for V,
who commissioned me,
Nay,
Dared Me,
sometime ago
to write a ***** poem

You know V?

The one poet who wrote:

         The anxious tide within my head
           was put there by the moon,
           the ocean too, its waves of blue,
           respond to what she says

Or
          The moon is alive and effeminate,
            pulls on us, pushes on us,
            at least on us who call her mother,
            and though she shines her sweet shine
            her soul is as cold and indifferent as
            the belly of a black hole,
            and we will war with her influence
            all the days of our life.


well compared to that,
writing something shat
should be
Easy


well I'm sorta sure
something can be
found easy enough
to fill the bill,
such a command
inherent demands
careful consideration,
a ***** poem,
not easy to come by,
every fiber resistant,
but you judge,
as you always do

Option #1

What makes a good poem?

what makes me so
succumbed to my own surety,
my bold audacity to dare judge
is simple rooted:

slapped and gasped,
verbal issuance of ooh's and aah's
from eyes, my utter everything,
teared and torn, cleansed and aroused,
into a poetry world,
this my one my house of worship,
my real religion

when I read good works,
like those of the moon's misbegotten,
Mr. V,

then I am grounded,
kneed in the groin of the head,
and I thank god really,
for gifting me the body
prepared and ready
to say I love those
who love words
with ready ease
and let this be my
simplest, cleanest, beloved
tribute poem ever I writ,
my claim to a
PhD in poetry criticism


Option #2

I am mad
cause I am sad
my roller coaster ride brain
is all ****** up

don't  know why I am sad.
it might be better
by sharing how I am feeling

in between
texting my friends
and ***** yes!
gonna post those texts
as my next terrific poem
awesome,
call it
#asstag
and gonna give it
to my
English Teqcher

quite recently, I received an extraordinary complimentary message to one of my poems, from a comrade in arms, dare I call him friend, that cored, scored me.  I post it below.  Not from braggadocio, or vanity, venal poetry sins.  But, it could not stand orphaned,
unrequited and unreciprocated,
for that would be a sin of even greater magnitude,

ingratitude

<>

this poem begins unique,
am struggling with a problem previously
unknown, never before even
close encountered

how do I commence?

poet wonders repeatedly,
a tune on the not-so-natty brain,
set on the machine's "repeat"setting,
this problematical for de minimus - 25 hour day,
this scribbler, this constant nibbler
on the Graham crackers life bestows,
befuddled muddled
for

this is never an issue,
it's the windup, the shutdown,
knowing when enough is enough,
that is the sorest point of his
elongated, can't shut up skill set

it cannot stand, it cannot just hang,
it needs a rabbinical wise,
responsible responsum,
a simple
thank you
holy, holy, holy
insufficient

these words, an almost wet smackdown,
catch me exposed, crossing Sixth Avenue,
against oncoming traffic (naturally),
while on cell phone bad boy,
doing his three R's,#
reading, writing & errrrr, deleting,
(yeah, yeah, I know, I know)
amidst my multiplicity of incoming artillery shells of
automobiles and messages,
this one,
seizing me up, me like a screeching,
near dying engine, broke from being oil-less,
nearly dropping my two large
20 oz. McDonald's coffees which easy
could flood this four lane
thoroughfare

you want to write like this,
are you mad, man?

all I ever es-say is what I see,
throwing in a rhyme or two,
a pinch of a fancy word to impress the
hoi polloi, and plenty salty sweet
to provocate a sensory ah ha
confusion

sir, why write like me,
when you pen this?

"yet all of this could
just as easily be,
the sum of two,
grateful hearts in equal parts,
the beat of two in rhythm thrum,
march in time upon one drum"^

which pretty much says
what needs saying
all in one perfect stanza humming

but this note, is so far,
way deficient,
a mockery of what the situation requires and is deserving,
so multiple lovely muses redirect me
back to my email,
where I find this waiting,
in repose, this prose,
perfect

A compliment is a complement—
this I know, just as the clock
will always strike midnight
and history repeats. This is how
I can wake up the next morning
and love the world again.^^

blossoming notion, this is but a complement,
where the line dotted allows free passage
from reader to poet, from poet to poet,
permitting the peaking reciprocity of completion,
and this complement
I accept, unashamedly, profoundly
for this is my 1/1,
for to make a whole, we still require
numerator, denominator,
of equal value

on this basis,
and this basis alone,
I accept your words

when prowling scowling late at night,
or early sun rising, old bones enthroned
in my Adirondack dis-comforter,
will come a-sneaking, a-peaking,
nobody-around-real quiet like,
for another look-see at this kookery,
in my solitary poet's by-the-bay nookery,

the thought comes,
maybe it's time to lay that pen down,
the Israelites have crossed that Red Sea,
dry and on their way to a land of promises,
when sure enough my coffee mug
spills onto an ant hill hard by the beach,
and oops, soiling the soil,
the Lesser Antillean inhabitants making an unholy ruckus,
and oops, ther goes another rubber plant, high hopes, poem aborning,^^^

but sir, be advised,
your excess foolishness is warming,
but we cannot without each other,
march to one drum,
our steps surely mismatched,
it is the reciprocity of
complementary numerical worthies that unites the fractions of us
into a singletary winter pea,
a whole of us,
in order to
"let us love the world again"

August 20th, 2011

Pink and white hothouse lilies
parfume the atmosphere
of our summer retreat,
the shelter upon our island redoubt.

