oft on bus seated next,
every one of your senses
adjusting, modulating,
to her unpredictable
solar flaring

you don't ever risk
that first missing
           misstep,
your entirety is
sun bursted
        (un)/consumed
in unhappy joy of her
consuming presence

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

you laugh
years later
re the topic of
your first shaky
foot in the mouth
a classic misstep
first bow shot,
opening one liner

and each storied retelling  
is nature!s
snow and rain
refilling
the love of your
groundwater table
welling up

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

you love her scent
the silly hats she wears,
her short skirts arouse,
that last open button
a misstep invitation,
angry it incenses,
her every solitary everything is
incense,
pervading a daily
co-riding
passenger's
oxygen? starved soul

~~~~~~~~~

her umbrella is a wet
selfie stick
accidentally opening and dousing
an un random next door
seatmate

just another unlucky misstep for
someone sitting next store,
oil on the fire of
happily ever after

two selfies are last seen as
one
un selfishly
toweling each other off and
on
with wet kisses

~~~~~~~~~~~

you eavesdrop on her
earbud music,
weep internally you do with
crazed jealously

The Temptations
are so unfairly
singing to her
"Ain't to Proud to Beg"
and neither are you

you heart is misstepping
to every beat,
your fingers
thrumming,
you idiot, not quietly enough
humming
in the next seat

the first,
will not be
the last

smile exchanged

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

poem writing on the tablet,
amidst the groaning awful
no moving
city traffic

overheated bus
combustible with
winter snow dampness,
wet dog sweat smelling people clothes

all you want to do is get home
shower off
the daily dirt

the poetry writing pastime
is the place
where you put yourself
to better to pass over
your sour surroundings

her finger rattlesnakes,
misstepping over,
noisily invading,
the invisible boundary
constructed to hold up the
eye-averting
Keep Out sign
to momentary,
too neighborly
strangers

her red painted
pointer finger
smudge prints on your tablet,
accompanied with
bespoke words
"try this"

that smudge suggestion
won't come off

insisting on crediting
a shared authorship,
you ask for her
email and cell,
so you can share
her
forever

co jointed tangled
bus and bed sheet first efforts
on writing, all about
what you play~argue
what should your entitled poem
be titled

you think

endless short love story bus poems

but she prefers,
with red fingers persuading

the first misstep is the best

both see the merit
in each other

Behind a person's success is a sacrifice;
Would you love to know the tale behind?

Actors and actresses preparing their act,
But behind the curtains there's a hidden fact.
Heels and shoes are filled with shards of glass;
Behind dress and tuxedo's there's a hidden blast
— Withal on the lights, they genuinely smile.

Let's move on and see the richest person alive:
They lurk abaft the gallanting suits and tie;
No day their feet cannot step on bars of silvers and gold,
Constantly crediting the humanity's sliver of hope
— Supported by government for the economy's growth.

Do you know someone born to be Einstein's child?
—A person whose thought process is unbelievably wide,
“What are emotions?” They frequently asked;
“Are those things related to a logical fact?”
Feelings are hindrance towards a brighter side.

We all know the people whom we proclaimed as leaders—
Behind the tall, wide walls they silently titters:
“Citizens are corrupted with money and blind rights;
This nation will never survive in a war nor in childish fights.”
Some politicians bought their roles, drinking leisure on their seats.

And there's someone like me— a bit higher, on the top—
Words are magical, making an astonishing plot;
Thy pen bleeds thread, weaving a wondrous craft—
Who knows they withhold theirs and other people's life art,
They'll keep going as long as the threadmill continues to spin.

Their tales are narrated a bit later, a bit little;
But that was a telltale with lots of missing details,
Are you willing to share the secrets found in the middle?

