when does the poem end?


creation is never ending,
the earth is endlessly morphing

but you lean back and say
enough
not because the poem
is finished,
for it is never finished,
because an exhalation feels
satisfying, releasing

but the poem never ends,
nor does the need to

exhale

not with the final .


the next poem is

but a

continuation

of the previous poem;

a continuation

of you~poem,

inhaling

and

exhaling

& morphing.

Sat Jan 7
7:57am

The poem was inspired by a particular photo of the WT C, and after that by my first visit to the 9/11 Memorial.  On the day of 9/11, I was working about a diagonal mile away, and from our windows, we could see people jumping to their death.

Open sky annulled
to bordered lines of
uptown edges,
worldview momentarily
forcibly redefined by
memories of buildings and sadder days,
recollections of pillars of biblical smoke rising

A photograph
makes me look up,
and sit down historically,
need to catch a breath,
to rest mentally,
upon a storied small bridge's steps,
that I well recall,
a disappeared street stoop.
all were rubble then and once
upon that day.

Wear, tear, and older eyes distill perspective,
but the hardy heart is hardly stilled
by the recognizable gray upon
bon vivant gray reflective surfaces of
memories of buildings and sadder days

So today, on a reborn street,
I rest upon reconstituted speckled curbstone,
the city's lowered down ledges,
the city's lowered down-town boundaries,
constantly redrawn, but
nonetheless, always rebuilt from their own
regenerated stony compost,
and the NY passersby doesn't even notice
a man, head in hands,
silently weeping, thinking that:

We throw away so much we should have kept.
We keep so much we should have thrown away.

Lose keepsakes, but keep our mysterious sadnesses
locked away in compartments that open only to
benedictions uttered in ancient tongues.

Make your own list,
be your own curator,
catalogue visions of sophomoric triumphs,
museum mile pile
those early poetic drafts,
be unafraid of memories
raw and ungentrified,
overlaid, buried underneath
postmortem of dust-piles of senior critiques

Finally went downtown to see
where the blessed water falls
into catacomb pits that once
were the foundations
of buildings that ruled the cityscape,
downtown anchors
for a modern city that exists
only because it was built on
million year old granite bedrock

Stone monuments are stolid, discrete.
Memories are of grayed, frayed edge consistency.
Negatives resurrected that survive digitally,
all blend synthetically, layer upon layer,
essence distilled in a single,
black and white photograph
that serves to
disturb complacency,  
awaken stilled pain,
reflections suppressed,
are restored

Why Men Like to Load the Dishwasher

We are the artists of shape and configuration,
puzzle masters solving riddles of physics,
worshipers at the altar of labor saving devices,
this is a love poem of sorts, a Bazinga salutation,
to men and their undying love
for **** machines.

were it in my power
all cups would be handle-less,
the dishwasher time-space continuum
would be non-interrupted by black holes
where handles pointlessly protrude,
requiring endless rearrangement,
a soul destroying exercise.

bowls of any sort should have bottoms that retract.
indeed, the capacity increase, a visible fact,
is so enviro-friendly, eminently sensible,
that the loading for mechanical scrubbing
is deserved of a wing in the Smithsonian.

perhaps the budgeteers of Congress
should be tutored in this artistry,
how to make any limited resource,
better used.

the rub, as the bard would have writ,
is that this roaring tempest-tost,
our love for hard labor lost,
secret sacrificed behind a locked door,
of a Sanctum *******,
is entirely due, all glory to,
the secret society of fairies who
hide-reside inside,
freeing us to write more poetry.

in so many ways that I cannot reveal,
less the other gender members squeal,
men live to love to load the dishwasher,
for the ingenuity challenge, and of course,
the side benefit of the excusing coverup,
"I helped clean up," a relationship saver,
proof positively that the dishwasher inventor,
was surely a brilliant woman

Sunday's newspapers
come on Saturday,

coupons spill out
torrentially.

weekend manna
from
publisher's hell.

makes my breathing heavy,
from studious inspection,
so many needs unmet.

I fall to pieces
every weekend,
securely knowing,
I'm lacking in
so many things,
feeling my
insecure neediness
keenly.

my Target is
feverishly simple,
solution oriented.

no can find any discounts for
new rhythms,
new rhymes,
life high fivers
to satisfy,
adhere,
and revere,
that would be my
Best Buy.

but I'm clipped,
the coupons, not.

we are bound by the electric
tape of music, poetry, dance,
a binding that only the rough cut
of a blade can sever.

rings, each of us have worn,
gold bands, for me three,
which I wore about my neck,
reminder, rings are easy removed,

but bind us in love,
of the pleasure of,
all things beautiful,
and
our boundaries become
one and the same,
there is no sundering
as long as we can
read, listen and dance
to the art of us.

~for the one who will know it was written for her~

muddy verb and adjective,
muddling and muddled

have you ever seen a pas de deux/deluxe,
one dancer, proscriptive,
and her partner, prescriptive?

the stage, of course,
exactly the width of your head,
from ear to shining ear

this couple o’muses dance en concert,
though their very natures are anti-logarithmic,
the value of their exponential activity is a
descriptive nomenclature

I am overly abstruse this Saturday morn,
mushing mathematics and ballet, verbal word games
as is my wont wanted,
everyone sleeping while I rise at 6am,
doing ablutions, seeking absolution,
pulling weeds from our respective gardens,
answering old friends I have yet to meet,
to whom I answer,
“still here, though long time no see,”
which is of course hysterical funny, inherently contradictory,
as the brain grasps well my
Red and Dead Sea brain cells, a splitting motif

muddling and muddled,
proscribed from getting on transport,
to deliver to you the proper healing prescriptive,
as if I had in my possess to diagnosis and correctly assess

even though one of my many passport names,
a requirement, to visit,
this inter-netting ether, that both combines and separates,
permits me safe passage,
over the historical lineage of borderlines of land and sea,
to deliver this message,
to you
woman

I am here, waiting patiently, though long time no see like ever,
absentia, dementia, both self-censure,
here, then, my cadenza,
dedicated solely soulfully for you,
as the sabbath sun rises over the East River,
saying, laughing unto me,
“still here, though long time no see,”
for though I cannot look upon her, my sun, my sun,
yet she, as well, is everywhere-inside of me,
warmly illuminating my muddled mind

reverence in poetry.                             everything to every person.

reader claims they can                         a necessary skill for
uncover the reverence.                         successful hypothecating and
in the scripts that                       (buying)poetry-creation outta nothing,
life straight hands me,                          tell them what thy want to hear,
for collection & correction,           and they’ll call you laureate,                      
secretarial transcribing,                        instead of good listener
binding, typo correction                       or just a keen observer-fakir

mundane are the tasks,                          just take what they give ya,
that’s all them muses ask,                     dress it like Joseph in a
don’t interfere, taken what’s given,     coat of many colors,
bow, curtsy, show respect,                     don’t let on your plagiarism
treat its aspects/instincts correctly       is all them, redressed legally

you’re just the pass through agent,   true you, gotta be smart about it,
patient for no payment expected,    variant spellings, swinging verbs,
be our adherent, not our truant,      be discreet, they’ll call your script
we appoint don’t disappoint,          a real keeper and give love or sun,
accept our patent, render legit        mucho poem emojis accoladeya

as for this reverence thinge        devil in a blue dress, walk the streets
if I do my job ok, on any day,     grabbing snatches of overhearings,
any poem could save a life,        pressed into a single tunic, you think,
if I get the commas placed,         he a genius, knows my thinking,
just right, the periods period,     exactly,  what a great poet and
while obeying the speed limit    con/hu-man par excellent

them muses so **** pleased     even fool muses, too full themselves,
by this true confession released, muses who think we stink and
and self deprecation,                     couldn’t do it without them
they call me reverend,                   great pretenders by stealing
imagine them silly folk,                everything in everybody and
calling a big fat liar.                       all thieves and cape riders,
reverend, duh, the end                 original liars, pants on fire



before midnight and after 3:20am April 7~8, two oh nineteen
any message you send becomes my intellectual property, fool....