Their scent, a scentry,
posted to guard against
the oranges and reds,
the piano notes of fall,
the ivory whites of winter,
the iconic colors of the
seasons of responsibilities.

Lock the doors.

Preserves of
oranges, peach and lemon,
summer fruits,
preserve my calm!

Mingle well
with the other summer's fruited sweets,
cherries, black berries, caramel,
all, ally thyself with salt air
and do thy fragrant work!

Ferry away, banish,
the wardens of the
workweek jail, like only
summer garden colors
and sun-rays can.    

Still yourself,
be calmed, becalmed,
there is no breeze,
tis but mid-August
and the grill still awaits
your further command.

Long days and humid nights
bid you drink red rosés,
and summer lemoncellos,
chilled to accompany
the sweet summer corn
covered in salty butter.
drink the jus of the
summer sea's bounty,
saltwater berries, seasonal delights.

But you know better.

Stepping outside,
you are tree felled,
senses red alerted
by hints, whiffs
of the odor of change,
a piano refrain.

Acorns in August?

Can't be, won't allow it,
that slight chill, dispatch it,
won't let go yet of
sun tanned lotion notions,  
and legalized
summer laziness.  

Beneath my flip~flops,
acorn shells irritatingly crunch,
uninvited guests,
they are the peas I feel
under the mattress and bed,
contaminating my head,
while I lay  cloaked beneath,
my summer weight comforter.

Too late.

Back to school flyers
litter the driveway and infest
the Sunday papers.
I am defeated,
my senses tingle,
at the sight of these
changeover secretions.  

Sap of the maples is acoming,
the Paul Revere warning
of Redcoated leaves soon to
invade my bay's sandy shores.

Come my friends,
be courageous
and of good faith.

One more time, unto the breach!
One more time, unto the beach!

Tho our armor of golden tan
will of necessity rust red by cold bitters,
the summer of our poetry,
recorded, will forever live.

Even tho summer's demise
draws near, its death most glorious and not in vain,
when we lay spent and slain
after our approaching defeat,
apres the Battle of
Labor Day,
We still have our body,
Our poems, summer crafted,
The cello and the piano
Reminding those few left to listen.
<•>
mid august suicidal
August 12, 2017

to the facts:
suicidal thoughts come as regular as a
teenager pimple

weekends summer sun burns the skin,
the inner gloom,
so that I just make from the
Monday to Friday bookends
of grey cloud doom, barely opened eyes

the acorns peas under the bed's mattress,
my summer-brain pod irritants
are
freshly arrived, fully ensconced,
antibiotic resistant sob's,  
the colored newsprint of hateful
back to school flyers still haunt and clog
the sinking sunking sinking
waste disposal

the newest indignity,
the emails proclaiming
end-of-summer better hurry
drink up those three cases of pink rose wine
down in the chilling basement

not a bad idea in *** actuality

nothing kills like suicide and
nothing kills suicidal thoughts
like a three week drunk
starting now

