Huddled flocks pecking around
seasick seasick seasick
Stor-it-all ransacked for tax reforms
jupiter pinetrees form less pyramids a month plus shipping
Monoatomic white gold texas teatree oil of bullfight storefronts
coronas eject breast milk of magnessium sulphate under the table
dealers lower deck slips tips into his cup o soup for 99 cents
landsick landsick rot cod rot cod
dot dash doctor ankh eyes windup toys half price
sentences complete fusion conagra foods lose stock market value
Judgement night of the living end time shared ethical treatments
and other plastic surgeries
hydra lost all the fifties movie stars heads and robots grew back so quickly to take their places everyone pay it forward
ships mast ripping into the ocean spray on tans
compass spun bankrupt Say Jack E onasis
chaste chasis mer ka bah light bringer fire eater
danse macabre four pillars swatch at Sacs on fifth avenue
avec mon couer le chat screams cheshire teeth porcupine all over my new
dress shirt,  that stain is not going to come out
and playground beef factory farmed like high school mindgames
seasick seasick see it see
i see

She really was real in reality where I was too real in your past


It past us by with no pillowfights , mutual loss of trustfunds
we never had
, purposefully failed attempts to make little beastly humans grow in her stomach and burst out like aliens happen in her car on long trips.

lost art of making art artfully with out chiclet teeth blank eyes and jumping breaking stuffand hitchhiker guy twisting wills
by throwing green boxes into the dark on bike trails

or inviting things to watch ***** fountains ,
endlessly cutting out pictures
, orange ice cream menthol cigarettes and choco pyramids ,
fake friends find you when you run away from yourself
so don't play hide and go seek or you might be gone forever until the devil finds you and takes you to jailbird

jacobs ladder rung 9  times and I answered my phone
"Hello ?"  
It was the silence of God on the line.
The cosmic vibration of pure being.
I didn't listen for long enough and ran out of minutes.

Où est mon coeur?
Where is my heart?
It's pitter-pat is strangely gone
And there is a strange
Emptiness that I
Can't
Quite
Appreciate

I have sought it
Since the sun peeked through my curtains
And the spurt of a swiftly ended dream
Woke me suddenly... too suddenly!
But I could not hear drumming in my ears
Or a pounding in my chest

There was nothing.
There was silence.

Où est mon couer?

Is it holding my place betwixt two chapters of a book?
Non.
But if often rolls around in words. Funny that it would not be there!
Is it hiding in a flower ***?
Non.
But it often hides in the ground hoping to grow. Strange that it would not be there!
Is it under the bed?
Non.
Stranger still. It often keeps the dust bunnies company.

Où est mon couer?
The panic
Is starting
To drive me
A little bit
Mad.

How could I have lost it?
Où est ma tête?*
I am usually so good
At keeping it caged up
Penned in
Out-of-bounds
Locked away

Strange that it would vanish in the middle of the night
Without a sound
Without a trace!

Unless
Someone found it
Stumbling across it
In the foggy half-world of my dream
And picked it up
And put it in an oversize pocket
Stealing it
In a dream-act
That bleeds into my reality

"Nothing is so healing as the human touch."


Started:    June 21, 2011
Finished:  August 14, 2011

"Nothing is so healing as the human touch."

Purportedly, the final words of Bobby Fischer, the reclusive, oft bizarre-acting Chess Grandmaster, whose life deserves your examination.  

I wasted decades of my life in a loveless, sexless, miserable marriage. I read his dying words, and the poem~notion was born, but the words had their own timetable and it made me crazy.

All the facts you need to read this old poem are now in your possession.
~-----------------------------------------------~
Mos­­t poems used to just tumble out,
Sudoku words combos,
Gunslinger I was,
poetically licensed to shoot
from the hip (the lip?).

Then you go mute, until that second,
When once again,
Machine gun stanzas fall like
Cheerios
Spilling all over the kitchen floor,
As they always do at Two Am
When quietude is in high season,
And the whole house is sleeping.

Once in awhile,
The title~idea recorded,
But the poem unwrit,
just won't come.
*** but no ******.