I slept with her, my rapacious pen, took me in quiet vengeance in
full on conjugation

raken and taken, me,
her overlording me now, her authorship, so long held
in my maledom abeyance,
a kept imprisonment, unleashing at last, a tongue lashing~leashing,
de-spite my un-desirous craven lying supplications,
excuses of innocence and accident, coincidence and conflation,
ashes, ashes, denials incinerated, all fall down

she wrote/stabbed upon my heartless chest,
in the cheap crudités colors of a prisoner’s inking,
“user of words mine, all mine”

gathered up my innards of loose words,
speculative notes & titles yet to be,
born and kept hid in password protected silent back labor files,
now hers, leaving me sputtering, unable to create,
a homeless mute citizen, possession-less,
helplessly hoping her hovering harlequin might relent,
without any shelter, even a glimmering, a single aleph or bet

she celebratory cackled and clawed,
professed her reclamation ownership of all my poems predecessors,
zola j’accusing that I, ripped from her forcibly,
with no granted permission, her womanly touché of my scribing,
warning of no more global warming for my unprivileged hands,
daren’t try for pretenses of stolen legal guardianship,
warning of a new, forced caining inscription,
a tattooing of  “thief” upon my 5 knuckled right ******,
“plagiarist” boldly inked in back & blue upon my left palm

I, predator,
she, victim,
of my now self-professed, admitted confess,
she, my single victim,
of a decade long serializing criminal coverup

her parting poem a threatening,
herein issued in this very verse,
damning all who would falsely credit themselves,
to suffer shame and an unimaginable curse,
this, the newborn eleventh of ten commandments

parting, she kissing my lips, even my emptied apertures,
with warning bitings,
she knew all my
my numerous noms de guerre,
no dead scrolls caves to hid in, and to be discovered some future day,
and if ever marked as copyrighted,
’twas no tunneling escape,
the exposed truth to be over-stamped
upon all, upon each, in every language,

”copied right from the tongue of a woman!”


and she would be wright...

December 25 - 28, 2010


Stuck in Miami, Florida, because of bad weather in NYC.
Composed after reading the poetry of Campbell McGrath, who lives in Miami.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
­
electric pinpricks of
unfamiliar red and green lights,
bedroom traffic guidance
courtesy of a stranger's
tv and cable box,
an emblematic totem tonight,
of my physical dislocation,
reminders that I'm enslaved
by weather machinations.

I lay, resting uneasy,
in a strange bed,
one night too many,
snow storming in my head
snow storming up north aplenty,
a blizzard of ruminations are
my white coverlet,
while stuck in Miami.

faraway drifts have
force fed and freed
an imprisoned restlessness,
a multipurposed, slashing.

Miami midnight incision has
let out the bad humors,
let in an unfamiliar odor -
lechón asado,
which texts my Pharisee nostrils
in Cubano,
words muy ironico,
a single waking thought,
"who ya kidding?"

Everglades rain
imported from California,
recycles on rooftops,
thrumming a heart beating,
syncopated, watery refrain,
a regifted heavenly present.

the sound waves mark
as a barely undulating wave,
inside this super soaked brain,
that transforms wine into water
and scan lines into these letters,
"who ya kidding?"

all this exponential signage
of this NYC boy grousing, are his
defrocked muses annoying,
with a serenading blizzard
of one trick pony repetitions,
coronets trumpet his unmasking,
this essay, a revelation,
a product of their
harmonious discordancy.

a single note crowns his head
as he weeps whole food
organic, non-recyclable tears,
products of his new inquistional,
a self-inflicted interogatorial,
"who ya kidding?"

compiler of an
occasional talented catch phrase,
strung'em together like
cheap pearls,
pretensions of literary acumen
once populated his Id,
articles of spilled word *****,
but Florida rain has cleansed
his Northern haughty pretensions,
with an injection of truth serum,
a pharmaceutical wonder of
a local poison labeled,
"who ya kidding?"

A day laborer, nothing more,
rise up at five, brown bagged,
a client of Mammon's *****,
soul sagged, life hagged,
a sum of cultural cliches,
a cell phoned baby boomer,
a would be millennial,
constructed of paper mache,
who on occasion,
has been known to say,
"Let's play poetry today."

the poseur chokes
on this new poison,
delivered by unhappy stance
by the arrows of his
current misfortune
for he now suffers from
the deadly disease of
"compare and contrast."

a slim book of poems
of Campbell McGrath's
(his phraseology,
a veritable theology)
shoos the blues traveler,
over to a funhouse
where an honest magic mirror
cuts him down to size.

his poetic aspirations,
a residue of self-infatuation,
are summarily dismissed by
the truly gritty, quick justice
of a master poet's
"who ya kidding?"

so watch how a would-be
poet disappears,
in a barrage of bullets marked,
nevermore,
his dignity, more than hobbled,
his cheek, gone, gobbled,
his juice, a currency unaccepted,
his holiday present,
a ceasefire of conjugation,
a cornucopia of declinations

dare I ever write again?
who indeed, am I kidding,
other than myself?
I am an addict, not a poet.

"Her spirit stronger than the sea's embrace.
Not for her a watery end,
but a new life beginning on a stranger shore.
It will be a love story.
For she will be my heroine for all time."

William Shakespeare (Character)
from Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Written by Tom Stoppard, another British playwright.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Challenged thus, scrape off early morn simpleton ditty dust,
Gauntlet tossed, the speare launched, not a  request, but a must,
I flinch, but the table bare, but for tea and imagery of my love,
The Englishmen have slapped/stoppered my face with his worded glove,
Having thus battle commenced, his fire to be returned,
Complete this arc if you can,
Are you poet or just an ordinary man?

For she will be my heroine for all time,

These words to expand with rhyme and verse,
T'is a welcome task, one familiar, but anew,
Each dawn each dusk, a daily trust, a love poem diurnal-birthed,
As if god created the world, but left upon completion,
With a grievous thirst, a new notion, he did burst.

He created the Eighth Day, for celebration of his
Most cherished invention, the idea of love.
This is where, the secret writ Eleventh Commandment occurs,
Love thy Poetry Gods, Honor them with daily verbs.

For she will be my heroine for all time,

A trap for poets young, for time is a couplet with
Sublime, chime, thyme, come easy these 9th grade raps and rhymes,
Becrusted with a chilly, stale, white **** frosted rime.