It’s time again for one of those free form sessions
Where the mind is too tired to speak
So the heart dreams
Sentences don’t form by their usual means
No vetting or checking or editing
Crediting wordplay to intricate trickery of weariness
Of someone other than yourself speaking
Eking out a living on the cobblestones
The cornerstones of this modern discourse
Big rocks for the first course
Rubble for seconds
Sand for dessert
Marking Time up to its old tricks again
Slipping away
Tripping for days
Flipping in ways inconceivable to creatures grounded in 4 dimensions
Spatial henchmen
Brutes in solid matter
Doesn’t matter really
Except when we neglect the rest
Who’d have guessed we were in fact immortal?
Store bought and all
Eternity in a bottle
A buck fifty per litre
You don’t need much
Just a touch should last you til the end of time
When rhymes finally start to fall apart
Under the limitations of the language
And some time back you started to substitute sandwich
Blangstitch
Gingrich and sanskrit
And mords wade up and stolen
Like a generation once removed
Then finally put right with
After the damage was well and truly cemented
Around their feet and chucked overboard
Struck a chord?
Just take a look around you
It still happens every time you say Abo
Or wonder if this place would be better if there weren’t so many Indians
Or if Asians spoke English
Or Engrish was the new international language
Minds that can’t see past the colour on the tip of their nose
Perpetually in the picture
Painting white over everything
So we can rejoice in the sameness
Like how we rejoice in eating boiled potato for every meal
No salt and pepper
No texture
Just lectures on that time we tried out what management schools called diversity
And how it failed horribly
Because we are all so different
That we have nothing in common
Like species or anything
Or the way music makes us feel
And dance
And sing
Even if it’s just in our own heads
Or the way sad things make us cry
And feeling loved is important
It’s that moment when you realise the guy pointing the gun at you is you
Only in a different coloured uniform
That has a family at home hoping he comes back
That he has a picture of in his wallet
And a dog that thinks he can do no wrong waiting to pin him down and clean the grime out of his nostrils
You can pull the trigger on him
Let slip that slug of lead into your brain
It’s only a dog eat dog world because somebody has some money on it
You’ve been thrown in the ring
And told it’s to the end
So you fight
But it’s not and you don’t have to
Isn’t that good news
That you’ll never see on the news
“Life is not a battle, it’s a collage!
More at 11”
But you’re asleep by then
Assuming you were ever awake at all

Oh, but they are
          &
     They do
And your head won't let you forget it
And the drink won't allow kindness to spill
off a stranger's lips
Just ***** soaked words of disgust
Because no one is really as human as anyone else
and
Crediting the curves of their face
or the steps they
intentionally
      or
accidentally
take
is too hard a practice for a group of minds soaking in top shelf gin

I don't know if I'm imagining things,
but it feels like things are happening.
I'm smiling like I always do.
But, I'm happier these days, it's true.

I've got my reasons;
I'm not crediting the season.
But, the Sun can help, I know it's true.
It seems as though, it's bleeding through.

I've got my reasons
and don't blame them on the season.
I know it's true- It seems it's true.
The sun is slowly burning through.

fourth of nine
I was nineteen years young
when he asked me to stay
he went “back home” and got a young wife
knew he would pass before her
asked me again when I was twenty three
crediting my older brothers
as having lives of their own
I guess he thought I wasn’t entitled
to mine

at first resentful
feeling trapped unfairly
especially since I was never a favored child
but ended up not minding obligation’s onus
appreciating her more in her elderly fragility
realizing a caretaker’s privilege
even underneath the family’s
unappreciative eyes

when he had his “fatal” heart attack
I’m glad I was there
to administer CPR
but I carry the question always
did I really help him?
or did I prolong his suffering
for two and a half months?

after awakening
from semi comatose’s state
his memory was in and out
some were upset
by his lack of recognition
but he never forgot me
and in that I take solace

he reiterated his wish
on his deathbed
like an anointing
its oil poured upon my forehead
and radiating inside me
he thought I was good enough
and equal to the task

 
I’ll never forget his final words
a barely audible muttered plea
that I figured out later
he raised his eyebrows and nodded
with a seemingly joyful expression
as if we had an agreement
he closed his eyes
and went to sleep

You watched every letter that was pieced together into words
You read every word that was placed into sentences
You remembered every sentence that was placed into a poem
But you never watched what you read about remembering to credit the poem of another; crediting & impersonating someone you wish to be
Instead you credit the arts of a corrupted writer,
& a false poet

crediting you as my savior
like you did me a favor
turning into spite
causing so much smite
dying within the walls
where we once had our calls

would it be a waste
if i still chased
when there's always a dullness
hidden in the truthfulness
when your feelings have faded
and i'm completely jaded

tired of this sophistry

Whether arsonist at fault
or confluence of ripe conditions
triggering perfect firestorm,
the titan of fire beside himself with misery,
though no fault of his own
the raging bullish conflagration
a taste of inescapable hell
synonymous with the outer limits
of the twilight zone,
where mercurial Venusians
ply their devil may care attitude
with pitchforks stabbing the sheltering sky
mortifying for those residents
(even firm believers
in a loving divine presence),
especially those individuals
now living asocial in the ruins
amidst (in oh my gosh) once posh
Los Angeles neighborhoods!

