteousness confessional,
no father, original sinner,
that tasked I am, to praise or save
who needs neither,
for who but she
dings our dents straight,
and brings us this:

like a whisper, a snowflake,
or a reassuring smile,
dreams are fleeting,
and can blink out,
as quickly as far away stars...
embrace the free,
the moments unknown,
with uplifted spirits
and open hands

this then is the whisper,
so so so so
far away from darkness,
that now my compulsion
to the ground winningly wrestled,

when she writes

she whisks away,

she **whispers us away,

the darkness,

away,

from us,

like no other

~

Keep It Simple Stupid ("Your Poems Are Too **** Long")

~ for Natty~

white sheet of foolscap,
imploring the fool's fingers,
natty. natty, just this once,
be the simpleton dunce,
spend but a modest pence,
cap the blowout verbiage well

pretend
being a short and sweet poet beat^,
leaving those blue line requests
more white than black,
emptier and thus,
more silently, fuller, and powerful,

build  each line from a few hard crafted,
forged-wrought-iron syllables,
say the more in the
unsaid unwritten

snap your fingers in clapping praise,^
kiss the words bye-bye slow and single,
hold back the overfilling raucous reprises,
those stanza'd motley muddled crew,
de-access all excesses,
a manly, word squad^^^,
no more,
the shaft to success
be a David slingshot of single pebbles

but herein have,
prior blessed and true confessed:

"for I know there is soul in brevity,
but that ain't exactly my finest quality"

this is a "not know how to,"
for when I plunder the sea deep of a
single and singular
first and foremost# kiss,
still forever kept,
and that cylindrical memory volume so full,
one must seek and speak,
many verbal Ceylonese herbal tea toasts,
for the drunken 'n blinder I become,
the greater the need,
the lesser to please,
commissioning the poet to sing of his
long odyssey home,
of even the briefest venture ventured,
a combo of triumph and escaped,
wrapped in a single word,
his every feathery eye retention plucked,
a bald bird to be fully consumed,
even the bones, committed to
paper memory...

what the heck,
you want a speck,
a "say hey kid"^^ haiku,
a shorty hearty 60 second sophomoric Campbell soupy blessing,
microwaveable, heated but not hot,
radiated but not cooked

woe is me,
cannot be denied,
why use a pithy when
for pity's sake,
thrice won't suffice?

the woman, the observer
punches me with a solitary and indelicate,
as her wont, as her want,
"just-this-once"
telling the blowhard to not spout

this prideful pain,
deep water drilled in the muscled fortress of my rocky biceps,
eliciting  an outsized
"ouch, that really hurt,"
and my spouting retort...

~

by this bruised blotch, this redsome refrain,
dulcet sung in black and blue, a sonnet's colored quatrain,
by your flesh's mark, thee I join, in places where no mark dare
reflect our secreted touch, witness-protected by our guardian eyes only...*

**** it.

for Laura and David

so the story goes...

of a long ago silly fight and
then a Boston Bay boat ride,
magical moments of a simple interrogation repeated,
that recalled a man beach combing for what,
he knew he,
already possessed,
a permanent bezel for his love
that secured with human strength
their togethered life

You! You Two!

recall best
the forest,
not the trees,
not the ring,
the freedom from a symbolic beeper drowned


recall best
the ring's tale,
your unfinished yet-storied,
mid-trip bay borne voyage of denouement,
a retirement and a reaffirmation,
marked best not by any stone,
but by
the knowing  women,
all surrounding,
with righteous exclamations of envy for

his loving words,
his words!

the value of living,
raconteuring memorized mutual wisdom,
no diamond could ere cut a deeper groove
than his spoken words

words etched in flesh,
immutable and undying,
far exceeding
rubies and diamonds,
their gain, their loss,
merely pecuniary,
could never speak or prove
a love far better
than those special holy words
a spoken capstone,
tribute gladly given
to his shipmate,
his fellow voyageur,
his story of them delivered
but happily incomplete

of this I know
with utter certainty,
for more than twice,
with his eyes cast down upon
igneous ankle-twisters,
while overstepping
lazy sea lions,
invisible iguanas,
heard him tell me,
the frigates and the *******
and the head-popping turtles,
all who came
to see and hear as well,
them too,
all jealous of
what he spoke,
even then...

for well they and I
heard him say,
in a whisper
intended just for me,
but overheard,
and legally witnessed and thereby,
and herein attested hereby
by many citizens
of the Galapagos and
even one from the great
State of New York

those loving words,
those words

without her, I am lost,
with her, I am gained,
repeating in his way,
Proverbs 31:10:
A worthy woman who can find?
For her price is far above rubies*

so accept this as a free release
from one who listened to the
poetry of a ring's story,
and though he cannot recall the
appearance of the accoutrement,
the words, the words
they spoke,
the whispery smile she let escape,
never left, never could,
that being the thing of greatest
worth
the poet
deemed most worthy
of recording for posterity

