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flux.
a word whose very sound connotes its meaning, a sloshing state of change

a liquid moment,
for we solids,
of bone and flesh,

though
we may be islands of stolidity,
entrenched, focused, organized,
when the surround sounds
of change are all about
you too are
fluxed

the serenity of splendid isolation
is not an impervious shell,
close eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth
these liquid times we abode,
inescapable from the roller coaster of
crashing storms of our
environment

try as I might,
cannot recede into a
white sealed envelipe,
cannot secede from
the froth of current events,
in the age of no distances,
and the rotational revolution of
but one lever,
a single beating wing
can disrupt the
the supply and communication
channels of our normative existential machinations

let me retreat unto my poetry trance,
but that choice
is currently unavailable

be wary of the calm of routine,
we live in a time of
the olympics of change,
and we cannot walk
on water,
nor tread forever

flux.

the liquidity curse of our
ever curving intersections
The year of 2025
a decent night's sleep,
my body to keep,
early light invades the
blinking eyesight, and
an indeterminate sky,
yet offers us an
either/or,
heads or tails,
success or fails,
what will the gods
offer us all humans,
to select, elect for this
anniversary of our
country's formation?

the slow rising sun
over the North Fork
will soon provide its
decision/incision for
our nation tumultuous,
turbulent, course direction

it appears that the silent
dawning will give us yet
another chance, a morning's
golden hour, with that irradiating
light that bathes us with visionary,
equality of light, light of equality,
but
last night's thunderstorms leave
us the detritus of savagery of
thunderous rains that came
with fury, reflecting our confusion
and the danger shoals that appear
with no warning, yet reminds us,
once more,
one more time,
even in troubling days,
of the blessings
of opportunity
that each day,
each unique sunrise
provides us choices,
and
skies have now spoken:
the early warming rays are
reminding hints that a new day
owns equal opportunities to
make our country beautiful
for spacious skies and
amber waves, of
water and light,
if we choose wisely, rightly...

July 4th
Silver Beach
Shelter Island
2025
I sit in the sun room, I am shaded for the sun
is only newly risen, low slung, just above the horizon,
behind me, over my shoulder, early morn warm

Slivers of sun rays yellow highlight the wild green lawn,
freshly nourished by torrential rains of the prior eve

The wind gusts are residuals, memoirs of the hurricane
that came for a peripheral visit, like your unwanted cousin Earl,
in town for the day,
too bad your schedule
is fully booked,
but he keeps raining on you,
staying on the phone for so long, that the goodbye,
go away, hang up relief is palpable

The oak trees are top heavy with leaves frothy like a new cappuccino,
the leaves resist the sun slivers, guarding the grass
from browning out, by knocking the rookie rays to and fro,
just for now, just for a few minutes more,
it is advantage trees,
for they stand taller in the sky
than the youthful teenage yellow ball

I sit in the sun room buffered from nature's battles external,
by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization,

and my thoughts drift to suicide.

I have sat in the sun room of my mind, unprotected.
with front row seats, first hand witness to a battle unceasing

Such that my investigations, my travails along the boundary line
between internal madness and infernal relief from mental pain
so crippling, is such that you recall begging for cancer or Aids

Such that my investigations, my travails along the sanity boundary
are substantive, modestly put,
not inconsiderable

Point your finger at me, demanding like every
needy neurotic moderne, reassurance total,
proof negative in this instance, of relevant expertise!

Tell us you bona fides, what is your knowing in these matters?

Show us the wrist scars, evidential,
prove to us your "hands on" experiential!

True, true, I am without demonstrable proofs
of the first hand,
my resume is absent of
razors and pills,
poisons and daredevil spills,
guns, knives, utensils purposed for taking lives

Here are my truths,
here are my sums


If the numerator is the minutes spent resisting the promised relief
of the East River currents from the crushing loneliness that
consumed my every waking second of every night of my years of despair
                           divided by
a denominator that is my unitary, solitary name,
then my fraction, my remainder, is greater than one,
the one step away from supposed salvation...

Yet, here I am sitting in the sun room buffered from
nature's battles by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization

I am a survivor of mine own World War III,
carnaged battlefields, where white lace curtains,
were not buffers but dividers tween mis en scenes,
variegated veins of colored nightmares, reenactments of
death heroics worthy of Shakespeare

Did I lack for courage?
Was my fear/despair ratio insufficient?

These are questions for which the answers matter only to me,
tho the questions are fair ones,m my unsolicited ******,
they are not the ones for which I herein write,
for they no longer have relevance, meaning or validity,
for yours truly

I write poetry by command,
by request, good or bad,
this one is a bequest to myself, and also a sidecar for an old friend,
who asked in passing to write what I know of suicide,
unaware that the damage of hurricanes is not always
visible to the naked heart

These hands, that type these words are the resume of a life
resumed,
life line remains scarred, but after an inter-mission, after an inter-diction, an inter-re-invention
in a play where I was an actor who could not speak
but knew every line, I am now the approving audience too...

But I speak now and I say this:

There are natural toxins in us all,
if you wish to understand the whys, the reasons,
of the nearness of taking/giving away what belongs to you,
do your own sums, admit your own truths
query not the lives of others, approach the mirror...


If you want to understand suicide,
no need to phone a friend, ask the expert,
ask yourself,
parse the curtains of the
sun room and admit, that you do understand,
that you once swung one leg over the roof,
gauged
the currents speed and direction,
went deep sea fishing without rod or reel
and you recall it all too well, for you did the math
and here I am, tho the tug ne'er fully disappears,
here I am, here I am writing to you,
as I sit in the sun room.