the truth burden just got harder;
Adagio for Strings, Opus 11,
whispers stay the hand


~~~

Acts of Kindness

<>

let this be
my first rule,
and my last,
in ~ deed,
my only

begin, end,
and populate
my daily life
with the courtesy
of sharing my
abundance
with you

July 4th
2023
7:53AM

Adding minutes to a lifetime (saying magic words)

”And you, dear poet, friend of many years,
have given me so many inspirations, birthed within
us words,so oft, and so well, that your pithy observations,
manufacture time, add minutes to lifetimes”

<>

wrote these words without thinking,
they’re sweet and neat, trivial but incomplete

but upon rear mirror review, Mr Poet
re-thinks, perhaps deserved of another serving,
curvy white, soft-to-the-lips, a moist vanilla kiss,
excellent ice cream in a sugar cone, words irresistible

for the sweetest poem sparks multi-coloration-explosion
of sprinkles ‘pon  a skin’s surface,
uprisings of what lurks in the centrum of your
embodied universe and disembodied soul,
shockingly uprising from an internal fulcrum,
sea~tossed flotsam of a jagged life, now, all recovered
words sprinkling, beach treasures, and yet,
*adding minutes to a lifetime…

reliving old reels, is time recaptured, creating a
certain robust additive to thine cranking and
cranky engine, that’s logged much more than
a picayune hundred thousand miles on a voyage
of e i g h t decades, you employ ten fingers to
calculate your fugue of multi-voiced numerations!

can it be? it cannot be! millions upon millions of
minutes, possess and passed, yet highlight feature
films, enabling reliving so real that by watching,
seeing, believing, re-reading it is as if one is earning
life extensions…adding minutes to a lifetime…

‘tis true, rereading every small scrip, every poem,
returns one to prior-places, each a datum,
a particular spot, a point upon a schema of integrity & integration,
that rule the visions, a message of individualism
in the largest context of a true vision(arie)

“chacun un point dans une peinture pointilliste…”
“each a point within a pointillistic painting…”

in a few years, a stumbling upon shall here return me here,
and I will smile with great gratitude for the life extended,
accepting with gratitude,
these few seconds, a last lasting chance,**
to say some magic words
with a great vanilla whispering
adding minutes to you life as well


nml

“a decade old is forever new, for
truth is never old.”
Pradip Chattopadhyay 


this man, ten years of inspiration, ten years of friendship, here,
on HP,
provides nourishment to my lagging body as it nears eight decades
of Earthly occupation, for
his eyes and heart and his mastery
of the songs of the tongue,
have wrenched me straight,
we, attentive to the tears
he makes me weep, for his insights penetrate my insides,

even now as one, unexpectedly, reflects midst
yet another first poem of the day, my eyelids blink away
the wet,
my brain revels at his pithy, how he corrals,
encapsulates the daily smoke and fire of life,
it truest value,
in words that make one wonder,

what admixture of mineral, chemical, history,
adventures, atmosphere, parentage, spices,
love gives him these super powers to gentle
seize the moment, size our souls, causing my
cheeks to wide smile, while mine eyes sheds
monsoon droplets of feelings so deep, that
my repaired heart oxygenates my very soul,
making me high, my mind reels that a day will
come inevitable
that one of us will be unable to sit by side,
swapping tales of granddaughters, and
other earth meaningful events, to walk his
streets or he, mine, finishing each other’s
couplets.

to think that I awoke with no intention of
composing this paean, but his brief pearl
knocks my head side to side,
and with the
tears, come words,
that age, or an entire
decade,
cannot restrain,
retrained to modesty,
for regarding my friend
Pradip,

my boundaries expand and cannot be
contained, even by my delimited vocabulary,
the paucity of my skill, the insufficiency of
the adjectives acquired over a lifetime, but
do my unequal-to-the-task best efforts,
but without choice, but compulsed, compelled,
one more time, to say,
to my new day,
perhaps my last,
I love this poet~man.
this is one of my truths.
<>
Wed Jan 17 8:31am
City of New York

<>

read the poetry of
https://hellopoetry.com/pradip-chattopadhyay/
<>

Sep 15 10:45am
Silver Beach, Peconic  Bay, Shelter Island

it is the day of the twixt and tween,
64°, stolid breeze on a bright sunshiny day,
but no question, we are well ensconced in
**** season, overlooking the shadowy, dry, speckled
blotchy, thirsty grass, and an empty bay, sails put aside

it’s a normal/semi-normal moment,
simultaneously secular and heaven blessed,
the stimuli of the quietude is the outlier,
it’s quantitude is overwhelming, it’s amplitude,
a wave of farewell humbled hushed rumblings of wind and
the drip of dropping leaves that fails to puncture
the total absence of noises, human et. al.

shirt off, chest wet & warmed, a light jacket,
my wrapper from the firm chill,
an undeniable temperate moment,
for this is an interlude day,
a goodbye and hello
shucked/unshucked poem,
the only semi-frisky item on the menu

even the animal kingdom respectful,
recognizing the sorrowful solitude
of this single intruder, so no cawing, honking,
even rabbits quietly chewing, their senses understand
this is a  remorseful write on a beauteous 1/365,
an adieu + au revoir script to
this island

but then the sign!

between Silver Beach and Noyac,
three heads a-bobbing,
white throats and white underbellies upright,
too far away to be heard,
but I swear I hear the purposeful porpoises saying:

“Adieu! Adieu!
until we see you and yours
once more,
for many more,
till then,
we await our mutual sheltering together,
in our shared waters”

<>

our summer palace,
where the sum of each newborn morn,
begins a life extending day, offsetting the aging of cells,
and softee smiles of children are botox injections,
directed to the soul’s lining,
an antigen antidote
to the toll time’s antibodies extract,
time units recorded and kept hid in the
the surround sound
of a special silence,
the sounds of rays twinkling
upon the waves,
reminders to everyone
that we are merely
betwixt and between
a plentiful heaven today
and a
plentiful heaven tomorrow

~ ~ ~
Adieu!
My Crew, My Crew!


this, our first trip,
our longest voyage,
nears completion

eighteenth of May,
a terminal date,
date of destination,
upon it commenced,
upon it,
our commencement

a terminus nearing,
a degree of latitude given,
a degree of longitude observed,
by you
mes méridiens,
witnesses to my zenith,
a degree of gratitude granted
and lovingly recv'd

adieu, adieu!
this sole~full rhyme
beats upon my lips
repeats and repeats,
endlessly looped,
Adieu, my crew!

sailor, voyageur,
scribe and travel guide
for four seasons,
a composition of one long
anno sabbatico,
muy simpatico

in the spring of '13
I sprung up here,
a Mayflower,,
a May flower,
a floral ship,
annual for a single year,
annual for a single circumnavigation

hearing now once again,
refreshing sounds,
hinting noises,
here comes his paul simonizing summery spring again,
rhyming timing reminding dylan style,
it's all over now, my babies blue

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

we get drunk on their eternity,
their celestial beauty,
and they,
upon my tarnished earthly being,
unreservedly and never judgingly,
give inspiration unstintingly,
we share,
never measuring a captain's humanity
by mystical formulae of reads or hearts

for
grains of sand, water wave droplets and sun rays,
all
only know one measure,
immeasurable

respect the
never-ending new combinations
of an old nature,
even the impoverished words he speaks,
words as they exit the
brain's grand birth canal,
whimsically announcing their poetic arrival with a:

"been here, done that,
but happy to do it,
one more time,
just ever so differently"

the only counting
that satisfies them and me,
the clicking sound be,
the sound of a
a pointer-finger tablet-clicking,
heartbeats a metering,
individual letters being stork-delivered,
and

yellow lightening
when it comes,
signifying family completion,
a poem,
a family,
comes
crackling real!

here comes spring again!
happily to shackle me,
shuckling me back to and fro,
to whence I came,
and from
whence I once
and always belonged

memorial weekend,
memorializing me,
orchestrating a prodigal son's