__________


this expert poetic witness testimony
in the matter of matrimonial affairs
now entered into permanent part of the record of
Laura and David,
notarized, signed and sealed,
and internet delivered,
truthfully writ this day,
December 20, 2014

~~~



Postface: This Thing Called Poetry

postface - a brief explanatory comment or note at the end of a book
or other piece of writing.
~~~

more and more will come,
'tis the nature of,
'tis the burden of,
this compulsion,
this undeniable, irresistible,
emotional chain,
a synapse from
connecting ganglions of nerves,
what we call poetry

each poem
a winnowing,
a narrowing,
the landslide of a moment,
a perspective erected,
a momentary monument
intended and left out overnight
for perpetuity's sake

a finished poem is
a broken telescope,
stuck on a single view,
a broken kaleidoscope,
forever flash frozen
upon a
permanent fruited plain,
a still life salad

walk a few footfalls
to the sandy beach,
humbling,
this vastness,
this billionth universe of
trillions of grains,
each a microscopic starship,
each a poem uncovered, exposed,
weathered and worn,
living among friends

a few taps onto this tablet,
table scraps,
leavings of chalk marks
of poetry,
same,
grains,
metaphoric, meteoric,
a billionth
of something both
dead and living

yet,
still and always,
a simple postface
still required,
a must have,
a necessary
a 'the end' official

sign your name,
your truest signature,
emblem
not of ownership,
but of completion,
here I was done
here I wax spent

sign my work,
so I know this grain came from
my weathered and worn
work, still living
and will be so known,
long after this body's form
as week is but
a few grains of sand
~~~

July 2, 2015
*NML

~~~
I do not have a poem

at the ready,
at my fingertips,
ready, willing and able,
instant provision,

yet, in the fingertips, yes,
is red ink, warming,
waiting for the
sounding,
your tap tap tapping calling
of once-more


I do not have a poem


sited upon my lips,
in sweet patient stasis
awaiting
your requesting kiss,

yet,  deep hid within my throat,
are universes of words,
ready for assembly,
immediate delivery,
needy for the signaling of
your endearing
provocations


I do not have a poem


stored in the heart's ventricles,
in cavitation, ready to bubble upwards,
ready to travel the veins,
provide art to the arteries,
encamping in the capillaries,

yet, come stoke my steel furnace,
melt molten its contents for the removal of
the irregularities of,
enduring love,
leave the glowing rawness of
glory passionate and gift abiding,
songs of felicitous contentment


I do not have a poem


upon my person,
easy to come,
easy released,
signaling its lanterned
mode of arrival,
one if by voice,
two if by hand,

yet, this poem,
is my legal tender for you,
come purchase your poem
from the cells of my tissue

spend it wisely,
for everything is beautiful
but delimited,
in its own way

when thy body needs to survive,
this body rises to connive,
this body to provide,
words of relief,
of soul solution,
in words precise,
particular,
designed medicine
designated for thy spirit

all you need supply,
the need,
and perhaps,
a bit of editing

Seeds could not prosper without the love of your fingers


what I know of soil and seeds,
is less than nothing, the dirt neath
my fingernails is only evidence of a
presence on this Earth, but no rapport
with the cold, damp earthy plains of  
what feeds, colors and gives forth
fruit

and yet,
you send this concretized city fella,
pictures of the seeds on your agenda,
the chosen ones that will in time, birth
healing to the world in natural mystical
ways, for what I see, what  I know is this:  

soil and rain, by themselves can bring forth
both hardy and hardluck weeds that eke out a
living home in a quarter inch of dirt in the
in~between of sidewalk cracks, trod upon,
but yet!
survivors to the
worst kind of human indifference

but when you plant, you fingers enwrap,
send coded message hid in the essential
oils of human love, for that is what only
certain hands can do…

Your hands much practiced in this messaging,
and peculiar kind of kind massaging
for I have seen your gardens, moreover I-know,
that hands such as yours overflow with both  
the take and give, inherent in only certain
specific humans, at a cellular level
not in my
possess

it takes a different kind of life experience, that
marries different kinds of cloth into a single weave,
that stores what is in your fingertips, nutrients of
your life, singular, homemade, that make
your botanicals
fully blossom




Jun 1 2024
12:50pm
in the sunroom

“We could never see tomorrow
No one said a word about the sorrow”
The Bee Gees

a simple rhyme, a plaint familiar,
for those who have never stared
down train tracks, which is a lesson
in recognizing
the uncertainties of
living,
even if linearly visualized,
t h e o r e t i c a l l y

can veer to destinations unknown,
worthy of being dreaded, thinking
what are the odds today is the last,
and maybe now and then, not just
dismissing,them so easily

but it always brings on pain old
and familiar, recollecting of the
way life never asks you first, the

swiftness of two life lines colliding
with the
s u d d e n e s s
unfathomable
of 2 locomotives crashing,
head on
and leaving behind
a desolation breathtaking

it is a well lit winter morning,
cold light, but the direct sun
leaves a general okayness,
and you trudge along,
head bent, respecting the chilling,
calculating the distance to
the warmth of a planned
destination,
but here I remind
all of us:

”No one said a word
about the sorrow”