this is how the poetry bows out
the tying of the tongue,
fingertips are shaved, nubbed,
heart seized, it rhyming ceased,
veins are dammed, arteries blocked,
the emotional fled, to a wild wind wed,
this is how the poetry bows down ‘n out
the remainders, sticky stuck, viscous,
through small pore filters they leak,
with the soap and the sins, all drained,
the shower uses holy water to no avail,
this is how the poetry bows down ‘n out
the brain cognitions loss, realizing a release
ending, time sensitized, the mantelpiece badly
cracked, each of the body’s words in reliquaries hidden,
the other worldly acquaintances greet him joyously,
commence a choir chant, a motet centuries old,
this, this! is how the poetry bows out
Sep 10, 2020
Sep 10, 2020 at 11:41 AM UTC
~for teach~
tell me, are you ok?
yeah, more or less;
like everybody else,
wires get crossed,
static builds up,
the speakers bleat
when they should blat,
and you try to stop thinking,
cause why hurt yourself
too much?
what’s wrong?
nothing to specific,
that seems to be the problem,
like aches and sharp pains
that come without reason,
on a schedule all their own,
no prior consultation,
permission slip sig forged,
so badly, it’s insulting
it’s 3:14 am, woke up with
headphones on, every tune,
reandomly selected, saying,
only the lonely, solitary man,
miles to go, it’s probably me,
long monday coming,
gonna spend it
looking for the summer
now look at this, me done wrote
another impoverished poem,
just by stringing together
song titles that were selected
just for me by an artificial intelligence,
it’s closing time, in the fields of gold,
prine singing a blues lullaby, just for me,
so I won’t have to think so hard for an answer to
tell me, are you ok?
me?
got no complaints that
ain’t my own fault,
my guilt is plugged in
always charging,
sleep comes in dreams of many colors,
eclectic eclipses, electrifying and elicited,
words come spilling so easy, pre-selected,
elocuted and executed, with madding ease.
two more lines, then calling it quits, but at least
got an answer, why for me it’s so easy,
the being hard
<>
3:32am and the moonlight so bright,
it’s making shadows on earth, left behind
like good graffiti announcing I was here,
maybe I’ll find these words, when I wake up,
wonder who wright these, twasn’t me,
I’m a sound sleeper, can never remember,
dreams, or nightmares, even those in technicolor,
wake up a blank slate, to see,
gotta answer somebody’s question,
if I’m ok?
Sep 7, 2020
Sep 7, 2020 at 5:16 PM UTC
***none of us would lie like in history class,
our equations would always be easy & pretty,
everyone so introspective, multi-language fluent,
precise explanations that obscure clarity, now that’s
something worthy to discuss endlessly self-importantly***
***ah, well! even if schools tawt ONLY art and music,
we would still fight wars, arguing about important
things like proper spelling,
now that’s worth dying for....***
Sep 7, 2020
Sep 7, 2020 at 5:15 PM UTC
wish i knew you
way back then
but again then
you wouldn’t have
glanced at me once,
let alone twice
but them ole aphorisms
have their uses,
useful when dreaming
in colorful surrealisms
better later,
than not at all,
my sad eyed lady
of the highlands,
better for having
met you,
than not
at all...
Aug 22, 2020
Aug 22, 2020 at 7:33 AM UTC
a (the) woman’s body (pretty pleasing)
is my reciprocal
her waist is my happy place
her neck is my doorway
the rest is
best when she is mirror accessorizing,
preening, **** upon first rising,
tallying the gains and the losses
unaware of my watching,
never satisfied she, tho she is 98% unadmitting contented,
as she shifts her weight,
from knee to knee extended alternating
with slow delicacy
for the pleasure is trebled
for her imagine image reverberates
throughout the house
for ever(y) mirror is pre-positioned,
accidentally angled just so, lol,
her image transported from living room to dining alcove
all the way to the kitchen’s bleacher seats
she doesn’t know and asks why I’m grinning,
answer is
no confessionary, no telling I’m swelling and
sinning
eyes scheming-dreaming of her reciprocity
she smiles and says
“good morning bad boy”
maybe she does know
but you won’t tell her,
we, you and me,
are pretty pleasing
she is 1/me
she is won over me
Aug 18, 2020
Aug 18, 2020 at 3:34 PM UTC
as our letters age
my twenty six best friends gather round a winter fire,
a Valentine’s Day retreat from the bones internal chilly yellowing,
we’ve been together from the Day One beginning, a life of
commencing conception, deception, immaculate and messy mixing
practicing fumbling, making and breaking the conventional,
we arrange and rearrange our unique ordering, overlapping
with your version, cousin, so we communicate, but uniquely ours,
individualist letters, witnesses, markers, word~children, born, lost
soon seventy will come, and a party, a literary review to be held,
mourning the many, works uncompleted, toasting the few that satisfied,
acknowledging the collaboration of all the twenty six with
special guests,
an aging five senses
that were the kindling that sparked them into action
oh my dear ones, my best friends, your knew me too well,
my best, worst,
my progeny, blood of my blood, voice of my guts,
consoling friends, who
brooked my self-deceptions, yet denounced them when
over-the-topping,
comforters of our mutual ashes buried in one casket,
our final poem, clutched, at last...
my alphabet of life...