But I am a century more a poet-worker,
(In 1901 died and was reborn, you could look it up)
A young'un by compare with old ***** "a tale to tell" most fair,
But a trick or two of the Industrial Age, I can employ,
Advantage me at our Wimbeldon^ match, where I am skilled,
And he, poor fellow, commoner, is not...

For she will be my heroine for all time,

T'is easy, for t'is true, and with truth arrives a companion,
The inspiration flys in the air, like petals of the tost-wind dandelion,
Come to me my distich line, your presence sensed,
Let us to Will back, our repartee sling and send!

Oh woe is me, my boastful heroics, are smoked,
Try try but nothing doth appear but familiar fairies to mock
My speechless eyes and rusted tongue, dry and blind.

But wait! My woman encarriaged returneth,
Her body now supple'd delighted from eastern magic.
Her yogi has bent n' sent her, back to me and my
Eye crust melts and the honey drips and the all clear rings,
***** Boy, you *******, your mine!

*For she will be my heroine for all time,
This simple true and forever complete, need I say more?

Prahu opines re the mathematics of love

Her equations hypotenuse me,
So I write adjacently,
As if we were cosine functionalities.

A special formula,
A Hyperbolic Cosine,
For to equate love mathematically,
We must use verbal hyperbole.

Binomials,  the pair of loves,
Coefficient Trekkers,
On the mountains of waves,
To a product infinite.

So let us,
Reductio ad absurdum
That love is pointless.

Nah, nope.


Love is the point on a curve
that never stops moving,
Even as the curve forever, bending
And the possibilities,
Exponential...
In the sums of love,
The finite answer is always two.

So let us be clear,
This exercise has made me late
For work,
For which
I express my appreciation as follows:

X = xo,

Or

Summation Expansion
  e e=  1 / n!
= 1/1 + 1/1 + 1/2 + 1/6 + ... see constant e
  e -1 =  (-1) n / n!
= 1/1 - 1/1 + 1/2 - 1/6 + ...
  e x =  xn / n!
= 1/1 + x/1 + x2 / 2 + x3 / 6 + ...

Every Child                             Not every Child                                  
Has known God,                    Has known God,
Not the God of names,          All no-named, especially Gods,
Not the God of don’ts,           No don’ts, only one do.


Not the God who ever          No Life, surviving is weird,
Anything weird,                    Anything good, beyond belief,
But the God who only          But this God speaks not-a-word,
knows four words and         vocabulary of wet, dampening silence,
keeps repeating them,          no repetition or explaining required,
saying:                                     saying (nothing, only raining tears:):

“Come dance with Me.”       “Rain is water, life,”

Come Dance.                           Come Survive,. Dance in Rain.

Hafiz (1320-1389).                    Lipstadt (20~21st Century)

Here are the names of my lovers,
The women I sleep with, whom
I use, like they use me.
Spent, they discard me, for when their pleasure needs
Satiated, they climb aboard another man.

What they do not know,
Is that in my mind, in my ears,
everywhere,
I did not let them, or you go,
We are still romping,
For I
Take them as needed.

I need them all,
For my pleasure needs, like my unshaped heart,
Addictive, endless.

If your is name is here, I do not
Apologize.

Pink
Adele
Lilly Allen
Anna Nalick
Bess Rogers
Beyonce
Brandi Carlisle
Cat Power
Colbie Callait
Duffy
Eva Cassidy
Evanescence
Alison Sudol
Fiona Apple
Florence Welch
Grace Potter
Ingrid Michaelson
You
Joni Mitchell
K.D. Lang
Kate Nash
Kate Voegele
Leona Lewis
Lizz Wright
Madeline Peyroux
Marie Digby
Mary Wells
Norah Jones
Regina Spektor
Sara Bareilles
You
Sara Haze
Taylor Swift and Tracy Chapman
Tristan Prettyman
Vanessa Carlton

So many others, used so long ago, I can't remember the faces,
Which can't be googled.

Use them hard, use them often, more than daily.
Bluntly, I tell you
Your name is on my list,
Even if I do not disclose it.

The Sounding Foam of Primal Things

*(The title and the poem, taken from and inspired by
Carl Sandburg's "Who Am I?")


wind and rain pound the surf.
snow falls on the beach, on the shore.
man-observer cannot tell:
has the earth gone mad, all wet?
do the seas rise, whipped up, filling the heavens,
or does the white rain replenishes the very body,
from whence it came, and now returns?

this matters greatly, yet nothing answers this, his question.

the furious soundings, the green foam churn,
the silence of no response inebriates,
drunk on the tempest's hard wet liquor,
weighed down, sodden with the despair,
solitude, silence, absent answers,
his natural walking companions!

No Stopping signs on almost every corner,
Do Not Pass, Do Not Enter,
One Way, Two Way, No Thru Passage,
but the one sign he seeks,
"Stay On The Path" absent.

Eluded,
dispassionate endings,
the essential quietude among
furious surround-sounds of creative destruction
he ceases to ask, for unanswered, undirected.

Concluded,
either
their is no one listening, or,
there is no one caring, or,

Deluded,
illusion is truth,
he is an illusion.

------------------

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

Infinity's Mirror by Nat Lipstadt

Two mirrors, set in opposition observe created notional blending,
a reflecting pool of bonding's of unglued, contrary compositions.
Mirror to mirror, his imagery, fuses to Sylvia's images, hers,
faintly recollected, now living face, face to face, with his past insurrections, alters his future visions.

From cold water lake she's drawn, impaled by refracting regrets,
retrieved, drawing her words upon him, an awakening slap to drink,
beloved, tragic magic, infinitely captive.  But this old man's tiddlywinks, land-locked words, blunted instruments, needy for release & salvation, are neither silvered or exacting, just stains on a dulled, tarnished brass spittoon, except for the brunt'd bunting of lines across his roughened terrain'd face, black and white, pen and ink etched illustration of howling agitation.

His words worn down, hardened, red faced, purloined speckled pellets, damp to roll on down her rutted, almost ancient, tear streak paths, disbelieved superstitions, sacrificed for one of her living morsels of words.

Man, here to her, pledges allegiance, audaciously defiling her poetic sanctity, a visage endless repeated, delivers her shiny poem-poised countenance, even though no forgiveness from time can a mirror afford for either, from her words,  confession born, terrible truths beyond, beyond the finite.

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

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Good on You (a love poem),
this one, is, good, on you.  

phrase uttered, measured, apace,
each comma,
a paused breath of:

admiration, enveloped by
a secret pleasure coating,
saucier prepared,
the base, the pleasured secret in this
mans minds eye unseen.

each comma,
precisely the carbon copy of the
comma curve of dark hair that
falls from a forehead down to the chin,
in a museum quality photograph,
as if it was intended to hold, contain,
your sly blunt moody,
and full plated whimsy,
when that half-smile poesy is in place.

good on you,
slow please,
not
goodonyou.

did you think, I did not have, a special bottle,
a Grand Cru,
a pinot noir, in the reserve,
inside the locked cellar of me,
to be used to anoint mine own
English Duchess of Burgundy?

well and proper aged,
but unlabelled,
till you provided
the appelation, the domaine,
good, on, you.  

