Alone within my emotional wilderness

A reverie along memory lane when, this lviii sea sunned
row man (stills paddles in oarlocks and serenely quizzically,
lackadaisically, and harmoniously drifts) along the slip
stream of time. Awash on his figurative manual navigated
opportunistic prideful quintessential schooner reflects,
regales, and revisits ebbing lapsed instances (fast receding
into the past time, when psychological instability grounded
fragile my self esteem (generated venting, steaming, and
piping hot brickbats). As a newly minted harrumphing,
grubbing, and floundering dada enmeshment (analogous
to a fish caught in a net, hence quickly ricocheting, rabidly
splashing, and sloppily thrashing) predicated my foray
into das fatherhood. Aye experienced nearest approximation
Bing battered, rammed, and torpedoed from glomming
(par for the course riot ting heaps) necessarily imposed
adult responsibility. Such metaphorical motoring across
avast Battle Creek with no landfall in sight, this then nada
so Grand Turk (key in the straw) Otto man continually
snapped, cracked and popped. This human ping-pong
fitbit part player papa felt akin to subjection re: thralldom).
At this juncture in me cross currents of existence I can
harken back to those most exhausting, fatiguing, and
grueling endeavors. Hindsight offers this aging baby
boomer the luxury to cast astern. Retrospective leisurely
trawls along the shoals throes of fatherhood allow,
enable and provide and opportunity to scrutinize per
chance, where arises this on account of the empty nest
syndrome. Ordinarily the wife (i.e. missus to appear
more formal), would caw out my name nonstop….
”Matt”…”Matt”…”Matt”…, but she opted to organize
the cluster of assorted household items at the apart
ment (located in Crum Lynne – Ridley Township),
we hope to move within a fortnight. Thy spouse
volunteered her own mini reprieve by setting order
to the miscellaneous fixings gradually amassed,
appropriated, and gifted thru out the twenty plus
years of marriage, which hodgepodge of personal
possessions downsized whence circumstance dictates
evaluating goods having keepsake meaning versus
anomaly of belongings to be unloaded, repurposed
for someone else, or ordained as unworthy to schlep.
Alone asper like a very brief sabbatical from marriage
finds stillness amidst the white noise of the whirring
fan. Thus, I sit here ruminating how to dredge up
some idea for a poem,  (non) fiction or essay. This
husband became acclimated, conditioned, and em
bossed with a mate a tete for two plus decades,
whereby both thee dos delightful daughters on
Track 742 heading west. Honest to dog, I miss
the role of fatherhood when either off spring
(with an age difference of approximately twenty
five plus months) romped, scampered, and trotted
as toddlers, and upon childhood, thy little girls
found exultant excitement dashing higgledy-
piggledy, hither and yon, to and fro across the
playground as most glorious human indulgence.
Despite the plaintive wail vis a vis Juliet saying
goodnight to Romeo (…parting is such sweet
sorrow) haint pleasurable atoll. Hitherto un
known that during the most vexing, trying,
and quaking bouts when both kin of thy ****
fought like angry cats would there transpire
the occasion of sincere tearfulness ululating
vain warbling. Now a pang of nostalgia arises
when I drive past their happy go lucky stomp
ping turf, or reflect on answering the trumpet
call to chauffer one or thee other to amusement
park, play date, mall, favorite toy store such as
Fivebelow, birthday party, et cetera. Even
certain tunes recalled to mind and/or heard
being broadcast across the audio logical spec
trum a cause for moistened tear ducts. Wince
with sadness also mixed with sigh lent bundled
expostulations of joy. Both progeny metamorphosed
into able bodied, minded and spirited lasses,
whose attainment far exceeded any projections
internally forecast. Initial onset of parent role
found me all thumbs. Prior to begetting two
darling dames, this chap spent disproportionate
number of hours sequestered within some hide
away, which frequently happened to be the
designated bedroom at 324 Level Road, College
Ville, Pennsylvania, 19010. Never did thee major
rit tee days of mine life point to babysitting or
working with that chronological demographics
comprising the adoring blessed innocence,
murmuring newborn obliviousness, that bespoke
penultimate unsullied, utmost virtue necessitating
interaction with tender infants beckoning being
cradled, endearingly fondled, demonstrably easing
fondness gripping heartstrings issue jetblue kinks.
Aye felt pitched headlong into this foreign territory,
and initially experienced utmost awkwardness when
attending, pampering and pulling (albeit gently)
upsy daisy, the nascent hint of autonomy. Remembrance
and recollection of élan, joie de vivire, and yea those
ear splitting threshold of pain screaming tantrums
all boxed into tidy wholesome Zen announcing
nuggets of greater meaningfulness and absolute
value. The above long winded reverie intended and
meant tubby a semi biography, but leave hit up to
his hie n hiss, he went way overboard, and will give
a one line summarization to describe his i.e. yours truly
life sentence fate decreed. He (this Anglophile chipper
chap lived under duress of extreme anxiety, obsessive/
compulsive behavior, panic attacks and essentially
schizoid personality disorder for the greater part
of his life and hard times, which raw bits would
warrant fleshing out to extrapolate how these psychic
pitfalls represented critical factors at various and
sundry turning points in his life.