Sat. Feb 22, 2020
10:26am
Aug 18, 2020
Aug 18, 2020 at 3:33 PM UTC
To Destroy, First Build (The Construction of Human Dissolution)
steely Ironies begin as the end nears, leather torn by fabric,
when humans begin the separation protocol, **when first
we intend to dissolve, we need construct, ***** barriers
so true, good fences make good neighbors...no. great enemies.
the invisible ones, freight train tracks running down the middle
of the bed, new lands of “his side, her side,” shut your light off!
he makes a joke, she don’t turn her head, maybe she, offers instead
a secret grimace, thinking inside too little late, bothering/thinking
go write your breakup poetry, that’ll keep you truly invested and
ocupado, lock door’d, why is my toothbrush in a moving van, that I didn’t hire, no destination home, notes passed via refrigerator door, what was that “have children chatter?” months+words recent, huh?
just months ago, not confused, don’t touch his diet drink! man-o-man,
thank god we didn’t do a vaca drive up the West Coast, hanging with relatives in SF, LA not your town, you hate tinsel and pretense. BS.
arguing when we need to add gas, a wonderful double entendre, when was the end of detente, we abrogate the Treaty of Versailles, another place we won’t ever get to go-gether,** that just makes me sadly happier, and
I think; now I understand why he always booked us seats on airplanes separated by the aisle, no head upon his shoulder, in my lap, holding hands needs disinfectant, social distancing solves many problems now,
need now, no asking how, to conceive destroy, imagine concrete:
first you must build, it’s how one does it, human dissolution requires work, malice aforethought, we both master builders, see yeah, that’s a joke, a good one too...let’s laugh not together at us, our edifice crumbles
Aug 6, 2020
Aug 6, 2020 at 2:22 PM UTC
I sleep until Morpheus laughs milk through his nose
and abruptly laugh at us Both. yesterday’s whole-grain toast
on a doily, derelict and butter-cuffed-
where a bite was sincere and absent-minded.
Much like a peasant’s frenzy,
with manners from Empty tables.
Only good enough to gauge
the width of a Total
Farce.
Or sum the Sublime
with a Catalogue
of Lost
Arts.
I awake when the dream begins
.
And you wanna hear me talk about snow right now.
And I bother.
“ The blanket is a kind of white noise that only the eye can see -
as a Blue Thing.
It’s fading… and nothing comes close to not beholding.
We are all In for the finch and the hare
and the crepe of crisp.
pinned to a theme of our leisurely stroll-
through damp crystals
as awestruck as
Winter at
Spring.
On the cusp of our twilight, serene seraphs slumber
born of golden spite and joysome psalms, woven from unspoken skin
to stitch ice to every paw of Dawn clawing at the hem of Night.
And where Winter falls, I stay awake to chart comets and chimneys
Like any awkward Silence
thought I might.
Jul 30, 2020
Jul 30, 2020 at 8:58 AM UTC
___________________
another mourning morning, usual signs of warning,
wanted to wash away the distress signs of no sleep,
turned on the tap, out came only troubled waters,
my only friend, the voice from the mirror, pretending
to be coming from me, speaking: Oh Lord, Oh Lord!
*is there no surcease for me, somewhere, can I find,
little bites, small plates, pieces of peace, the kind
of kindness that eases, repairs the dividers of mind,
the country stone fences that been growing wilder,
when, troubled child of 10, window breaking, beyond
youthful mischievousness, evil streaked, so deemed*
Give me a boat, give me a bridge, give me a road, a home,
one of those things poets, songwriters about, wax lyrical,
Oh Lord, give me time, 45 seconds, even two or three,
Being strong, being confident, am I not entitled to that,
a boat, sturdy mast, cause sailing from storm to storm,
just glimpsing dry land, is that too much, a pale beyond?
love, nah, a bridge too far, not even on the menu, not blinded,
I am off key, not well enough, between the peaks between,
*I am out of sync, bubbling discombobulated, a **** besided, behind,
lend me a finger, not even a hand, a kernel, not even a cob,
a string, forget a rope, a washcloth to bathe and dry,*
lay me down, lay me down, to live, even just not dying.
Jul 28, 2020
Jul 28, 2020 at 10:45 AM UTC
for SJR
who lets me borrow his voices, a good man, asks for nothing in return
and therefore, is given all I got...
~~
“She's as sweet as tupelo honey
She's an angel of the first degree
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
Just like the honey, baby, from the bee
She's my baby, you know she's alright.....“
Van Morrison
~~~~~~<<<<<>>>>>~~~~~~~~~
*old folk listen to old folk
and rock,
stung and sprung
from Pandora's box
someday
maybe,
you'll understand,
certain phrases,
from certain phases,
first tasted at a flavored oxygen bar
where youth drank,
worshipped and adored
and when those certain
word combinations reenter,
slipping in from unawares,
recalling easy the first time
you tasted with your ears,
Tupelo Honey
but what you remember is
that differentiating phrase
and
what you believed,
what you needed,
why you existed,
all because there was a new knowing*,
that
an angel of the first degree,
was out there waiting for you...
Jul 26, 2020
Jul 26, 2020 at 2:15 PM UTC