the bottle dusty, the feelings, not.
if we never meet, matters not,
the gentility, tous les bons mots,
good in you,
hid in in all of the
astounding incredible poems
I well-addicted need,
those archeological mounds of a life,
I excavate and well heed,
going from one to the next,
me, the bumbling bee,
pollenating, following the path of the
watermarked tracks of
the King's Cross,
alas, they do not offer a couchette,
from Terminal 4 to London Bridge

unlike a teenager
happy to confess,
I am even younger,
an old fool, a geezer,
in love with a museum quality smile,
as he totters down to the Tottenham Hale station,
to catch the blue colored line, to the station after Vauxhall)
(oh dear, what's it called again?)
walking 10 to 2, saying ta to all
who assist his
two hands on an old man's bent feet,
steering the wheelhouse heart through its tubes

this is an undedicated poem,
retuned and returned,
addressee unknown, yet I know
by the greening dew droplets decorating faces,
that come so easy,
not a one wrung out,
you know
the who's of the true ownership,
the clarification,
in the bread crumbs,
fully disclosed,
left by me,
but for me,
in order to retrace my steps,
to find the railing,
when the steady on need arises

some Tuesday next,
will disembark from a riverboat,
at the old Tate,
spending my afternoon,
staring at an imaginary museum quality photograph,
till the guard surly reminds the pesky Yank,
its past closing time,
the man who will not be moved,
for already he, past overcome,
so why be thinking on why leaving,
for he will only be back again tomorrow.

so different.

mine, simple declarative sentences,
typically matter of fact,
so **** presumptuous,
those ill mannered,
know it all Ameddicans.

yours, lace doilles,
in a pub, with Hilda and Bill,
drinking pale ale,
from a porcelain cup,
and I am laughing,
Why?

It is all,
Good on Us,
a, love, poem,
indeed,
no kidding kid.

This is the game, set and matching end-piece to what is known as:

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/385266/poetry-round-find-your-self-within/

by way of an introduction....

T'is season to move forward,
back to old acquaintances renewed,
sand, water and salty sun,
three lifelong friends who,
Auld Lang Syne,
never ever forget me

I get drunk on their eternity,
their celestial beauty,
and they, upon my tarnished earthly being,
muse and are bemused

unreservedly and never judgingly,
share shards of inspiration unstintingly,
we share, never measuring
this captain's humanity, his human efficacy,
by mystical formulae of reads or hearts

grains of sand, water wave droplets and sun rays,
and his beloved words, derived there from,
all only know one measure...
immeasurable
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/699991/adieu-my-crew-my-crew/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Pilgrimage (Reunion)


at last to begin,
to begin the 'at last,'
this reunion occurs
this first day of June
where on my
body's flesh colored calendar,
X red-marked,
deeper than any real cut of despair


this morn, leave for familiar parts,
embarking 100 steps to that
Adirondack chair,
my name, my self,
(oh god at long last)
so often, long lovingly
revealed unto you


the garden's sundial welcomes me,
Prince, Guardian, of the gate to the green,
the green steppe way to bay and beach,
a brief song of "ring around the irises,"
blooming around him,
he issues,
to celebrate his own glory recalled,
his own purpled prosed long ago one ecrivez'd,
by having the third mate
ring the greened worn,
bronzed ship bell
upon conclusion of
his raising of the gate


shorts and T white hair shirt,
costume de rigueur
of this Peconic pilgrimage,
turban and baseball uncapped,
stepping humbly
toward that worn wood throne
where carved are
the initials of
my poetic friends,
and his vast modest,
Concordia of poetic essays


Those odd disordered
collection of aleph bets
that have been prepared for this hour,
are sun dappled,
breeze caressed,
wave watched,
a fresh redressing after a
dum hiems,
a long dark winter


all rise up welcoming with voices
tremulous yet oratory,
sing with a love so spectacular ,
Handel's Messiah Hallelujah Chorus,
au naturel


the armies of ants declare this a
Truce Day,
parading before me in formation,
the rabbits race
in elegant uniforms,
white tailed bemedaled, dress grays,
announcing their  showoff arrival
with a new across-the-lawn
land speed record


the dear **** deer,
familiar families and generational,
look upon this human and
grumble while chewing our shrubbery,
an act of sherwooded lawn high robbery
but perforce acknowledging our entrance,
by uttering a Balaam blessing/curse,
a neutralized
"****, they're back"


the seagulls on the dock,
sovereign state observers from
Montauk and the far island city,
sent by the mother winds superior,
observers and reporters to nature everywhere,
Summer Season of Man Has Begun


a few white wakes disturb the water's composure,
the early low arc'd sun has not peaked in strength,
at 10:00am, the temp just breaches 60 Fahrenheit,
the beach sand untrod, no unlasting human impressions,
no children's red pails yet to them decorate,
amidst the sea life's detritus and smooth licked pebbles


Enough.


each tree ring and grass blade demands a verse,
an all my own tributary accolade,
this too much to accommodate


a year ago I issued an invitation,
do so again for my word is my bond
my responsibilities, my *******,


there are chairs for all
on my righted round and my motet left,
here, there are
no Americans,
no Canadians,
no Aussies or Brits,
or Indians and Fillipinos,
no African or Asians present,
East nor West,
None Invited here,
Only Poets


even those hardy pioneer
West Coasters, a proud lot,
and my Southern family drawling,
and perhaps lessening the mourning
just a touch, a minute modicum,
all sit quiet in the admixture
of poets come to celebrate
the blessing to have been tasked,
to write from and of places we visit
in the cerebral,
and to imbibe each other's words


Three Hundred and Sixty Four Days ago,
I wrote :

We sit together in spirit, if not in body,
You join me in the Poet's Nook,
A few frayed and weathered Adirondack chairs
Overlooking the Peconic Bay,
Where inspiration glazes over the water,
And we drown happily in a sea of words...

I am exhausted.
So many gems (poets)
to decorate
My body, my soul

I must stop here,
So many of you have reached out,
none of you overlooked.

Overwhelmed, let us sit together now
And celebrate the silence that comes after the
Gasp, the sigh, that the words have taken from
Our selves, from within.

Once again, in your debt

Again,
I await your beckoning wave of hello,
greet you in your mellifluous native tongue,
iced drinks at the ready,
the opening ceremony already started,
when all are seats taken
we commence officially,
with a blessed

*"Now, let us begin"

Warning: the government is reading your poetry!
(Metadata Mining This Site)


If to the world about, you are attentive,
You have imbibed the news that our governmental,
is exercising its parental abusive in-discretionary powers,
Purviewing and purloining our electronic communications,
Causing some to have worrisome palpitations

My life is on the boring side,
So welcome gents to look inside,
The surfed sites, the emails, hardly slimy,
But stay the fk away from my poetry!

Tis obvious from your midnight editing,
That my wordily, working body has been discretely
Simonized,
My data,
Googlized,
My poems,
Scrutinized,
A comma, a colon, a verb, out of place, capsized,
Little threads kept in door jambs, their alteration,
Your snooping presence, a confirming revelation

Will the words Rye Catcher be caught by a filter,
My mocking of Obamacare, be the transmitter,
That becomes a curiosity inflictor, a predictor,
Of your requited, on-this-sited, attentions?

