just before never...

my last performance,
the words came original
and easy, unlike all its
predecessors; someone
drew me a map of my
life and times, cities,
countries, and roads
well travelled and a few,
not too. Mountains, each with
a woman’s name, who carried
care, until she couldn’t, didn’t, and
time’s weathering returned us
individually into hillocks, and then
rain eroded us back into old soil.

the broad highways and back roads,
always snaking away, fork-forcing
directional choices, usually taking the
wrong way, the easy and safe one,
and how I have come to hate those
words: easy and safe, for they
are the pill combo that leaves you
for dead, dulling the questioning
one inquires of oneself, late, reluctantly.

But there is always the unexpected.

Today I saw a sunset on the Hudson
River with a humpback whale blowing,
running beside a river ferry, plowing the
waters back and forth tween two states.

Lived by this river for s e v e n t y years,
and have seen the whales in many places,
but here, in my city, in the river of my youth,
never.

and I got the sign, message received, there
are still sights and poems to behold, arms to
embrace, youngers to guide if they’ll permit it.

so this title, these two, just before,
this day, poem, came to remind me, the
days map remains unfinished, there are lands
and voyages and poems still awaiting drawing,
and it is tomorrow, and just before tomorrow, that
recording insistent demands, and a map is just a
moment in time, until just before...never


5:28 AM Thu Dec 10
2020 (a year deserving
of its own line and ending)

Manhattan, between two rivers.

<>

11:03 Sun Sep 20 2020
2nd Day Rosh Hashana 5781
S.I., N.Y.

when I was twenty years younger, I wrote oft introspectively,
nowadays, today, provoked by the High Holy Day, the New Year,
it is my only filter, lens, and this solitary perspective that this moment affords, permits, demands, commands, insists on,  
prepared by this confession, so that I may better return to the union of my divine spark, unify body and soul, recover my true self,
by acknowledging that I am
not beholden to anyone,
therefore, thereby,
     beholden to everyone

how inconsistently wonderful that additional experience, alive in a time of upheavals, pushes me past the first stanza, where most often, my poems, prayers, go to rest uneasy, incomplete, only to be buried alive in me.

Yet, here I am stuttering, sputtering, words that come unexpectedly!
I have reached a second stanza, with the ending well sighted, nearby. The collective, overlaid wake of each passing boat, finger pointing, a road line for following, to a larger directive, a river emptying into a great ocean, birthplace & graveyard

premature celebration as it’s weeks till I return to this poem-in-progress on a bleak week, the winterized grays have dominated, the freshness of sunlight is just an occasional peekaboo.

The larger directive now suppressed, the pilings of damp brown leaves, multi-message; funeral. mounds of good days gone to hell, the inward perspective has returned me to a deep, dark place.

(Stutter, stutter, each day asseverates solemnly with tinges of rancor, no, no, no, still no answers yet, the second and third stanzas are *******, suns of no man.)

~For Ayesha~

for simply put,
or
simply taken,
they’re a disguise...

eternal guards on duty,
alphabet soldiers that
grow more vigilant

standing reef,
a barrier,

a thousand years to erosion complete.

this is the right poem, but the wrong words. Mystified me, how
can this be? such a young person, whose words speak to me?

If we are not our words, what will we become?

things she doesn’t ask...

are they things,
she doesn’t know to ask,
or
are they things
to which,
she does not want to know
the answers.

my not knowing the answer to this puzzle,
drives me to distraction, her Mona Lisa smile,
accompanied by her noncommittal “whatever,”
hiding the answer, nearly leads me over a blurting edge,
but for my inevitable retreat, for the true question,
has a  truer answer, that comes as well, 
in question form.  

Why do I,


or do I,

want to know?

this house reeks of joy tonight
a teary-eyed girl— laughing
the gas heater and its sizzling flames
crimson socks with golden stripes
and a woman eating a slice of strawberry cake
a boy revising his lessons,
a man listening to news
the sound of oven and the roasting chicken
a boy making jokes
an old woman, on her rocking chair, smiling
— sipping tea

and the lights flicker off— the oven passes out
but the silky strands of fire in the heater keep swaying about
— burnt shadows on the creamy walls.
roast rests uncooked in the blazing heat
and the girl gets tired of laughing
— maybe it’s the sleep.
and her eyes ache
— maybe it’s the sleep.
the boy puts away his books, stretching his limbs by the fire
woman places her blood-stained plate aside
and the boy runs out of jokes
—maybe it’s the sleep.

but the heater keeps hissing
and gas fills up the room—
air packs up her bags and leaves, unannounced
something heavy slithers in and out our lungs.
heat and suffocation drip out this overfilled room
the roast waits, patiently, to be cooked
and slumber sinks deep in our bones
and our lights go off—

and though the flame twists and turns
—no one sees her
and the roast screams
but only the metal walls hear.
this house reeks of a peaceful joy
and the old woman dozes off to sleep
the girl covers up her feet
the boy yawns and hides his face under a pillow
and the news go on but no one listens
and only the heater stays awake in this house
— reeking of a flammable joy.

and the roast curls—
the roast curls up in his deathless form.

breathe—
like mint shrub under a drizzle,
Ink clawing it’s way up a quill
Like lemon grass growing
Like steam rising from a cup of tea
Like parchment.