Though a skeptic at heart,
I cannot help but wonder
“What Hath God Wrought
which text first, original phrase
that Samuel Morse typed
in his newly invented
single-wire telegraph in the 1930.

Faith no more
does severely test
(and strain the limits of credulity)
regarding doubting Thomas paradigm
positing the question
(for those who do believe)
why whims oven omniscient deity,
would unleash unrelenting punishment
poorly justifying the pithy remark
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
purportedly flourish aplenty
within the human league,
particularly where ultra rich banded together
and (possibly because of
obeisance to their wealth)
therefore fixation to acquire
trappings of splendour
must be forced to atone
for their collective miscreants
and become like the indigent
no matter that wealth justifiably earned
saith those now rendered destitute,
and reduced to panhandle.

Fat or slim chance,
but just maybe more attention will be paid
to those accursed with a lifetime
of misery and hardship,
thru no fault of their own.

Impossible mission to create Utopia
if only because each person endowed
with inherent abilities and/or being gifted
housing latent advantageous qualities
of body, mind, or spirit,
(whether identified at an early age,
or discovered visa vis later in life)
allowing, enabling, and providing them
better yet, perhaps hypothetical person
born that way as a polymath
(or a poker face, yet get smart to play dumb),
but nevertheless exploit innate
mental, physical or spiritual endowments
with honest to goodness
sweat of brow modus operandi
to experience successfully
(what envious others may chide
as them living the life of Riley)
comfortably numb judged
as free and clear lifestyle against deprivations
with difficulty, yet without deliberateness
flaunting obvious plentitude,
perhaps erring by hosting gala events
paying deference towards billionaires
all the while downplaying
amassing trophies of capitalism
but never missing a beat
to accentuate compulsion
toward keeping up with the Joneses
for all the webbed wide world to see
oozing pretentiousness grafted
upon struggling origin
as humble and poor member
of bourgeoisie economic strata.

Impossible mission for full fledged capitulation
of monied class subsequently as faux proletariat,
would be laughable drama
considering those capital assets
went up in smoke
(understandable and definitely hard hit
would be victims
without homeowners insurance),
and lacking that secret stash of money
hidden under a mattress
or deep underground
beneath generations old palm tree
but the luckier ones could access
offshore accounts no doubt
bulging with available super duper funds.

Upon glancing at the headlines
I espied an unusual communiqué
crediting Poseidon with helping ease
the lack of adequate water
substantiated by Department of Water and Power
acknowledged that Pacific
Palisades reservoir offline
closed for structural repairs,
plus confirmation that by 3 a.m.
Wednesday January 9th, 2025 (of course)
all three tanks, (which hold
one million gallons each) went dry.

Out of the blue
and into the black of darkened skies
courtesy explosion from incendiary material
an immense humongous cloud
saturated a bajillion percent with moisture
(spanning across the entire horizon
from all points of the compass
north, south, east, and west)
Poseidon came forth to the rescue
not quite in the nick of time,
nevertheless a heavy downpour,
(a record amount of rain deluged the area)
larger than the size of Rhode Island
immediately pooling into waist
then tens of feet of high water
within minutes, where
analogous to a Biblical flood,
thus you can bet your bottom dollar
aforementioned statement
originated from a reliable source.

Matthew Scott Harris
could not contacted for further questioning
hence sometimes we need
to believe in a higher power!

find the operator errors people

this is not your democracy
this goes beyond seconds lost
the escape hatch of these programmers
chemists pedaling fentanyl?
hidding bad stocking of understanding actual dollar bills
the crediting of bubble to imaginary electronic transactions
in realtime while surveying news media for hiding spots
inside of privatized linguist industries catering to politicians
and government employees and/or news outlets

this is not governing a person that a governor
this is belittling progress by suppressing investigative minds

pre slander and pre libel,  llc's things of this dictionary tactic

joyful bailbond thoughts of creed shoulda coulda woulda's live here

Your shiny brass gears attract my full attention
as they whir their Sirenic melody,
calling me to an ethereal place
where I am loosed from this daily drudgery.

I do so admire your meticulous maker,
that genius engineer of extraordinary vision,
whose bank account grows quickly, logarithmically,
click by click, click, click.

As the years pass,  I see how your love for me grows,
your sharp mind and fleshless arm carefully,
completing that common work,
in which I once took mistaken pride.

Thank you for treating me with such abundant care,
crediting my account with not just my keep,
but enough to always be sedately entertained,
giving me the choice to do absolutely nothing.