two edged tune,
a contrapuntal contrapposto,
a "fare-thee-well, man"
and a
"hello son, welcome home!"

that empty Adirondack chair,
by my name,
with your names
in tears inscribed upon it,
awaits

the breezes take note,
singing a duopoly:

this ole chair
needs refilling,
Rest & Recreation for your Rhythm & Blues,
your busted body boy
healing with our natural scents,
calming with common sense

with it,
will and refill,
the cracked breaches,
by phonetic letters frenetic,
drinking, then purge-spilling,
a speckled spackling paste of comfort food words
given of and given by,
given back to,
the bay's tide
and beaches
and

you, crew,

let this soul captain briefly lead,
spilling too oft his new seed,
he,
selected but unelected by a
raucous silent voice-vote...
of an unknown,
impressed-into-service crew

some of you
impressed upon
the skin of this captain man's sou!,
a cherishment so complete,
yet has he to fully comprehend,
its miracality,
the golden epaulettes upon his shoulder,
worn ever proudly

the nearest ending,
one of many.
a course of waterfall and rapids survived,
yet invisible shoals fast approaching,
a single bell tolling, warning,
here was, here comes,
yet another,
close calling

sirens shriek
forewarning,
can't abide a moment longer thus,
desperate longing
for a refuge of language loved,
not lost in lands and a sea of
ranted bittersweet journaled cant
and hashtags of sad despair

can't lengthen this sway,
grant a governor's stay,
cannot

heaven schedules our lives,
completed a time out
in a day,
twenty four hours of fabulous, fabled
and of late,
a shopworn, forlorn existence,
three hundred and sixty five times,
circularized on these pages

now
no forevermore, no forestalling,
only the truth,
a grizzled, unprimped,
mirror'd recognition

flutes,
sad low whistle,
trumpets,
wild maimed moan,
violins,
jenny jilted wailing tears, groan,
and harps and guitars,
each pluck single notes plaintive,
long and slow their disappearing reverberation,
but end it must

none can deny or fail to ascertain,
port of our joint destination,
pinpointed on maps as
"the last curtain call,"
just over the nearby horizon line,
demarcating the finality
of the days of glorious,
and the quietude of
a storied ending

my crew, my crew,
forever besided,
forever insided,
bussed, bedded, and bathed,
with me,

wherever I write most,
wherever I write eyes moist,
my crew
of all captains,
whose fealty I adore
and to whom,
my loyalty unquestioned sworn,
upon righteous English oak
an oath unstained,
an American bible, an American chest,
blood sworn here forever to
my
brothers, sisters and children
many who by title me addressed
this man as,
grandfather,
yet friends
from foreign-no-more-lands

this is only a poem,
this is only the best I have

This to me given,
and now to you returned,
encrusted with trust

for
we together,
were
a new combination
all our own

my crew, my crew,
for you:
my seasonal Yule log-life burns
every day,
all years of my life shiny shiny
copper-burnished teapot whistling
you, your names
a tune of the past,
and the yet to come

I care,
burdened more
than than you ere known,
dare I bear
to bare-confess

for and by you was I,
my restlessness lessened
my unrest less,
so comforted by an out-louded,
deep-welcome-throated reception
let it end thus,
no whimpers or cries,
no misunderstanding

in a Wilderness of Words,
sought you out,
your name and lands,
yours, purposely hidden,
disguised and unknown,

while I placed before you,
my name
my birthplace,
the poetry of my truths,
the jagged laughing,
the cryptic crying,
at myself,
foibles, pimples and the
the insights inside,
mine own book of revelations
all clear in the
drippings of my clarifying
cloudy tears

stranger to friends to chance,
all by chance,
sharing nodules, capsules,
even tumors and ill humors

your affection and simple heroism,
left me both gasping,
and leaves me now,
grasping

your hearts sustain
and are sustainable,
in ways the word,
organic,
not even remotely
adequate, sufficient

in ways
that can be secreted here,
in sharing,
private messages,
snippet exchanges,
that are valored above the rubies of
public hearts that
claim attention
but are gold bonded hand cuffs,
nonetheless!

my left, what is left,
to your strong right,
by rings married we are,
you and I,
a secretion on our kissing lips,
a perfumed essence called
No.365
"secrets of us..."

Wit I were a man
who could advance
his essay further,
but this voyage,
closed and done,
but a steamer approaches
where they need a third mate,
no questions asked,
no names exchanged,
no counting the change in his heart and the,
holes in his heart pocket

asking not,
are you friend long term true,
or just a fly by night,
short-winded trend

so onto
ports that are nameless,
needy for discovery,
perhaps,
they will have a fruitfulness
unripened,
awaiting verbal germination
so yet again,
when he wipes away
with back of a hand,
his fresh fears,
moistening those dried,
those crack'd lips

underneath will be yet found
a perhaps,
a
fully formed, yet to be shared,
new poem,
that gives value
standing on its own,
and perhaps, rewarming, reawakening,
his gone cold and pale,
yet quivering moving,
his almost stilled silenced spring,
but not quite,
lips...


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

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
                         Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
                            But I with mournful tread,
                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.

                     Walt Whitman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And the words that are used
For to get the ship confused
Will not be understood as they’re spoken
For the chains of the sea
Will have busted in the night
And will be buried at the bottom of the ocean

A song will lift
As the mainsail shifts
And the boat drifts on to the shoreline
And the sun will respect
Every face on the deck
The hour that the ship comes in

Then the sands will roll
Out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a-touchin’
And the ship’s wise men
Will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin’

bob dylan

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

We'll meet beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon
We'll meet (I know we'll meet) beyond the shore
We'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing

No more sailing
So long sailing
Bye, bye sailing...

Jack Lawerence

<>

Donovan Leitch
“A word of advice: There's no shame in mimicking a hero or two”
(rock singer accused of being a Dylan imitator)

<>

Nat Lipstadt
you did not awake today,
announcing to no one particular,
I am today, as of now, a poet original

I will employ words in new combinations,
try & tricking you to believing my everything,
is cutting edge, unheard, dare I say it?

original.
yet that very word betrays us/me,
we all have origins, seen and unaware,
we intuit breathing words through our ears

the people’s patois, artists who invade us
subconsciously, placing jargon of beauty
on our paths overlapping, life’s happenstance!

Me?  Ogden & Walt, Dylan & Dylan, Donne & Cohen,
others unknown to you, when we stumble into one another
while traipsing verbal trails, toe stubbing on herbal pebbles,
rocky sounds, adjective crumbs

know. ac-know-ledge. if you can. sometimes you can’t…
other’s words subtle invade, takeover a particular neuron yours.
waiting for your employment, recirculating air mutuel.

yet, you understand, tho total recall is an impossibility,
so you pay extra for storage, napkin scribbles, torn pages, bytes of
snippets that face slap, irritate, burrs that burn inside

reach out to the masters, join your fellow plagiarists, ranks,
well worth joining, do not frustration forswear, nothing new,
under the sun, but yet! that very Sun rises daily, a familiar path

but miraculous diurnal, subtle modified, anew & renewed,
nonetheless, asking you for your worship, you very own
novel sunrise prayer, so come!

when gifting, regifting, write with reckless abandon,
commit, recall, conspire, despair, then inspire & believe!

<>

Kurt Vonnegut

“In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write a famous author and ask for advice. Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond - and his response is magnificent: “Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!”

**<POSTSCRIPT>