The words smack you,
Write me, I deserve it,
A challenged duel glove
Goes kissy kissy on your face,
But the words,
The choice of weapons
Eludes for weeks, months.  

So Bobby,
Your challenge
Long ago accepted,
But my reply imperfect,
Has lain bound and gagged,
A poem-in-progress
Hid in the trunk of my heart,
Unable to escape, even when
Escape attempted, unsuccessful.

From June till August moon,
Your dying words have been
A cancer growing, within,  
Hiding from my bullets
Invented to radiate,
Your final words, explicate,
Explode and expose.

Your life,
An essay on life in solitary,
Anti-social would immodestly describe your life best.

How came you then to exclaim,
Re the glories of human touch?

Ah a dying man's last regret,
A simple cri du couer,
Nothing extraordinaire,
A basic 101 shoulda/woulda
Of "I coulda done it better,"
What's the big deal?

Until this exact second,
Sunday rain jolted body from bed
Do I instant understand my obsession,
The import to me,
The need to capture
The haunt of the healing
Of your dying words.  

Life is small, miniaturized
When numbered in decades -
Five, six, seven,
Maybe,
Eight nine or even ten.  

How came I to pass so many,
Discarded whole decades,
Of the few we garner
Without the sustenance of
Human Touch?

How came I to allow this disaster to pass?

How did I advance to the next grade/decade,
When a failing grade was scarlet tattooed
In ****** scars upon my chest?

Would be easy to dismiss as just another whiney rant
That is no longer relevant to you,
Lies I told myself, no longer resonate, over, now.

Never.  

Everything matters.  

Summation.  Accumulation.

Day Counter Totals  reveal gaps of years
That cannot be refilled so your accounting
Must include a retelling of the
Wasted days and acknowledge with your dying breath,

