“This world was once a fluid haze of light,
Till toward the centre set the starry tides,
And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast
The planets:
”then the monster, then the man”

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Princess”

there is no privacy anymore
tinker with your settings,
imaginary dragons, but to no true avail,
your scathing privacy has since sailed,
only to return for another sinking

what you forgot,
is very well remembered
in a some very overlooked place

see me in my summer camp class photo,
blonde crew cut and goofiest of grins,
find my poems of eons ago,
in living tricolor,
to my now better understood
"eternal" embarrassment,
they writ on, vainly looking
for a way to enjoy a
natural unnatural aging,
a wordlessly, self-destructing death
on a someday,
though the probability is that
someone's gigabytes
will cloud store them forevermore
because accumulation is
cheap and easy and
whatever

everything you need but didn't want,
the tangled webs, births and deaths,
multiple divorces and successes,
ancestors, progenitors,
children who no longer acknowledge
parenthood,
the detritus of lives writ even larger than the
original reality life show

confrontation tween my suppression
of long term memories that  
are dangling participles,
going gone being been,
confusion resultant in
the tenses of existence,
I was therefore I still must be
but no longer
the me
I pretended to be

there is no privacy anymore,
especially,
not even from thine own
prying eyes and faulty memories...

when they ask what is my name,
to better trace my leavings,
I will
like Jehovah to Moses respond,

I Am that I Am
(אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה,  ehyeh ašer ehyeh)

the simplicity of grandeur (what I want of you)*

every conversation, must have a name,
a blessing and a bane,
every poem, twice as much,
twice the same, a division fine
tween the holy and the mundane

an end, a start and
a finishing line,
untitled, it is without grandeur,
difficult to understand,
every grande boulevard, every country road must be either ,
either be an Avenue des Champs-Élysées, ou Route Napoléon,
each with a unique simplicity, et histoire individuelle,
like the persons who traverse it with eyes thirsty to learn
all about those who preceded their voyage

want nothing but seek everything:

the comprehension and the mystery of the next verse,
where the potion of poetic notion came from,
beg that any scratching is genteel, distingué, sans sang,
how you you breathe and see the smell of wet cobblestones,
how you hear them talking and what tales they hint of,
but never reveal the ending-prematurely?

what I want is what you want.

self portraits realized, that each a particle of the mystery,
self portraits that ask, and answer, but forever insufficient,

what is the idea of you?

Quelle est l'idée de toi?

what is naturel, what is imaginary,
to be a visitor in your museum,
your ******, a voice that listens to the answers,
a mail recipient to  what ever you wish to enclose,
in the poems that make perfect
no sense, that are yet, fully comprehensible,
grand, in their simplicity*

<•>
6:21pm

come to sight this site
once a fortnight,
the volume, ***,
a straight line curve, - all
fingertips to the sky appointed,
my followed favored poets get
per force, my attention immediatement!

but
costly for/to the new writers
whom with so few (‘cept Le Gomez)
panning for gold, mostly fall posthaste
to add to deep sea coral reefs below
where lower & slower is an unnoticed
state of sleep, you be the carnival barker!
or a Moses
crossing a
black letteral sea, by the hello,
repost please, the new babies,
otherwise they suffocate from
the unintended lack of oxygenation

it’s a small and costly gesture tho
$$$ free, we well risk losing the new perspective, updating jargon (parole gergali!)

we risk absence by obsolescence, if using
old software, astride our high horses,
putting our heads  up our __
in a nosebleed trivial Jeopardy stratosphere

so shrewdly share, share a link or like,
for we all would be dustbin paper, better
suited for beach bonfire shredded kindling
    if someone
had not grasped our words for even more to
love

They write of rivers and streams

with effortless precision, crystalline clarity,
of hauntings by white frothy flows, and men
who plow and glide upon them, earning
their sustenance and sometimes their death,
verifying their lives with castings that sink
below them, proofs of their peril.

some months of the year, I too live by a bay,
on a isle surrounded by a long river that dissects a
larger long island, from end to end, that empties
into the Atlantic.

this bay, it is the first and last vision imprinted
when I bed, when I rise, picture windowed with
shades that are never lowered, for what would
be the existential purpose of living here, if you didn’t
check the water’s mood first and last, even before
looking skyward to complete an understanding
of the status of nature’s intentions toward you.

These other poets write better than I, artistically,
effortlessly, and one flows with ease within their
word-pictures, flowing upon their rivers, like a
twig carried out to sea, an unticketed passenger
stealing a ride who pays for the journey with life.

to read of their comprehension of water flowing,
is to read of how men breathe, how they wrangle
and wrestle with forces that diminish the human
scale to 5/8” model size, and no glue to keep them
upright.