Meta dating women, once a goal, worthy of attaining,
Meta dating mining of poetic alliterations, pertaining
To me and mine, a serious no-no, causing consternation,
Heavy percussing, voters, party swinging in self-flagellation

The information unwittingly provided on HP
Will be used to modulate the time and temperature,
Add certain chemicals in the liquids we drink
Like testosterone in erogenous zones,
Xanax in the air vents in the high schools and colleges,
Hell, they may even put fluoride in the water

Control the atmosphere, fashion styles, population size,
Disclose location to my enemies and my illicit affairs,
(Exposed, leaked to the NY Post's Page Six, to my better halving),
Keep the emotions checked,
Within acceptable parameters,
Especially of those *****, love sick
Senior Citizens, always ready to get down
When poetry-aroused

This narration of condemnation for espying
Will YouTube spread like a new flu virus,
Cause I know where you live and Iam,
Cell phone camera armed and dangerous
On  the Internet, your faces, posted

They riot-for-rights in Cairo and Istanbul,
President Obama, we have on good authority,
Your daughters support our rhetoric, no bullsht,
Watch your step, or on you, we'll sic the IRS,
Cause in the end, they work for *us,
Hold on, who's that knocking at my door?

Pradip is newborn (impossible wisdom)

“a new day, a new chance for my soul... to heed
a small voice ... to give flowers, to plant new seeds.
to not trample on wildflowers and unwanted weeds...” Sally

“Sweet baby
with your head on my shoulder
I'm no more growing older...” Pradip

~

the unpredictability and randomness of the winds,
seed carriers, of small voices, yearning to be heard,
powerless in appearance only, for within are powers superior heroic,
           who can grow others       who can feed    
                             who can sustain multiple living creatures

each seed unique, a poem composed and complete,
authored by precedents, authorized by predecessors,
utilizing the cocoon of soil and sun,
rainwater from space and deep driven to
the clear milk of underground railroad rivers,
to give nurture to its revisional generational code

these new children of an old mix,
are quiet lifesavers giving proofs positive,
that those who will one day grow old,
with deep gnarled roots, are most capable
of finding ways of manufacturing fresh youth whim within,
to those who give babies homage, in attendance

this then the newborn miracle, the new seed,
wind borne, replants itself in old soil,
taking but more so giving,
injecting bits of vitality into its arterial ancestry,
how can this be?

I do not know the why or the how,
but am evidence of the therefore,
and the thereafter, of impossible wisdom



7:07am 4-5-19 a newborn poem for poetry passing grandparents

weary of mothers and friends
losing their children,
before their time,
weary of failing
to achieve reconciliation
with whatever one nominates
the force that regulates,
fate, Name-Your-God,
deity of your choice,
nature, laws of physics,
the "whatever"
that controls, interferes,
that you think to believe
wills these event's occurrence
non-randomly

cessation of formalities,
one sided truce
signed and delivered,
unafraid to call this
what it is,
**** and damning fate,
for no god
could be so cruel...

If only there was a
Dislike button
for life and the poems
wrenched from death

at 5:00 am
this thought is my
sole inhabitant

once again,
nature's bosses distort,
another friend's grief
asks, cajoles me
to betray my/thy belief

banish it or me,
for we both cannot be
cohabitants
under the one roof,
of this limited mind,
where flailing
poems
never good enough,
failing
to express my
sorrowed rage

In a strange mood - see/write art



in a strange way, disorganized but straight on,
light tinted magenta, issuing, in frothy large pours, from my mouth,
knowing what to say, and the meaning too,
I can more than walk, can write, on water,
where all can read weeping, Mary-miracles of seeing, living words,
themselves, on light waves lapping in a
shifting rotunda vision, color reorienting spatial senses.^

in a strange, strange stitch, seasonal spirits and witches,
Chagall, Baez, Dylan Thomas, Donovan, Richie Havens
doing their knitting in my brain, from Montmartre to the Midwest to Monterey,
painters and poets in lockstep head-messing with me,
imperfect clarity but still one voice,
see/write art,
so went and caught the wind, going gently into night
to banish the hodgepodge of uncertainty from inside out.

knowing well you don't understand fully, but jumbling tumbling
verses are sliding off my rusted tongue as fiddlers fly above,
roughened words, hewn from a paper cup, spilling diamonds uncut, imported from Sarajevo, Montparnasse, the Lower East Side.
wretched me, in the hour I first believed, this amalgamated conception conceded,
seceded from my mind into your palate for a tasting,
tho neither drugged, nor deaf and dumb, just slammed poetical-like, this write is
all I have to portend is your affections, your attentions, to yours, am beholden.

a *****, well respected man in daylight,
the hidden references accuse,
woke up to see Wednes-day Caesarian born,
askance glanced at the prior passages of the night before,
when my palate clefted,
when eyes chose not to distinguish
between right and lefted,
in the nightlight,
a ***** man disrespects language convection/convention,
and lays before you activating stanzas and his mind, prone,
but always the truth, speaking,
the visions, leaking, mind to eye,
recombinant, into our minds eye.




^ http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/james-turrell


Rather than write extensive notes on the many references, inspirations in this poem, if there is a line that intrigues, ask me

5: Nice Jewish Boy, Poet ******,
And ****** Of My Own Life

Dedicated to the people
Who keep me company here,
Some in the mid of night,
You know who you are...
and the POlice trooper who caught me
doing 85 in the HOV lane.  Cost me 200+ and 3 points on my entry ticket to heaven
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Listening to Daughtry^
Like ya oughta,
Singing very loudly along
to, and as it so happens, when
I'm agoing
Home.

Long neck Corona
Cooling my sweaty brow,
Top down,
You betcha my neck is
Red, and the officer who just pulled me over
Ain't looking none too pleased,
In fact, he's alooking a little red too!

Officer I said,
Saw that sign,
30 MPH Minimum

Swear I was doing
At least that
Above the 55 speed limit.

He said, it's ok dude,
I like your music taste,
Heard you singing
Daughtry and Green Day,
James Blunt and Nickelback
In the HOV lane,
Maybe even some Buble
I may have heard, as well,
But don't Miranda incriminate yourself!

I like your taste in beer,
I like that you don't use no sun lotion,
If it's ok with you,
I'll just stand here and listen,
And maybe, join you later when
I'm off duty, at the station.

Officer, a nice Jewish boy I am,
Officer, a good ole country boy from the city,
Wear Harlon River's hat when he ain't,
Went out fishing with RRR (r) on his boat,
Woodpecker chaser,
got me a .45 neath my pillow,
And you should see me gut a

Poem*

Slice its belly open,
Sometimes straight, sometimes Askew,
Feed the gulls them
****** insides on the dock, by-moonlight,
Can ya cut me some slack?

Mmm, I see here in your license,
You are a disabled guy,
A **** poet ******,
Who often does his best work
Legally all alone in the HOV lane,
So I'm gonna let you off this time
Just with a warning!

If you drive and compose,
Ya gotta observe the signs posted:

No more than five per day,
Poems can you post

If singing while driving,
Top gotta be down

No writing about drinking,
there are underage children
Reading your wrotes

Finally,
No more sad poems,
The world is way over its quota,
No mention of scars or pain,
Tears, loss, broken or going insane,*
No heart sickness on sunny weekend days,
Got it?

It's a big problem in these parts,
If you see one, report it to the
Poetry Authorities!

Yes sir Officer,
If you give me your name,
I'll slip it in some little
Unobtrusive limerick,
By way of a thank you note,
Cause after all
A nice Jewish boy
I.am.