Nothing is so healing as the human touch.
~~~~~~~
Happy 3rd Birthday poem.

I have in me a bit of Tuscan sun
The wildness of mistral
The calmness of a Cezanne village
I often walk around the countryside of Pissaro
And see the colors, still abundant, undefeated
I stroll around the lilies and the harbor of France where Manet painted being thrown out of his house, not able to pay the rent
I dance with the beautiful girls in high society Parisian parties of whom from Zola to Maugham spoke about
I learn art in silence, in the bright orange color of the day drawing the French young girl
Whose face is like Madonna
Her innocence, her laughter, her flawless body
Excite me, breaks me, creates me
I walk with clean head and red wine in the streets of Montmartre
Searching the gone and dusted studio of Renoir, Picasso, Monet
I stand exactly there where there is nothing old except the moon
And the Sacre Couer
In the morning I take the first train to Auvers Sur Oise
And walk into the cemetery
Where lie in the gorgeous French sun
Vincent and Theo Van Gogh
I utter to them, "Can dream ever be false?"
It is when I heard the footsteps
I turned
The girl in the yellow dress stands at the gate of the cemetery
Whom I draw every day but never captured her beauty
The French girl
We both stand there as it is
As if 
framed
paused 
Frozen
We, the Impressionists!

Today, we live in a world bound together by a plethora of interlocking mechanisms and systems, some social/political, and a great many technological, but most remain economic(for reasons of simple profit and pragmatism). In a time where the rate at which new technologies are developed is being reduced by a specific ratio in relation to the complexity and modernization of the societies in which they are developed, and the impact they have on said societies can be measured to a certain degree, it is a wonder to me that human beings have not applied our gifts of invention and improvisation to other parts of our existence.
I'm not a psychologist or sociologist or anthropologist, therefore I don't want to seem as if I'm attaching weight to any of my conclusions or opinions. I'm simply trying to put down in words a condensed version of many hours worth of contemplation and conversation. That being said, it seems almost as if the further we advance into the unknown future, technologically and scientifically, we further ourselves somewhat from many of the facets of existence that can be said to make us human beings. While the limits of understanding are being extended in laboratories and universities the world over, and the fruits of the endeavor trickle down to us in the way of items such as smart phones with more computing power than a room sized processor from 1970, our social structure has not progressed at a similar rate. While back breaking poverty and oppression on the feudal level aren't daily facts of life for the vast majority of us in developed industrialized society, modern existence has created it's own demons in the demand for limitless profits in an economy(no matter how much of it is superficially called "Service industry") which is based upon finite means of production, whether they be labour or resource based. This is not what concerns me, most of the time, anyway it **** sure doesn't keep me up at night. What does keep me awake till dawn are the deeply personal experiences that have brought me to see the extremes of human suffering, the kind of suffering which is marginalized and ignored because it has no place in our 'civilized' status quo. I will say bluntly that those who do the marginalizing have never carried their friend away from a house party after she was *****, never set their shirt on fire in the middle of the street because it had ***** from the ****** on it, never bandaged the self-inflicted wounds of another (and wiped off the word '****' which she had written on herself in her own blood), nor seen a thousand year old village obliterated in about 3 seconds, never seen what kind of horror people have the capacity to inflict on each other....as I have. There are many of us who have experienced these things, many who have experienced far worse, and to them I offer my deepest respect and compassion.
The realm of the human heart is the same landscape our forefathers journeyed through in the age of Richard Couer de Lion, the questions many of us ask are the same as well. But there is a difference, and it isn't technological. The serf toiling in the dirt of medieval France had no separation between himself and the land he worked, and to a similar extant, the modern Afghani sees no separation between himself and the will of Allah, which is what binds his entire universe together. Only we here in the First World have been abstracted into units of economic output, reduced to numbers and symbols, and only we no longer know what our place in the world is, or how we relate to each other. I want to know why.

fifty years young and she asks no one
directly,
how will she compete?

she is tail and blonde and thin and all that
='s
pretty,

but,

single and
pretty at fifty,
slender, athletic,
currently unemployed
knowledgeable sports fan,
courtesy of her dad and no brothers

is not good enough

none of it, cuts it
when, in summertime
she only sees
youths coupling and rosy
older men with
young babies rosy
every place,
every restaurant
we take her

(the 19 year old tan,
embarrassingly,
almost bare
dumber and meaner than dumb
hostesses,
all look up,
inspect our arrival,
yes, in need of seating,,
we are three
and stupid youthful smiles,
yes, three, smirking, I get it...)

she slips it
out loud,
@ our "dinner for three,"
loud and yet inaudible
because we all want it to be
invisible unheard

a private thought,
part gasp,
part cri du couer,
wail plain and female plaintive,
