for bullet – cookie, who enjoy a good bullet
~~~|

MLK (1) thought that the American dream required
“a tough mind and a tender heart.”
<>
Can't improve on that
Much.
Willing to give it a try, tho,
<>
One without the other
Will corrupt (has?) us,
fatally,
as in fatality,
Killing the
American Dream

This is how we "live"
from momentary to momentary,
from under coverlet to coverup
putting ✅'s  next to a litany
of little tasks, diurnal scheduled
and their completion is proof
you really made to that minute
of each day, a survivor,  for only
you can schedule, only you can
check it off, only you can rationalize
and hide the private shame of the
conscious deletion of the unfulfilled
                                                               untruths
                    
from illusion to illusion,
like wearing the right clothes
for the occasion, and/or going naked,
hoping no one calls you emperor,
you are chilled - put on an illusion
to keep you warmer and only you
know you're dressed for winter,
scarf gloves heavy overcoat for
SPF 100 protection from the glaring
of July's humidity's sunny suffocation's
                                                                      ill disposition

this is how we navigate our
basic training until habits engraved
on your skin are the wardrobe we hide
within, some even change our name,
our defining characteristics so others
can admire the unreal you
create, all dressed up in couture
illusory, smiling graciously to
imaginary fawning admirers and
you shed real tears for real emotions
conjured by dreaming lightly the fantastical
                                                                ­            delusionary

you cover yourself in metaphors,
eating adjectives like sugar and
nouns like satisfying carbohydrates
so you feel full for a minute and then
run to the mirror for more pretending
pre-tense verbal alcoholic snacks
                                                         getting fat on self~deception

your watering eyes make writing
so difficult even though the tearing.
words easy come and easy go out
                                                           but here, you persevere

you pretend you can change your name,
adopt and adapt to a new persona, thinking
how pretty I look in this new dress,
how thin (!) we appear in a fresh slim 8
thin fit suit, tie perfectly tie knotted, etc.,
                                                           ­        at our personal funhouse mirror

but she (who?) encapsulated it perfectly
in the Sixties, "it's life illusions I recall,
I really don't know life at all"
when/if I make it to  a century mark,
that lyrical rhyme,  I'll still be humming,
and making ✅'s on a calendar that
doesn't matter,, reassuring that ancient
nonsensical notion of I exist, therefore, I am...

12:55am,
refreshed after a nap and ready
to embrace the white light of an
empty shell of a clean unwritten sheet
of many individual minutes of the night
till it dawns once more, and the illusions
need checking off again; oh yeah, hi!
Please,
                                         DO NOT FORGET

                                               ✅ *write a poem

Friday night immodesty

theater on East 4th street @ 8:00pm,
so the girlie stuff commences on schedule
90 minuets a-priori and the medley music
(adele+amy+alicia+ pink bach for some zing)
a harbinger, a pioneer Greek heralding of
Friday night immodesty

the clothes laid out upon the bed, the shoes,
pumps selected and already on,
(always a puzzler to me,)
the subdued lower east side jewelry possibilities,
on the dresser drawer,
indifferently hoping for selection, but
casually beaming quietly,
like those kids waiting for interviews in the waiting room
of the college Admissions Dean’s office,
all with serious smiles
and tiny tearing eyes

aside:
helloooooo, I am in a poetry polo with my best jeans ready to go
2 hours before the curtain calls out,
hellooooooo

she sits at the makeup mirrored desk,
clad in only her underneath garments of varying utility,
when I sweep in imperially
and with one hand twist gentle her hair upwards,
betraying
her neck nape which is again
the sujet of a poem aborning

lips,
like a Greek lyre strings, pluck, the tiny hid hairs never seen,
her instant moans at the never fully expected motion poem,
beg more mercy but no quarter given despite repeated cries
of you’ll mess my makeup,
the best defense known to a lady!

god gave men two thumbs to lift up,
simultaneously stimulating,
slide down each of the thin black brasserie strap invitations,
upon each, a writ,
upon her flesh colored shoulders,
stating
“what was she thinking!”

my lips,
now polar explorers, those power (filled) poles side by side,
(east/west for the designer was a smart
bipolar guy-person);
the lips play silent night progressive jazz,
tinkling with higher noted keys,
nape to shoulders moving down to the back’s prefrontal lobe,
the small of her back, the body’s quivering,
a con-federate flag of surrender

her last defense swept aside, we drink honey and milk,
celebrate the week’s mellifluous finish with immodest touching,
the lower east side will belong tonite
to only the hipsters, the millennials,
as our hips are milling and  otherwise
pre-theater and post, occupado

some hours later, watching TV and eating delivered Chinese,
she laterally and literally arm punches my arm
intensely to mark her discontent,
still annoyed,
for I

1) messed up her makeup,
2) best blouse to the dry cleaner and
3) the tickets wasted, and worse,
hits me again!

after I laugh and giggle upon proffering
most modestly, most assuredly,
seconds of
onlylovepoetry

9.21am Saturday

“In some office sits a poet,
and he trembles as he sings,
and he asks some guy,
to circulate his soul around”
Joni Mitchell

<>

joni:
your both sides
then and  now,
was my guiding glasses
for a life of motley loving
and love, gained, pained,
lost and found
as a younger man,
and now, as old soul
with rear view perspective,
the glasses tinted transition grey,
(matching his pallor, his hair.
his transient perspective,
trembling fingers as he writes,
with humility,
0
pleeze circulate these
decoded words
mate them out of clay
hoping  come new daylight
one or two, even a few
will lend a rosy thistle, blow softly
an encouraging breeze
upon this poem
the freedom to burn into
glowing embers
in our circulating worlds
of pass/fail
it’s my mere soul
you pass judgement
with a hint of tasteful scents
on
and beyond
with an
honorable push
your mentioned
breath,
guiding them
to the currents
where poems go to
blossom