I ask forgiveness from my bay, for my ineloquence,
my belabored scratchings, to do it justice, show
its honor and grandeur, but it doesn’t acknowledge
my words, for I am skill-lacking, verbiage-challenged,
and inadequate. This why I read the work of others,
poets who walk on, and within, their rivered boundaries
and who speak with skin and pore knowledge their waters.

July 4th 5:33 AM

This morning,
I walked with god and man, and animal

I've come to believe,
no other possibility,
He denies me sleep
as His insurance policy

some One wants to be sure,
someone sees His sunrise poem,
He selected this ancien regi-man
to be His admiring audience,
with deer, squirrels, rabbits, a red fox, an osprey
always complaining, why do they get
the cheap seats

so up at five,
no jive,
gotta get there early,
for a good seat,
on the dock by his name

watch the color blue transgender
from feminine elegy elegant pale
to peacock royal male,
the water,
a contributing editor,
phases in with a steely grin,
with ermine whitecap hints
and an orange marmalade sky homage,
I cannot try to describe

and here is where man comes in...

as the tableau reveals a still life
come to be,
a painting enlivened,
come to me free,
bursting with
effervescence and
animal life tribunes,
paying on...

strange...

my Pandora app
back to back,
plays for me
Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue,
hard upon it comes
Saint-Saëns's
The Carnival of the Animals

and I
enfeebled amateur,
needy for a
word titan Titian,
can think only
this trite thought:

I know not who is the
instrument and who
is the
artist,
but virtuous us,
We, all, now-capital-buddies,
now, all, well-color-capitalized,
god and man and animal,
crooning a chorus of appreciation

let this "accidental" miracle,
this collaboration,
enthuse me,
to live happily
with anticipation
for just one more day...

June 2014

the cause & the cure,
co-conspirators at war,
my body and mind their battlefield,
the barren bombs of depression lobbed
indiscriminately and carrying the leukemia cells
of a surrendering mind who can see no hope of peace

the neurons spread the word of defeat imminent,
the leukocytes gather for one last anti-hero stand,
the troubles, the ones seen and foreseen, should be
labeled explicit and dangerous, airborne transmitted,
so do not touch the letters of this lament from hell sent

too many mouths to feed, my shoulders sloped
from prior decades undoing; the nine lives,
the held back reserves, expended for no gain
the weary remnant deep marrow hide
but it's hopeless for the man
who was pushed aside
by technology and the destruction
of human touch,
even the body
removed by machine

the phone turns yellowy orange,
low power mode,
have fallen below
the 10% threshold,
we both drowsy,
yet competitively locked-into
separate screen servitude

she notices,
I don't,
she says,
"you need a charge"

god, she's so correct,
our mutualizing power is
fastly slow draining

this we both
know~notice,
and neither
says nada~nothing

we,
both poets in our way,
acutely aware
of the power of metaphor,
and she knows
that I know,
I noticed
what just went unspoken*

>an untitled poem<

weeding ‘n planting,
(ten rows of garlic, waiting to bite caressing hands)

<•>

unsurprisingly to me
garlic native to northeastern Iran,
so says the arbiter-know-it-all, Senor Wikipedia

did you know that,
amongst us,
a young woman whose back
is bent,
bent over,
weeding and weeping, while picking,
retrieving the fruit of the plain earths plane

spending days
retrieving spring-planted bulbs in the sun,
a mysterious poet residing among us
conjuring up poems and, ****, even
plants questions
with granted permission

asks a strangers gasping queries
so simple she renders his
body from soul, makes him
disclose his crazy ill-at-ease
showing
his own
general roots,
slumbering deep in reddish brown soul’s earth

one whose only great escape
through the written poem
when his back is straight,
straight against the wall
backed up,
and ripe for the picking

in reparation

the favor will be returned
three inquiries will be fedex’d
if I ever learn her address

for now, in the  throes of soil resting within,
my need knowings just nurturing
until the calendar declares time!
harvesting is now

when we ready shake hands
when you say

“here is the garlic tended,
and here are our hands,
bitten and caressed”

till such time I get
the answers from
the farmer herself,
I can patient wait

further research needs
original sources,
till such time,
make up tales
that will hold in abeyance
my half contented garlic dreams
for was it not written centuries ago:

Even After All this time The Sun never says to the Earth, "You owe me." Look What happens With a love like that, It lights the whole sky.
Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī

when you pass my way, know that my Wi-Fi network
requires no password to gain entry,
thus it comes with a security recommendation:

there is no security in poetry, only the unresolvable:

how came Excalibur into the rock,
will our children have better lives than us,
can we define accurately finite,
why can't we add new letters to our alphabet,
will my poems live longer than I

so when you pass my way
walk right in, sit right down,
greet madness,
thy new boon companion,

who will not ask you for the password...
8/27/17 11:43pm

wrestlemania

traveled cross country,
wrestling with extended
celebration and an
unexpected death;
the body maladjusts,
only to be disrupted
when time zones reset,
hard a-heels upon return,
packing up again for a
sacred pilgrimage
to a summer place
of sheltering, where poems
grow and dangle like participles
from local fruit farms, one
need only pluck and taste,
attach your moniker
and then feed them to the
joggers & walkers running past

send them all on their voyages,
hopefully protected from
travel disorientation and the
cycle of rebirth

with luck, bits and pieces of me
will accompany said word whispers,
them shreds and shards
requiring healing,
or just pruning,  
exiting old words,
fresh fruit berries,
roadside acquisitions  to b
carry me stained & strained
& happy new travels o‘er
this fruited plain

Writing Lessons for a Better Life
Nov 29, 2016 by Morgan Housel
Writing is one of those things you’ll need to be decent at no matter what business you’re in. It’s also one of the hardest things to get decent at, since it’s 90% art, 10% illogical grammar rules. Novelist William Maughan said there are three rules to good writing. “Unfortunately no one knows what they are.”

But here are a few I’ve found helpful.

1. Make your point and get out of people’s way

Readers have no tolerance for rambling. Lose their attention for two seconds and they’re gone, clicked away to another page.

The best writers tend to use the fewest words possible. That doesn’t mean their writing is short, but every sentence is critical, every word necessary. Elmore Leonard, the novelist, summed this up when he advised writers to “leave out the parts readers tend to skip.”

It took me a while to realize that a reader who doesn’t finish what you wrote isn’t disrespecting your work. It’s a sign that you, the author, disrespected their time. When writing, I like to think of a reader over my shoulder constantly saying:

What’s your point?

Just tell me that point.

Then leave me alone.

Part of the reason this is hard is due to how writing is taught in school. Most writing assignments, from elementary to grad school, come with a minimum length requirement. Write about your summer vacation in at least 10 pages. This is done to maintain a minimum level of effort, but it has a bad side effect: It teaches people to fill the page with fluff. We are masters of run-on sentences and unnecessary details because we’ve relied on them since second grade to meet our length quotas.

We’d all be better writers if the standards flipped, and teachers demanded length maximums. Write about all the major Civil War battles in no more than two pages. That’ll force you to make your point and get out of people’s way.

2. Connect one field to others

The key to persuasion is teaching people something new through the lens of something they already understand. This is critical in writing. Readers want to learn something new, and they learn best when they can relate a new subject to something they’re familiar with.

Finance is boring to most, but it’s a close cousin of psychology, sociology, history, and organizational behavior, which many people enjoy. Write about investing in a way that is indistinguishable from a finance textbook and you will capture few people’s attention. Write about it through the lens of a psychology case study or historical narrative, and you’ll broaden your reach. “Pop-psychology” and “pop-history” are derogatory terms. But most “pop” topics are actually just academic topics penned by better writers. Michael Lewis has sold more finance books than George Soros for a reason.

This goes beyond explaining things in ways people enjoy and understand. Connecting lessons from one field to another is also one of the best forms of thinking, because the real world isn’t segregated by academic departments. Most fields share at least some lessons and laws between them. Adaptation is as real in economics as it is biology. Room for error is as important in investing as it is engineering. Explaining one topic through the lens of another not only makes it easier for readers to grasp; it’s a helpful way of understanding things in general.

3. Sleep on everything before hitting the send button

I’m a fan of reading more books and fewer articles.

The reason books can be more insightful than articles isn’t because they’re longer. It’s because they took the author more time to think something through.

An article that takes you a few hours to think of, research, write and publish is subject to whatever mood you’re in during those few hours. Maybe it’s cynical, or pessimistic. Or analytical, or fatalistic. Whatever it is, it might not reflect the calmer, thought-out view of something that took you days, weeks, or months to think about.

I’m shocked at how much I want to change an article after I’ve slept on it for a night, and still want to change it days after it’s published. It makes me realize that if I stewed on the topic for a little longer I’d start thinking about it in different ways. I’d remember better examples, or a better way to phrase a sentence. I’d realize the original argument I made was flawed. Since one sharp example or clever phrase can transform a piece of writing, something you spend twice as long on might not be twice as good as before. It could be ten times better, or more. “The first draft of anything is ****,” said Ernest Hemingway.

A lot of what we write isn’t time-sensitive. You could sleep on it for a day or two or more. And most of the time, you’ll be glad you did.

Also, don’t read the comment section.