can't compete, can't compete

cannot respond with a fatherly
there, there,
for that would be ridiculous,
even insulting

she wandered in and out of
purposeless, prepared for failure
relationships, and now
it is a look-back, lost,
Thirty Years War

find her a friend!
reply, they are,
sad and married,
besides you know,
I travel alone
in the
company of women,
and so by now,
they have stopped asking

it hangs there,
a hanging atmospheric decoration,
till enough seconds pass
and it is restaurant-noise
clinked away,
time erased,
never was said

I kick myself under the tangible table,
so no one else has to,
reminding me that you cannot be
poet~healer to everyone,
always,
try as you might

Vous et nuis autre
Dans mon couer
Pour toujours et a jamais

Mon couer continuara
Giving you lots of love
Tonight for the last
Time because
Tomorrow
You will leave
For your cruise
I will go with you
To see you leave
Tomorrow came
Early
And we had gone to the ship
You were the last one to climb the stairs
That takes you inside the ship
They closed the door of the ship
And the ship
Started to sail
The Canadian waters
After a while you went out to the deck
Of the ship
And you had blown a kiss
With your hand
After you did that you waved good bye
And I waved good bye to you

pace Sartre, God is an Artist
          like a painter, not a Bonapartist
                    where it's light, and where it's darkest …

                                       Creativity!

Pace Sartre
God is an Artist

Like a painter
Not a Bonapartist

Where there's Light
And where there's darkest

          Creativity!

Pace Sartre
God is an Artist

Like a Painter
Not a Bonapartist

Where there's Light
And where
There's Darkest

    Creativity!

The 37s keep on comin'
Is it apophenia?

Apophatic theology
I know what you meania

When I am no more
Please give Mark my thanks

My sons were my deep joy
And the cathedrals of the Franks

Pace Sartre
God is an Artist

Like a painter
Not a Bonapartist

Where there's Light
And where there's darkest

               Creativity!

no one actually understands
but is that really all that bad?

at least i saw Sacre Couer
and got to be a dad

when we were all together
best times I ever had

cycling in the Stockholm sun
balm in Gilead.

Father Greeley was different
That is why I liked him
He took risks
He spoke out true

Chicago is winter snow
Dublin the Book of Kells
Paris Sacre Couer
Carolina sky of blue

               Y tu?

The Catholic church has damaged me
The guilt is not much fun

But it also gives me gifts
Mystical mystery ones

St. Stephansdom in Vienna
All aglow in snow

Sacre Couer in gay Paris
White in flight I go

                 Green Arrow.

French atheism
No thanks
Charlemagne
King of the Franks

Simone Weil
Albert Camus
Sacre Couer
Sophia U.

Joan of Arc
Orleans
Proud Mary
Bon Vivant

Ratatouille
Creme brulee
Amelie
Je suis xie xie

    5th of May

At times to profane the sacred
At times Sacre Couer

She walks in contemplation
That is her allure

Native American people
Indigeneity

Animals as signs
Deer displayity

         brown

Many female philosophers
But only one Simone Weil
Gratitude for dailiness
Tea for two today

I have been to France
Sacre Couer I say
Our tour guide was Yves
Mozart I xie xie

French is beautiful
In Dublin I did pray
Charlotte y Chicago
And the City by the Bay

                Fey?

The left needs something sacred
The right needs less money
The center needs a jumphook
Kate McKinnon is quite funny!

I was entranced by Sacre Couer
More than Notre Dame
Her hair it does allure
And she reminds me of my mom

Me on the Dublin bus
Young couple speaking French
I like the way it sounds
More than Johnny Bench

Passed a French test once
Actually pass advanced
Then forgot it all
Honeymoon in France

The Count of Monte Cristo
Says to wait and hope
Don't like Benedict
Do like this Francis Pope

Europa Report
We are not alone
Thank you, dear readers
From my little black cell phone

            my mind moan

I admit
I find the Middle Ages romantic
Cathedrals, monks, France
The silence of St. Thomas Aquinas

But I live in gas stations
Fast food restaurants
Internet *******
Donald Trump's MAGA nuts

I went to France on my honeymoon
Saw Chartres Cathedral
Kind, smiling waitress
Sacre Couer looming white

I'm gonna go down
Please protect my sons
I liked Taipei 101
American Night

             French flight

I'm going to go down as ambiguous
When I do go down

Suffering and mind sickness
Not a man of much renown

I have learned a bit from India
Traveled in Mother Asia

Never been to Russia
Just books, Ms. Anastasia

Do not do well with women
But my vision is entranced

Shiva does the dancing
My honeymoon in France

               Sacre Couer.

Poetry perhaps can't do much
But can it touch a human heart?

Some say humans just animals
Some say humans are art

I say both by my troth!
Not Napolean Blown Apart

When in France, I didn't dance
Didn't sing. Didn't ****.

Just stared at Sacre Couer
Now I eat my almond ****

Merci, Merci - maybe meant to be
French traveller. Irish dart.

I have to use religious language
Though I think death is the end

Poetry means making
Creativity, my friend

We saw Sacre Couer
Twilight in Seattle

My children at the beach
Solitude a battle

I live alone and wait
I worry but walk ahead

If you live long and prosper
Leonard Nimoy is not dead.

Saw Chartres Cathedral
Saw Sacre Couer
Wherever I go
In memory of her

Saw Amelie
Ate the creme brulee
France in the summer
Nothing more to say

I was in France for one week
Eifel Tower
Sacre Couer
Chartres

Mark Rothko
Houston Chapel
David Markson
Art

The French waitress was very nice
Friendly
I like Dash Incredible
Not Napoleon Blown Apart

Sacramento, California
Mormon Mike Watson
Me and Mark Hasik
Mike farts.