He said that won't be necessary,
Voyeuring yourself ain't illegal,
Just bad manners.
But if I catch ya one more time,
Using those aforementioned bad words,
And doing 85, in the left lane,
I know where ya live, and
I'll see ya 'when September ends.'

Her Name is Woman


~for Woman~

The body replenishes, even the signs of decay
that come for reparation,
Positive confirmation
her organism survives, alive,
tree circles yet measuring time,
Till a devitalizing time comes, when,
this cellular process concedes degeneration

Then the wondering shifts; new facts sifted;
now the reckoning is not a calculation of
Mortality but of her living immortality;
dive to divine neath her black cloaking, reading
Wounded word revelations, her own Bible stories,
giving nomination to Woman-name

The long shadows that her souls excavations cast,
costs of her stories individual,
Highwaymen robbed her with glass knives
but each remaining black hole lights a story, lost, but
Burning icy inviting, pulling us into book boxes inside,
compost of sheets of composed white clarity

Care not that each riddling reference is obliged to be
oblique, inexplicit,
Woman her name, all encompassing,
her views codified in lines of faith,
Woman, is that not
a mining, and a manifest,
of hidden birthing,
comforting us in warm shades of
Human courage


12/26/18  5:51pm

for Angelique, who found it (at) last,
and who, loved it best
--------------------------------------------


first, I read,
thus educated,
became addicted to
the musicality of word~notes,
enamored with
the artistry of
singing language,
the power to
lift, imagine,
evoke, touch
your skin,
so far away, yet
mine thru smoke,
scribed, now
mine to stroke.

explore, uncover,
the secret interiors of
what was placed
inside of
each of us,
at inception,
without exception.

the keys,
the word picks to
unlock the freedom
to be fearful,
yet courageous.

we, start, all of us,
at the same
starting line,
we, all feel
we, all believe in
the primacy,
the rightness of
I.

but then, one must
began to
observe others.
crossed over the boundary
of mine own
preemptive prepositions,
superseded the need to be
superman,
saw different truths
in the eyes
of others.

listened to the soul songs
of the R&B; breezes of
scented strange,
coming to open
ears, nostrils,
eager to learn how
wind chimes sound in
Nepal, Berlin and the Florida Keys.

standing up, stopped lying,
both up and down,
committed to be
uncommitted to the unjust
accursed ego,
rejected the sophistry of
solipsism.

then changed directions.

went back inside
to relish the passion of
pleasure of both
affection and hatred,
receptors on wavelengths
that varied, in sine,
in in side in in the
co of mr. me.

that the only way out,
to responsively accept,
that to close
the distances within,
to realize real synapses
of words,
there was only
the pathway of
the existence of
outward bound.

kindness, warmth
and generosity,
or
cruelty, inhumanity,
utmost selfishness.

needed to choose.

made my-choices.

thus provisioned and endowed,
voyaged to a place
where there was
no cover, no excuses,
only mirrors that exposed
what lay neath every artifice
conjured up by man to
mislead, deceive, and obfuscate.

There, this place,
where I was
neither the smartest,
bravest, saddest, or wisest,
I sat down and said,
said out loud
words directed to
give yourself away,
myself and anyone
who cared to listen:

”my tongue and my eyes are
one and the same,
my fingertips and my voice,
interchangeable,
my combination of words,
special even if not original,
they are as original to me
as the first prior writer and
the next,
who will create them
anew one more tme,
after he, like me,
leaned to
write them effortlessly,
and to
give yourself away...”


with out fear,
I selected a single word,
a solitary glance,
saw the poetry of an
open window's enchantment,
a head lifted momentarily
from a pillow,
then struggled mightily,  
wept for days with no
verbiage to effect,
make visions entrancing,
no skills,
butterfly net
to capture
the magic of
your loving
my signs.

disgusted by mine,
mine mediocrity,
with the greatest
of effort,
mine,
yet, yielded no results

except scraps of phrases,
that I retrieved
from crumpled sheets
that decorated the
wasteland of my first efforts.

took those phrases,
ran them over my tongue,
over and over again,
intrigued by
their lily lilt,
their unity,
the sensuous pleasure they gave.

how one word
coupled a tune,
the notes of this
new contiguous,
contagious alphabet
rang truer than most,
and moreover,
led me to another that
somehow phrased forward,
sallied forth in rhyme,
like those wind chimes,
now making perfect sense
with the one that followed,
from varied places
so distanced, but now one,
and a couplet was born.

of what did I write?
of what I knew.

no complexity,
nor trickery employed,

no matter that plain words
are my ordinary tools,
with them I scribed
the small,
the little,
what I saw.

grabbed the middle,
held onto the
gravity of the center.

simplicity my golden rule.
write they say,
about what you know best.

rely on and in the
diurnal motions,
the arc of
daily commotions,
in which
do we not all excel?

this poem flew
off my fingers,
twenty, thirty,
maybe sixty minutes,
in the skies above
these United States
of mine,
on American Airlines.

one of my
chiefest blessings
that luck threw onto
my punched ticket,
being born here.

was it effortless?

If you sat beside me,
what would u have seen?

flying fingers urgent unbidden,
neither struggling nor stopping
for the chimes were mine,
once I heard the first verse.
but first ringing was give
unto me by a reimer,
asking how,
I write so effortlessly?

the question innocuous sorta and
sorta knot,
a challenge to
my poetic essence.

I looked inward,
to look outward,
started where
all poems start,
in the quiet places
where you and
I think and thought.

unsure of the answer,
began to begin,
sing and sin,
my fingers,
simple secretaries,
transcribing lyrics
that those
selfsame wind chimes
tuned me up,
turned me on
simple thoughts,
simpler truths
herein recorded and
sworn before you,
most writ on this day that
the Americas have chosen
to recall another kind of
explorer, Columbus.

explore, explore
and then again
explore s'mores.
no matter if it is
covered ground,
covered it once more,
till you see that land
differently, colored so
no one has ever seen
them quite your way.

be an ocean pacific,
that cannot be pacified.

relish the chance,
relieve yourself
of that urge to burst,
put on paper,
gift to me and to
everyone else,
so someday,
we can say
together,
we saw *together,
through one
single set of eyes
upon a ship of
foolish words,
a real child born
in a mind!

new places re-discovered,
yet now storied stored,
living in our
Siamese chests,
to forever keep.

PostScript:

"With or without you,
I can't live,
And you give yourself away,
And you give yourself away....
Only to be with you,
But I still haven't found
what I'm looking for..."
U2.

The High Line (Pearls Before Swine)

is located on Manhattan's West Side. It was an elevated train track, that runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District (wholesale butchers) to West 34th Street, between 10th & 11th Avenues, near the Hudson River, running parallel to the river.  

The High Line was originally constructed in the 1930's, to lift dangerous freight trains off Manhattan's streets. The High Line, nowadays, is open as a public park, owned by the City of New York. The District is now a night life hot spot of elegant shops and restaurants, among the few remaining meat packing firms, a "scene." If not in a hurry, and unfamiliar with the High Line, look it up (see notes), to get a visual of image. Or not. I can't remember who I promised I would dig out my High Line poem, but a promise kept.
_________________

Walk­ed the High Line after work,
early summer afternoon,
a pubescent evening-tide,
the teenage colors
of the setting ball,
seize your breath,
your eyes, enthrall.