~~~

a flawless poem
if such there were,
will always be,
the next one

my poor soul,
my rag tag heart,
has no censor,
so careless, reckless,
as if words were but
frivolous treasures,
easy get, easy spent

if only,
how I wish,
could harvest my best,
and with golden cutlery,
excise
the single flawless poem
that I know is in my possess

lay down this hand, so weary,
from cupping tears,
be satisfied at long last,
so much so,
that when my casket lowered,
two hands in repose companioned,
clutching his best,
to ease the rest,
a papered poem record to join his whited ash,
his flawless poem,

his very best

*now eternal,
at long last

<>>
Jan. 13, 2014
<>

a  flawless poem

if such there were,
will always be,
the next one

my poor soul,
my rag tag heart
has no censor,
so careless, reckless,
as if words were but
frivolous treasures,
easy spent, easy get

if only, how I wish I
could harvest my best,
with golden cutlery excise
the single flawless poem,
that I know is in my possess

lay down this hand so weary
from cupping tears,
be satisfied at long last,
so much so,
that when my casket lowered,
hands in repose companioned,
clutching his best, easing his rest,
a paper record to join his dust
with ash,
his flawless poem,
at longest last

fresh orange clementines on a
white kitchen counter,
incongruous with a windowed view of
white winter's barometric pressures.

eye illusions,
making no sense,
like me drinking
ice coffee in NYC on
New Year's Eve.

New Years Eve too,
a nonsensical notation,
an illusory line,
imposed upon us by
calendar salesmen and astronomers,
for profit and seals of good timekeeping.