Writing Lessons for a Better Life
Nov 29, 2016 by Morgan Housel
Writing is one of those things you’ll need to be decent at no matter what business you’re in. It’s also one of the hardest things to get decent at, since it’s 90% art, 10% illogical grammar rules. Novelist William Maughan said there are three rules to good writing. “Unfortunately no one knows what they are.”

But here are a few I’ve found helpful.

1. Make your point and get out of people’s way

Readers have no tolerance for rambling. Lose their attention for two seconds and they’re gone, clicked away to another page.

The best writers tend to use the fewest words possible. That doesn’t mean their writing is short, but every sentence is critical, every word necessary. Elmore Leonard, the novelist, summed this up when he advised writers to “leave out the parts readers tend to skip.”

It took me a while to realize that a reader who doesn’t finish what you wrote isn’t disrespecting your work. It’s a sign that you, the author, disrespected their time. When writing, I like to think of a reader over my shoulder constantly saying:

What’s your point?

Just tell me that point.

Then leave me alone.

Part of the reason this is hard is due to how writing is taught in school. Most writing assignments, from elementary to grad school, come with a minimum length requirement. Write about your summer vacation in at least 10 pages. This is done to maintain a minimum level of effort, but it has a bad side effect: It teaches people to fill the page with fluff. We are masters of run-on sentences and unnecessary details because we’ve relied on them since second grade to meet our length quotas.

We’d all be better writers if the standards flipped, and teachers demanded length maximums. Write about all the major Civil War battles in no more than two pages. That’ll force you to make your point and get out of people’s way.

2. Connect one field to others

The key to persuasion is teaching people something new through the lens of something they already understand. This is critical in writing. Readers want to learn something new, and they learn best when they can relate a new subject to something they’re familiar with.

Finance is boring to most, but it’s a close cousin of psychology, sociology, history, and organizational behavior, which many people enjoy. Write about investing in a way that is indistinguishable from a finance textbook and you will capture few people’s attention. Write about it through the lens of a psychology case study or historical narrative, and you’ll broaden your reach. “Pop-psychology” and “pop-history” are derogatory terms. But most “pop” topics are actually just academic topics penned by better writers. Michael Lewis has sold more finance books than George Soros for a reason.

This goes beyond explaining things in ways people enjoy and understand. Connecting lessons from one field to another is also one of the best forms of thinking, because the real world isn’t segregated by academic departments. Most fields share at least some lessons and laws between them. Adaptation is as real in economics as it is biology. Room for error is as important in investing as it is engineering. Explaining one topic through the lens of another not only makes it easier for readers to grasp; it’s a helpful way of understanding things in general.

3. Sleep on everything before hitting the send button

I’m a fan of reading more books and fewer articles.

The reason books can be more insightful than articles isn’t because they’re longer. It’s because they took the author more time to think something through.

An article that takes you a few hours to think of, research, write and publish is subject to whatever mood you’re in during those few hours. Maybe it’s cynical, or pessimistic. Or analytical, or fatalistic. Whatever it is, it might not reflect the calmer, thought-out view of something that took you days, weeks, or months to think about.

I’m shocked at how much I want to change an article after I’ve slept on it for a night, and still want to change it days after it’s published. It makes me realize that if I stewed on the topic for a little longer I’d start thinking about it in different ways. I’d remember better examples, or a better way to phrase a sentence. I’d realize the original argument I made was flawed. Since one sharp example or clever phrase can transform a piece of writing, something you spend twice as long on might not be twice as good as before. It could be ten times better, or more. “The first draft of anything is ****,” said Ernest Hemingway.

A lot of what we write isn’t time-sensitive. You could sleep on it for a day or two or more. And most of the time, you’ll be glad you did.

Also, don’t read the comment section*.

even temporarily, this day, your emeralding grass handkerchief,
equates our dispositions, so differently identical,
your name, our initials, in opposing corners, embroidered,
your grass tapestry upon this troubled earth, a scented, joint, poetic
remembrance, that though it’s but words that bind us, we! we know!
the songs we sing of ourselves, we sing in synchrony harmony.

pleasant is this adverbial, complimentary-angled accusation,
but a ball masque covering
the huge desert ****** stretches where
water and words are one hundred
days and miles apart, with
no filling station on the navigation app

the relentless sounding silences
reverberate angrily between the cochleae,
spiral staircases to no impulse power space,
the impulse to create needy for a clean sparking,
**** if life doesn’t get in the way,
the responsibility tonnage, the never altered
‘to do’ list that knows only additions and sedition

have come to believe that poetry energy,
cannot be created and destroyed,
so pray the unwritten poem souls
are conserved further, awaiting a rainbow
Noah signal, that the *** of poems
are poet-that a-way, in attendance for me,
in attendance for a parental permission slip
from me, my father, my sons, and the ghost
that has never left but promises,
one day he will, absconding with all the drafts concealed

4/3/19