On Little West 12th Street,
climbed up to
breathe the green,
thriving railroad earth-beds
tucked so cute,
tween the rusted ties of
intrepid railroad tracks.
still working in
service to humanity;
nature supporters now,
a new kind
of freight carried.

Climbed up on the backs
of a jumbled combo of
dressed beef carcasses
and yuppie carc-*****,
both obedient to the
Law of Consumption:
Consume or be consumed.  

Looked down on them,
grazing,
gazed upon them
pseudo social-dancing,
they are all prowling,
cat burglars,
searching for felines, roosters,
to tango/tangle with till
the shameful dawn walk,
a final tally of who,
was consumed,
and who,
got consumed.

Watch with bemused fascination
at the children,
swilling and chilling,
some liquor, some swill.
nonetheless  admiring each other;
their Lauren cut and Hilfiger heft
the finest of fat veined lines,
decorating their svelte,
but very attractive,
full figured appearances.

USDA Grade A,
a genuine meat market,
humans and
animals guts,
intertwined.

The Highline,
an architect's composition
of summer grasses,
planted in nooks and crannies
of man's discarded invention.

Summer grasses in unison,
stadium waving to
the music of summer breezes,
Manhattan sounds,
clinking glasses,
goods and services exchanged.    

The view admires you -
Oh baby you look so fine,
Your hair, like the
Hudson River's aquas
is a shining, streaked,
by High Line highlighted
late afternoon,  
sun-setting golden sparklers.

Your gold chains entwining,
fire crackers on top of a
the blue ribboned river,
exploding, dazzling,
your obedient admirers.  

They complement your skin,
aglow, one of nature's works,
soon to be painted on a canvas,
across a horizon of a
pinkish-tinged lavender sky -    
a gift of the oh-so-refined
refineries of South Jersey.  

Cool summer afternoon in
the Meatpacking District,
traffic, human, automotive,
clogs the Gansevoort piazza,
a NYsee zone pietonne,
a Manhattan cocktail of
young strivers and Eurotrash,
where you check me out,
and I return the favor,
using a pre-certified checklist.

Are you young?
Are you hip?
Are you beautiful?
Do you possess
what it takes
to undress me?
Reservations and a limousine!

Everyone who's there,
by definition, is in,
otherwise where else
would they be!

Pearls of perfect people,
perfect lives,
in, around and
before, swine.  

Am I the only one
who gets the joke,
or is the joke, me,
because I just don't got it
in order to get "it"?

Am I the only one
who sees the dead,
ancient and newly arrived,
human and other kind,
the living,
sharing the animal spirits
of the Meatpacking district:
some animated,
some haunted,
some summer tanned
some blood drained,
ghostly white veined?    

In this city,
my sweet city,
city where I bore
my first breath,
city where I'll be laid down to
my permarest,
the hues of my life
are city pastels,
colorful shades of asphalt
and concrete gray and
dried blood,
interspersed with the
speckled glitter of the
potpourri of human creation.

The Highline, an architect's
composition of summer grasses,
planted in nooks and crannies
waving to the jazzed music
of Manhattan lives,
its history, summer breezes,
emblem of the city's only coda:

Transform, rebirth -
survive and prosper,  
or else,
be slaughtered and die.

Summer 2010

~for RK, for now~

Until you have bent your ear to Shakespeare's sonnets,
Till you have laughed with Ogden Nash,
Wept with Frost, visited Byron's ghost,
Read the songs of King Solomon,
And once you
Despair of being their equal,
Shed your winter coat of worry,
***** your courage to the sticking point,
Begin to write then with reckless fearlessness,
Unfettered abandon, make a fool of yourself!

Scout the competition.
Weep, for you and I will never surpass
The giants who preceeded us, and yet,
Laugh, cause they thought the same thing as well...

The Blue Canoe*

Had dinner at the Blue Canoe again,
A once every summer ritual,
Open aired, open to the senses, this eatery lies,
Nestled in the grasses, on the bay, in the port...

Had the onion rings that come
Wrapped around a boat mast,
In size order, smallest on top,
With BBQ mayo, superseding ketchup.

Watched the ferries shuttling,
As the sun collapsed, exhausted,
And slipped into the bay for a quick swim.
The ferries must work till 1am.
No dunking for them, either.

The clouds were magnificent.
No, I cannot write a poem about the cloud colors.
Their shape shifting inexhaustible,
Mine eyes high on their creativity,
I'm just not good enough a poet to tamper with that sky.

Green apple wedges and Caramel dipping sauce.
Best desert idea. Four bucks.
After dinner, see Wolverine?
Nah. He'll keep.

After-dinner stroll.
Want to try the carousel?
Suddenly the Nana~Grandma is seven again
Twice? Yay!
Of course, I do, snag the gold ring.
Yes! Red ticket! Free ride!

The band is playing Henry Filmore marching tunes
In the open space nested next to the carousel.
Old people liking old music.
Oom Pah Pah. Cute but boring.
What! No Mraz? We've been had!
Ferry home. Water smooth.
Breeze, a steady, warm two knots.
Time and Temperature? Perfect.

We drank a sparkling rose.
We had a sparkling evening.
Long week, tired at the molecular level.
I think I took my jeans off, nothing else,
Never made it to under-the-covers-land.
Woke up at 245, to write it all this down,
Recalling the last time we ate at the Blue Canoe.
When I was a better-poet
For then, I wrote....

Each of the five senses compete,
Pick me, Pick me, they shout,

The eyes see the tall grasses
Framing the ferry's to and fro life.
Waving bye bye to the
End of day harbor activities,
Putting your ship babies to sleep.

The ears hear the boat horns
Deep voiced, demanding pay attention,
I am now docking, I am important,
The sound lingers, long after
They are no longer important.

The tongue tastes the cooling
Italian Prosecco merging victoriously
With its ally, the modestly warming rays
Of a September setting sun,
Declaring, without stuttering this time,
Peace on Earth.

The odoriferous bay breezes,
A new for that second only smell,
But yet, a very old bartender's recipe,
Salt air, cooking oil, barbecue sauce, marine gasoline
And the winning new ingredient, freshly minted,
Stacked in ascending circumference order,
Onion rings.

These four senses all recombinant,
On the cheek, on the tongue,
Wafting, tickling, blasting, visioning
Merging into a single touch
That my pointer finger, by force majeure,
Declares, here,  poem aborning,
Contract with this moment, now satisfied.*


August 2nd, 2013

Ask me for directions, meet me there, so we can compose jointly, drunk on senses overloaded...

Photographs by Avedon

This was written in a friend's home in the Berkshire Mountains, on a Saturday morning, a few years ago.  Up early, I went exploring their bookshelves and found a book of Richard Avedon's photographs of average Americans out west.  Google "richard avedon photos of the american west" - then read the poem.  Please, for without seeing the faces, for this will make all the difference.  In the Berkshires, it is always chilly there, even in the summer sun.  This and other obscure references are better detailed in the notes.


Join my warmth and
my chill,
as the nine o'clock sun,
a 45 degree steeplechase
warms,
but still not
strong enough
to dispense
the lingering,
residual, remaindered,
breezy chill
of the prior eve,
that hides in,
emanates from,
the shadows
of the
deep wooded hillocks
of the
Berkshire Mountains.