There is no solstice,
no verifiable, demonstrable,
celestial line of demarcation,
just a box on a calendar
of man-made paper,
man-dating
fresh thinking,
de-man-ding,
we gaily clad ourselves
in suits of optimistic armor,
heavy with good cheer,
so much so,
we list to one side
under a burden
of greater expectations

the starting line is
worldwide, continental.

a ball drops
to signal the beginning of a new
human race to
another artifice in future time.

with inebriated staggering starts
over staggered time zones,
thus creating a continuous,
rolling wave-eve of resolutions.

I say to myself,
what the heck,
why not!

if the whole world
must share
but one
global illusion,

this one,
fresh starts of fresh hearts,
is not a bad one,
maybe, perhaps,
as good as it gets?

“but you Nat,
are a grown *** Hebrew man
so I shall not attempt 
to advise you to do otherwise.”

<>
been notified, identified, blessed and cursed, alotta of different ways,
but late at night, arrives a new coronation forthright,
about my all grownup ageist stay-tus & my ancient birthright

and I’m-athinking that as compliments go, that’s quite a
right-on complementary to my actuality, so not bad, tho
all-I’d-add is maybe, old school fool too, & do appreciate

that this observation comes with added cherry on top,
I’m finally old enough to make it ok to make mistakes,
and a hardy thanks that the words hard and lard din’t appear

when mentioning my cheekiest feature...

10:28pm nyc
in downtown lockdown

A HUGE discovery (on an overheated wet snow stinky stuffy bus


no one

not the grannies, the discolored, the over bundled,
or even the seven and eight year old noisy brats,
(towing blonde nineteen year old au-pairs from Sweden)

doesn’t have their face planted on a screen

most messaging
when the light shines in and the illustration is illuminated
through the stink of overheated humans on a bus-poet

i can tell everything about you from the way
you tap on the screen

you nice you mean
you possess a southern drawl, a handwriting less ‘n a scrawl,
you are a passionate lover slow and languid,
you’re a bath splasher, a snowball thrower,
believer anything wet, well, should be a shared liquid

your think all lives matter especially mine

who plods thru life slow and safe one key tap at time,
making love in the same way and never in the afternoon

whose mother loved them swell well and made them
crazy people who smile at everyone
sharing their terra chips, body parts and
sweet spicy spit
with loving tenderness

the ones who write beneath colored decorated fingernails
so careful not carefree using the finger pads to message and
never break a nail or own a heart making a mess worthy of
cleaning up with a repairman

who lies ‘n cheats on their taxes and their lovers with
reckless impunity because you are so important
then what the heck you doing on this bus with us plebeians?

and the one next to me generationally born to use two thumbs,
but pauses to reflect on the way humans speak to one another before desensitizing blurting any old thing

And the one to whom I show this poem and insists I miss my stop so she can text me her digits and kiss that thumb
a year  later in front of a smoke perfumed fire and she whispers
smarty pants, mr smoke scribe,
who writes only love poetry
watch, what does the smoke say?

but it says nothing that cannot be best expressed by
letting my thumbs do all the talking by tapping
all over her body

aimless ruminations
(this is who I am, this is how I write)

<>

" I couldn't work or get ready for a piece of work
from a city base, from city life.
I need deep, deep quiet and a landscape too
that I can be absorbed into.
So much of the work is in the process of
aimless rumination
in which things may or may not take seed."

Daniel Day--Lewis

<>

just past six pm,
early but late, on a finely finished Friday,
long after-the-noon-hour,
the sun, presentable, clothed, well established,
high enough majesty in the hued blue sky

(all the orange pinks of  sunsetting soon to come but as of yet,
still guests of prior poems)

all around surround, the essential quiet,
essence of demure, parfumerie of the bath oil of
wind and wine, woman, a pacific stillness,
a soft sloping declension into the purity of just breathing

(well graced to prepare us for a slow descent into the soft richness
of a black ermine fur, a royal, star-studded night sky robe,
come to envelope, lit by jeweled sparklers of white dippers flickering)

but not yet...

O Magnum Mysterium!^
O Great Mystery!

a matin motet for a choral of four voices,
served up as an afternoon gift to us,
a present from the 16th century,
a tonal harmony of sweet majesty,
fills the sunroom atmosphere end of day musicale,
where we sip a Provence Rosé drink the music,
thoughtfully munch upon its pianist-accompanist,
slightly salted roasted cashews

punctuating the natural silence,
small bites of crackling noises,
planting the seeds of the nut tree in our bodies,
and licking the dead sea salt crumble, that moistens lips for licking-living

these then are the flavors of the moment,
quiet simple poignant pink and tawny tan of
clearly colored perfection

of earthly and earthy life tastes,
warmed salty sweet, from which all drawn to drink,
a celebration of the coordination of the sun outside,
the sun inside us,
sustaining, melding a harmony of soaring quietude

<>

ashamed, to have this spoil,
for just us two,
wondering why I,
why am I, compelled once more
to write of this Eden,
that so late in life I've come to cherish
as a rejuvenation, even satisfyingly sufficient
as just a bridging continuance between the speed bumps of...