Like confetti circling a cyclone
Like a whip kissing skin
a branch cracking
Like chalk against cement,
Like nails on sandpaper
Like glitter.
breathe—

But sometimes I lie straight on my back
Under a heavy quilt—
let my limbs slump away, let my fingers sink
weakly into sheets
And I think,
this is how we die—
Insipid eyes blanketed by skin
A book incomplete—closed midway, without a mark.
They may tie our chin and skull with a strip of cloth
to prevent our loose jaw from falling open,
this— is how we die

Like the carcass of Morning Glory
hanging— swaying in the wind
Like coal left behind by a burning log,
Like a dusty painting.
Like a moor.

No wings sprout out of our jagged backs
they put us in a box and clothe us in dirt
No earthworms spare our clotted blood
Clouds don’t come bowing down
nor does sky break to shards— for our escape.
solid bricks, we never did mind sleep
nor the warmth or tight embrace of our beds
the world's too big anyway— for our shrinking selves

Silence—
Like a beetle crawling down a leaf
the ocean behind a portrait
Like moon, yawning
Like a folded paper, filled with scribbles
Like dusk.

Like a still child.
a tongueless nightingale up a bough
Like words in a bottled letter.
Like rubble under smoke
Like a palette, unwashed.
Like a bone.
Silence—

And someone knocks under you—
You dig out the coffin and break open its lid
But it’s filled, to the brim, with mud.

And time spirals on—
Pushing us behind, and we fight against it.
A puppet tied to the sky,
wishing to see the end of an abyss
Like a stone under the ocean, dreaming of stars
breathe—
Like a newborn leaf.
breathe—

But the time spirals on—
and we, with the dirt, reunite.

Sun! dear sleepy sun.
Do you know what the squirrels are saying?
Say they heard from mice and moles
there’s a land beneath this land
Could you believe so?
These rooftops that you melt on
These trees— these roads— these waters—

But the lakes there, a frog exclaimed, are colder than dark
The buildings are grey skeletons— sometimes lesser
And trees— leafless— fruitless; tongue-tied with the winds.
threads stretching out in those nightly depths.
And humans— oh humans
but the snake shuddered at the mention

They’re raw! He hissed
like coal! Like a child’s burnt sock, alone on a blasted road.
there’s no flesh, no blood, sometimes not even—
But they’re alive, continued a worm
I heard ‘em talking—
Walking soundlessly in those ruins
saw crowns glimmer vividly over their heads

Sun! dear yawning sun.
I see you’re beginning to fade
I wondered if the folks there knew about you
—There’s no light there, not even a flicker!
but the snake told me.
and birds soar deep, wingless though they are,
in a sky choking of mud.
No one breathes for there’s no air to spare.
And the rat trembled,
and when I asked him why he did so
he only shook his head, closing his eyes.

And I thought
There’s a girl beneath my feet
A girl— withered and alive; alive
her inhuman sounds scaring away ants and spiders.
a sparrow up that bough
a crumbled mess of bones below—
And as your crimson colours pour over these silent moors
we put on our white-gold tires, and diamond rings
lay our worn-out daggers down to sleep
with only the dusk as witness

But sun! O should I admit
That I was bewildered
What land do you talk of? I asked.
The land below, said a rabbit, then pondered.
No, this land you talk of! a sky moulded and pounded
ash-white trees, sooty chirps,
vanquished beings with kingdoms and gems
— living and talking and—
and a squirrel scowled—

But I see you’re exhausted now
Here, I’ll cover you up with these clouds
And draw all of the curtains
the moon is only a street light far away
and stars, our locked up jewels
And I’ll guard this mortal sky for you

You, my sun, shall now be off to sleep.

{...}
Fire almost burned away
sizzling
every stench by now every quivering unauthentic vow of love
every trick played on you
for the sake of
surviving

But you'll come out soon
and you'll reek
of smoke and you will choke a bit
on your own courage
But Baby, it'll nourish this
entire world

Nobody fake it you
will make it through the flames

Soft blue folds itself
around you
you don't need to
control it
whispers in your ear and the wave this
sound lays out for you
has your feet
trust
the path you walk on