Join my warmth
and my chill!

Upright jolted,
head kicked awake,
entranced and revolted,
excited and repelled,
emotive, yet, stilled.

For oh so casually,
this heroic city dweller,
brave and fearless
bookshelf explorer,
retrieves a book,
to find a new route
thru time and space
to the center of his brain.

Photographs by Avedon,
of my fellow Americans,
the Have Nots,
his "Havedons"
of the
American West.

These uncommon people
with whom I share
uncommonly little,
these drifters, the carneys,
the would-have-been cowboys,
busted blackjack dealers,
rattlesnake gut n' skinners,
coal and copper miners,
the hay truck drivers,
dirt so deep in
their pores ingrained,
colors and bloodies their souls,
browns their veins,
are the ones that
too oft,
go off first to
fight wars
in my name.

Photos untitled,
words unneeded.

In this far corner of our
shared contiguous space
called the
United States of America,
top of the line here
would be
insurance agents,
secretaries and maybe even,
the waitresses.

But their eyes,
oh their eyes!

Words I do not own
to fair share with you,
the clarifying gaze
of measured dignity and
immeasurable ache,
heritage pride,
heretical heartbreak,
that marks and unites
these disparate and dispirited
vessels of humankind.

Disjointed,
the noon suns finally,
raises my body temperature
browns my surface...

Yet, nothing eradicates
this ******* chill
in my soul
or calms my consternation,
as black and white
eyes discolor
my comfortable existence,
as I ponder
Avedon's words:

All photographs are accurate but none tell the truth

Pass over,
pass by,
The Evil Son at Passover
asks ever so sly,
what have they to do with me?

It is the Sabbath.
We luxuriate in our rest.
Rest is the greatest luxury

What is this Sabbath?
Heschel's cathedral -
existant both
in space and time,
and one enters
when and where
one can.

Do my distant,
(both in space and time)
American cousins
share my Sabbath?

Are they allowed
this luxury,
or is it endless exertion,
severity and deprivation,
all and every day
of their lives?

Constant risk every day.

Who cannot fail to see the
precipitousness of life
edged in the lines of their
hearts and minds?

Day to day hardens them
and teaches the
discipline of
severity unended.

Is the prudence of
self-forgetfulness,
their morning bitter pill
they must swallow
to carry on?

Among the resolutions
I need
to claim a
life fulfilled is this:

How to end this poem,
close this can of worms,
accidentally kicked open.

Will sunset end these
troubling questions
of which you have
your own,
more personal variations?
(what about the ...)

Perennials flower everywhere,
in Auschwitz,
along the Tigris,
even in Kabul and Somalia,
along the highways
that lead
to the mecca of
Las Vegas.

Perennials flower everywhere.

In warmth and cool,
in time and space,
they flower in my heart and
my brain and in
my prayerful tears.
flowing down my cheeks,
as I lay me down to sleep,
to dream these of
impoverished words

Havdalah^^ thoughts,
separations celebrated.

Distinctions noted,
even celebrated tween
holy and common,
light and dark,
Sabbath and
the six weekdays
of labor,
between sacred and secular
and
between me and
my American Brothers
of the American West.

I know
just one thing
to be true:

The Sabbath Cathedral is
open to all,
whatever day
you choose to
abide there

I await you,
my American cousins,
with wine and bread
and the
holy of holiest words
of comfort and sooth.

I will wash your feet and
lay you down to
restful sleep
in the
Sabbath Cathedral
in my heart.

Together,
at last,
we will be joined,
in warmth and chill.



August 29, 2010
Lanesboro, Mass.

Ethereal: A Commissioned Poem


This one knocked me Askew! What do I know of
"an ethereal world created through the poetic imagination."

I am a flea of simplicity, a blunt and direct man, who scribes the small, cherishes the little, grabs the middle.
So many here are so far linguistically superior, when matters light, airy, and heavenly are involved.
Hell, I even call god, my buddy, by his first name when ****** stops by to make confession.
But first take a nine minutes, patiently, to listen to this, all the way to the end.
http://youtu.be/xxTF2umRtqY
Then, and only then, read.

— ethereal (adjective)

light, airy, or tenuous; "an ethereal world created through the poetic imagination;" extremely delicate or refined: ethereal beauty; heavenly or celestial; gone to his ethereal home; of or pertaining to the upper regions of space.

My ethereal is:
Autumn leaves, piled, wet and slimy,
stench rotted.

Human waste smeared,
in the the diaper
of the olden, enfeebled.

Burnt flesh,
the sulfuric acid kiss
from a rejected hand.

Cigarette smoke stains
yellow post-it's stuck on human skin.

Men who live in cardboard boxes,
knowing this is
the all of their days
existence.

Scowling smiles, a
coin of death,
on the faces of those forced
to sell themselves for money.

Cursing accident traffic,
until you pass the overturned car,
see the car seats, teddy bears,
just litter now, amidst the
safety glass highway tree decorations.

What did you expect,
some of your favorite things?

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages ******* with strings
Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs

Ethereal is Sandy swollen-springs
drowning mother and child in their SUV.

Froze dead vagrants
under white pristine,
suffocating,
beneath lovely snowflakes
that ****,
no strudel for them.

Mean ones pouring punch
on pristine prom dresses,
ruining dreams,
such a big scream,
put it in the yearbook,
don't forget the smiley face,
*******.

State troopers ringing doorbells
with so sorry sorry ma'am,
she is not coming home
any more.

Stop!
Why?
You all grown up, learn the real,
this ethereal is the real too.

Wipe that *** look off your face.

You want gossamer and lace?
Wrong poem.
Beat it.
Go whine about your heartbreak
to somebody else,

Ether is the aromatic odor and sweet, burning taste, derived from the action of sulfuric acid.
Look it up, disbeliever, if it matters, it is so
real.

If you gonna use a word,
then know it.
If you gonna claim
the title of human,
try being it,
earning it.

Ethereal is the orderly,
cleaning the *** of the helpless,
one more time,
softly singing.

Ethereal is a car seat
that saves a child, a teen.

Ethereal is soup,
hot hot soup for the
lying on the sidewalk.

Ethereal is miles of flags
receiving our dead
from overseas.

Ethereal is writing a poem about
someone else's pain
in your words.
just once,
straying away from the word I.

Ethereal is saying
hey to the blind,
careful,
wet leaves ahead.

Ethereal is human justice,
most un-divine.

Ethereal is not a thing,
nor even an adjective.
But a way of seeing the world.

Part II

Went out into the night,
back to The Village,
Bleecker Street.
where I used to live (#308).

Heard voices. Human voices.
A Room Full of Teeth.
They sang a Partita.
"A simple piece.
Born of a love of surface and structure,
of the human voice,
of dancing and tired ligaments,
of music, and of our basic desire
to draw a line from one point to another."

It was ethereal.
As I wrote these words in my mind,
My ethereals did not battle but blend,
the ugly and the beauteous.
They coexisted in peace?
I think not.
They coexisted in humanity
All that is delicate,
is only because there is rough.
All that is soft,
is only because there is hard,
Listen to the lines drawn from points on earth.
You cannot choose which points to connect.
For all point to
Ethereal.

Ethereal is not a thing,
nor even an adjective.
But a way of hearing the world.