of this time and place, I write once more,
surely not to flaunt, surely not to arouse,
somehow to share and tame
our crusted residues from a work week's enslavement,
end the drip of marking minutes, until to here, return,
where there are only tributes,
and no tribulations

but with you here, as well

how many times can
one mediocre poet write
of the same scenery,
the precise light, the my-oh-my-sky,
and not think, wish repeatedly,
as I do,
how I wish you were here,
all our dear ones,
to share the sharing

come sit beside us,
let I,
your faithful Sancho Panza,
pour your wine, remove thy scuffed shoes,
pull open the curtains, gift you the certains
of the great goodness of this garden,
give guidance to the yellow orb on how
to best warm the tarnished, slow eroding, river plain of
undernourished souls

let me bring you the readied ink utensil,
place in thine hand, the thin sliver of tree,
feed you, feel you feeling the felling blush of the grape skin,
all warm softened and proper chilled,
for receiving the new born fruits of inscribing

let all enfold, as we sit beside you,
watch with unconstrained delight,
as you too,
understand the addictive compulsion of this moment,
of this place and time that demands,
requires of you,  
not to justify existence, nay,
but to be absorbed,
but be come part and parcel, a resource,
grace this place and time by your hand,
elevate our existence

& write write write...

<>

always here, upon all this,
in this more or less, precise time and place,
doth nature beg me ruminate

permit eyes to inhale absolute aimlessly,
taste the floral glories, kiss the Roses of Sharon come to lavender bloom,
think deeply about nothing, and for anything present,
be concucopia bounty-full forever grateful

coming now to this our ending,
moved along by the gentling means of holy water sanctified tides,
the slow march of the sky's mentoring friends,
my aim, my ruminations, pointedly aimless,
my hands flowing, my eyes, purposedly never keener,
culminating in this so faintly heard,
nocturne of the absolutes of perfect...


<>

gifted to all my friends here,
poets who have happily transgressed into
kind caring friends

and also,
one gone missing,
Harlon,
who was, by his skill at praising this Earth's excellence,
was appointed by Nature as its very own poet laureate

7/29/16   6:06pm
Shelter Island

<>


(for patty m)

"always love hearing from you,
it's like a kiss in the wind"


we are intimate
though never ever close,
but faithful closer

familiar,
though our convivial roads
are uncrossed, except and accept
in the delicate pearl inlay
of our poesy path

our common way station,
where can we exchange private confidentialities
publicly, above and beyond,
the plain and ordinary everyday
intimacies

from the balcony of the sixteenth floor,
I can see the horizons holding
our shared land together.

the wind blows by,
from the Atlantic crossing,
continuing on its
westward ** way

wind comes inquiring as is its wont,
as a faithful and familiar evening-tide messenger,
desirous, needy for its wantings fufillment,
to be a deliverer of
deliverances and
all kind of tidings,
sent by the
in absentia

I post a poem

the letters scatter heavenward,
no worries,
the amorphous wind,
will Oz like
reassemble them
in holy order and
brush them
across your face,
tickle the lips and eyelashes,
still moist from
missing a man who was
intimate different,
in a lifetime way

and that kiss,
that postage paid,
the meager cost
the wind receives,
for a mission well accomplished,
is transferred to you and yours
to enable you to decode
this implausibly but-all-to
plausible,
devoted message

Alaska:
“though the whole world should be mad at once
though the elements should be changed, though the angels should rebel: yet verity (irrefutable truth) cannot lie.”  
                                                         ­                  Erasmus of Rotterdam

<> <>

for BJ Donovan, a fine, fine poet
<><><>

verity, irrefutable truth, cannot lie,
or belie it’s non-contradictory nature,
even, in a small airport, a one runway affair,
somewhere in Alaska
ribboned tween icy crags and dagger-ous peaks,
low cloud coverings of sub-zero visibility,
that inquire, in an indigenous tongue
of the flying fool pilots,

“really?”

if I or you ask me why I’m here,
Alaska,
the answers come in only three Heinz varieties,
true or false positive, no differentiation needed,
the other, is called
“one who doesn’t know how to ask”

you know him,
the simpleton, the simple one, me,
who can’t frame the question without

risking that he frame himself

betraying and displaying his woeful ignorance,
a veneered confidence of knowing so little about much

in the shed, a/k/a
‘the terminal,’ we wait,
me and an ex-Buddhist priest,
head stubble shaved, of course, round horn rimmed glasses wearing,
stone washed jeans blue, the color of his eyes,
reflecting mine as well as the blue glacier ice
surrounding us both, we,
the extraneous human eagle interlopers

showed him the Erasmus quote, provoking one of them,
thin lined, whimsical, eye-glinting smiles of those
who know the answer
to the knotty ones, or,
know better, that knotty questions one asks himself
when high up in the mountainous glacier ranges,
get answered just by silent patience

he smiled for an eternity of
at least five minutes,
my heart pulsating big time,
this modern man anticipating, in his calm, dulcet two tones,
his understanding of another ancient translating another,
even more ancient, speaking:

”the world is indeed mad,
through neglect letting the elements warp, glaciers melt;
the angels have indeed rebelled at the
foreseen fated falsehoods perpetrated,
verity,
torn asunder,
and the line between balance and imbalance,
so jaggedly ripped in too many places that verity a victim
so badly assaulted, its face is no longer identifiable by AI, worse,
so covered, dying, undiscoverable.

but you ask!
ask of yourself, asking of others, and tolerating
uncurled, uncut uncertainty, you retreat and reconsider,
this then is your answer!
it is the
ASKING,
that is verity, itself! there can be no lying thing in the
quest of questioning
that accepts, rejects, and unceasingly asks again^

this is a the only irrefutable truth and what it asks of you:

never accept the illogic of belief, let your own eyes be the best judge;
ask and ask thrice, be satisfied that being disastrously dissatisfied
is the norm, the mean,
the line toward a perfection that may not ever exist(ed)
for our flaws define us, thus so much greater is our truths when we
we reshape them, ourselves, for verity itself is not so hard to find,
but the finding of one self is too difficult for most

for asking is too painful,
too primordial, and why I am no longer a priest nor teacher,
but a simple observer of the answers that can be found in the
silences of places,
the Alaska’s inside of us,
where nature’s sets
an open table for anyone
wiling to just ask...”

all I've learned from love


<•>

for the fedora man, 10/29/17 10:34am

<•>

another song done me wrong on a Sunday morn,
so much due to do, a list not for compilation/publication,
including poems promised and weighty deadlines overdue,
for its tedium would still be lbs. heavy in weightless space

instead a lyric plucks my attention, of course beeping,
insistent chirping a chorus of, write me right now,
immédiatement dans son français de Montréal,
this is the item that needs to be list topping,
now whispering a messenger-angel name dropping
a request formal from the fedora man dressed in black

all I've learned from love,  
a listing doomed to comprehensible incompletion,
a listing to the right as new reasons in-come
constantly from the left, each heart beat a
remarkable reminder that the list grows longer

every day, the repeating seasons, proffer suggestions,
disguised as a newly revised ten commandments,
obedience to which is a wish list for
attaining grace

all I've learned from love is its duality, essential quality,
a human single cannot attain the commingling required
for the visioning a peak season of life colorful,
its sad corollary, leaves falling exposing the body bare-****** of the soul linear alone

all I've learned from love is its shining skin is an agreed upon
indefinable nature, other than we all recognize how our
definition personal exists in that Ven diagrams space where
our circles intersect, when A breaks the skin of B, creating
{A,B}

all I've learned from love is without it no matter what
somewhere inside is a desperation pocket that is
an inquisitive irritant, a brain burr, a pea under the mattress,
a high and mighty 1% of disarmament incompetence that rules the imbalanced balance of my bottom line on the top of my head

all I've learned from love that it appears on its own timetable,
in surprising trains and planes and baseball games, sitting
alone in a theater or in front of a Rubens, on crazy disastrous
first dates in foreign countries at cafes or non gender
specific bathrooms amidst alternating currents of
this is crazy and this is infinite and ever so sobering
wondrous possible

all I've learned from love is it never shoots straight,
but will always end in a holy bullseye

*Tout ce que j'ai appris de l'amour, c'est qu'elle ne tire jamais directement,
mais se terminera toujours dans une sainte bullseye

all my poems are unique general principles

~for Helene Mendelsohn~

“A general principle never comes to life in my mind except by exhibiting itself in various special forms and in
crowds of instances for each form":  
R.G. Collingwood

each a construct - an arch-i-texture,
each a crowd of a single instance
special forum, a dialogue differentiation,
a conjugate particle,
forming up, in marching order,
a singular troop, a base case singular,
a soldier especially demanding,
“Of Me, Write, Write”

for within my insight,
a one-off sighting,
one glinting wave reflecting,
its one millisecond exactitude of existence,
reforming unseemly, a new but not!

a seemingly similar shifted shape,
but no wave is a precision repetition,
perhaps a passing familiarity
of its precedents, antecedents,
at best

an instance borrowed and paid back
to the generosity of time
for a fully developed statement of a
general principle,
even a primary secondary textual emendation,
requires a unique naming definition

being born and dead dying while you are blinking,
does not understate absolute value,
a principle exists to give absolution,
so the moments resets,
perpetually,
but its own resolution is n’err forgotten

do you see the crowd of inferences
herein contained?

the principal unique,
poem plucked from passing sun ray,
a tickling hair of a brazen breeze,
one wave, one wave reconstituting a
millennium of preceding lives,
deriving its abbreviated genealogy
of droplets of prior principles
forever reinterpreted

so I gave you back
words you knew
but in a new combination
establishing this poem,
its constituents,
as a unique general principle

there is a prior poem, new, unique
in everything

all poets are human, therefore, all humans are  
poems*

<•>

"In logic, a tautology (from the Greek word ταυτολογία) is a formula that is true in every possible interpretation."

<•>
hardly a tightly taut tautology,
yet true this, in every possible instance

all humans, poems,

as if their portrait painted

from words dipped in a vocabulary palette

which is why,

you my million muses,

are so oft the themes of *who I write

and when foolish think there is no
inspiration in the air,
your names
each and every,
a title awaiting
finishing