You walk to the woods from the mountains too fast;
trip over your feet when blades of grass nip at your heels
and take up life amongst the low.
Flotsam swirls in your wake;
silt rises to meet you.
The sun sets in deference to your arrival.

You walk among a sea of azaleas and fire:
******-thorned crown:
smoke laying low over the ground protecting your footfalls,
come to convince me of my damnation,
spill mulch in my bed,
and track lake water through my rooms.

You walk with broken glass in your heels
and blood on your cheeks,
spilt milk smile and sickly sweet lips,
cradling a dead bird and a lead heart in your hands
with a gallows leash hanging off your neck, onto the ground.

You walk into the house of my elders,
the sacred burial ground,
the meeting place,
the palace,
and the bar.
You order a scotch on the rocks, a lapis circlet, a book full of secrets, dead man’s blood, and my heart.

You walk backwards
around the cherry blossom orchard and its overwrought signatures,
harrumphing at arrogant petals and snickering birds:
politic in reverse and rough lines in slow motion.
There is something you forgot: it wears white linen and
sits on a rose throne.
You loved it, once.

You walk to the mountains from the woods,
barefoot and starving,
caked in mud and licking the shine off your teeth.
Your knees are bleeding.
Your heart is bleeding

early morning,
with
cup of kenyan blend.
i step outside,
to meet my day.

all soft,
misty drizzle.
cocooning the view,
to the koi pond
and slick driveway.

stepping stones,
are
soft wet coins
on greenback lawn.
dewed and glistening new.

the last
of the snapdragons,
weep in bright tears
of beauty.
the portulaci
have closed their
faces to the world,
to await the
returning sun.

in the pond,
the koi swim,
and glide
like solar flashes
caught while bathing.
bright moving wonder
on the colourless day

and as i watch
the surface becomes
hypnotic as water drops
create ring,bisecting
ring, bisecting ring.
concentricity,
most exquisite.

the smell of jasmine
eucalypt and coffee
mix and mingle with
exhaust and salted iodine.

sound is muted.
birds, whisper this morning.
even the kookaburras call,
in stuttering short chuckles.
the sea, so close, is but a murmur, a chinese whisper
on the frail wind.


the small grey cat,
comes to sit with me
nose, aquiver,
ears swiveling
to and fro.

a pause before,
harrumphing
and stalking
back into the
dry, cosy, warmth.

i soon follow....
leaving the day,
to it's softness.

~for my naturalist, Victoria~

the poems all end up in midfield,
yellow carded, the game a *******,
0 - 0 unsatisfying affair, all the shots
way wide of goal as I search
for the perfect phrase to capture my

twiddling and twaddling,
fussing and haranguing,
harrumphing and bemoaning,
my very own Brexit,
postponed, the hard answers terrifying,
the soft ones, humbug and *******

incapable of lifting a mighty pen,
or a fully worn down pencil scrap,
seen better days, but now,
all leaden ashes, all fall down,
my natural pointer taps only gibberish

in my plain manila actuality folder,
the cut off dates, ignored, so they
cut me off too for good measure,
plenty good bills to due in there,
plenty good ‘orrible poems for company

the pile of to do’s forming a party,
social, democratic, and
anti-septic or skeptic or semitic,
perhaps all three, as they are two jowls
or two cheeks, too many to the windy

all this shilly shallying, or is it
dilly dallying,
is quite simply to say that
my rooted U.K. naturalist
a Sherlockian moors, traversing specialist
cuts to the shortest quick,
by jove, there it is, succinctly red beeping,
in my garden, awaiting a good boiling

I too exhausted from all the
“scrabbling with the day to day”
she so easily summarizes,
though my poetic ego demands an
Ameddican textual emendation

“hard scrabbling with the day to day”

or

just an all encompassing globalism

“ditto”

ah, Victoria

Life stretches skywards
plucked by an unnamed child
and chewed for an hour or so
then dropped in a catatonic drool
I'm a worse person in my dreams,
which one am I really
contemplative harrumphing
cosmic fractals pose dramatically
but the paparazzi is focused elsewhere
when my hands cup dropping water
it's the same face half-veiled by fire
and the trance created by its traipsing limbs
leave the men in circuitous conversation

My 60 lb lap dog,
Wet nose pushed under my calf in the just-morning.

Ruiner of couch cushions
and muddy backyards,
Seeker of the softest blankets,
Speaker of many grumbling, awooing, harrumphing languages,
Your gigantic brown eyes home to the secrets of the universe.
My sassy girl, head tucked beneath my chin,
Here you sit, leaned casually
Against my side, your arm
Lap-barring me into place:

“Stay.”

Fragments of art
float just outside
the reach
of my furious
snapping claws

Picture art
dressed in letters
harrumphing
at my noisy
axial scrabbling