Memorial Day, 2011
hard to believe this poem will be 8 years old, soon enough; I well recall writing it and willx return to the sunroom soon for inspiration and an afternoon nap.
when the time is best described as
"the morning muddled middle"

for it is the middle of the night,
and yet,
we have crossed over the midnight divide,
the new day is well commenced,  
but the prevailing dark sky says,
not quite yet!

this journey,
from the bed to the head,
is an abbreviated 20 steps,
you fall out of one,
unable to recall,
hours of vivid dreams,
now only scraps of script,
visions, whipped into the void
of the current blanket of a
night cosseting silence

in return for this
adventure travelogue,
you are granted free access to the top of your skull,
where apparently,
a new set, a fresh combo,
has been delivered, not by Amazon
not by messenger, not by the USPS,
but by your own,
fermenting, fermenting, formidable,
yawning
brain cells
and a poem appears,
wholly holy complete
space, typed and neat,
and falls from your lips,
filtered by your eyes
with no hesitation,
"and not a trace of farewell

and this miracle,
is no miracle at all,
for it is routinized,
a daily occurrence,
the mystery of it
long gone,
The How,
dissipated, disappeared,
and delivered unto
You

your obligation, your need,
your urgent pungent
purging,
is strifeless,
and you owe
but you have no idea
to whom or what
to thank for this
bestowing

is this poem a stowaway?
or did it pay for its passage,
in cash, by credit card,
or barter ?

if by barter,
what did I surrender?
what item or thing of great value did I trade
for this permissive missive
that was created
for the soul purpose,
of being shared?

it's birth was painless,
the cutting of the cord,
was never felt!

and within minutes,
it went from birth to babe,
child to adolescent,
young adult to middle aged,
to now,
a senior senile senatorial
presents itself fully formed,
weaned wise and wizened
and served to you
on white porcelain dishes,
with black cutlery

so fresh, so hot, so new,
that you are the first
or perhaps the last,
even the only
to ever taste it…

I ask for your forgiveness,
though invited
on this journey to this meal
and it's many courses
and its mirrored ball of
disco discourses,
it is signaling,
like a wise fool frantically waving,
enough!
telling you that you
have arrived
at an ending,
that we each name,
Our Destination


so be it
so be it
so it be

now a shared property

<>
            

  NML


April 15, 2025

labor commenced
at 2:27 AM
and the poem~baby
with all its limbs, all its senses,
was delivered to you,
its adaptive & adoptive
parents
at 3:22 AM

so good night, good day
and good luck!
>crumbled, rumbled, street survivors,
paper scraps that took the rage abuse rap,
dead love notes, bills red with overdues,
these pre-poems have traveled wind currents
some in from Jersey, some hailing Minnesota,
ain't never see one that crossed the Atlantic,
but reckon it is not a theoretical impossibilty

unpretty city streets, like a museum, collects 'em,
plenty of exhibition space, forlon, historically
orphaned, disbanded, whose paths all got confused,
some sweet, all beat, balled and thrown, no home,
no more, each a reveille, each humming taps, now,
all scented by strret odors, none pleasant, each was
in its prior life, the meat, the grist, the meal of what
was, coulda been, a poem that would have survived
yellowed in care, tender glanced, tucked in books,
safekept, but slipped away, victims of friction, fraction

look down, be unafraid, unravel them slow, careful,
abused, all these messengers all need a good home,
a box in a closet, a book of tenders, witnesses to what
they've seen, places they've been, hand held, tenderized
by words spiced, variegated, ink, pencil, typewritten, like
their prior human authors, all sizes, all shapes, some on
colored paper, a l l astrayed, accidental, purposed, details
and detritus, once deemed essemtial, important, necessary
and needed, even believed, but times change

you're stuck, brain ain't cooperating, tired of staring inside
your self's self, pull on a sweater, it's a chilly spring overcast air,
that don't natural warm, more naturally warn, be careful where,
you step, your next poem is laying right there, grab a few, take
more than a couple, this is like a school dance, try a few, until
you bank the right one in the till, the connection made, a kiss,
in secret stolen, and the drive, the forces, the perspiration urgency
leads to you desk, nook, granny's cranny, and the world of words
overflow like seagulls in a harbor, so many spilling, hard is the
choosing, but excited adrenaline, free basing, in your veins and
****, you gotta just write again, right now, add a ***** poem
back to its rightful place in a heart, upon eyes, tongue taste them
syllables, clap and laugh as they symmetrically form, subtle rhyming,
the sleeping seeds have sprouted, the brown brain loamy cells,
fertile and potent, energize, impregnate, and you just can't wait
to walk the streets, in search of many, many more

it's ok, you have permission to utter a whispery nearly silent
hallelujah<
April 13 2025  10;10am NYC
this cane to me sudden, slow and no intentend to  marry< no reason wht,
but the title hit me square, and sat down and spilled the beans, and left me quite
satisfied, almost a little purged
of what would we write?
of ourselves,
of/to
each other,
would that be sufficient?

cannot imagine the
absence of these essences?

that reassures
our places in the universe,
gifts to us each,
to preach hallelujah

rue that day,
and your only choice
of smiling or crying,
or both,
for the world’s clothing
is an invitation to
begin creating
most of my poems come spontaneous,
dare I say even easy, the composition,
tumbling rumbling usually no fumbling,
this one, the prep commences. a month priority plus, with wellsprings of considerations,
in advance…

’tis Miz Patty’s day of birth,
ah, the feminine mystique
prevents me from revealing
her precessional numerical
decades of decadence,
but adoration of this Magi,
is not so constrained,
so bend my knee to the woman
who writes a
poem’s complexity
as if it were a fine
medieval tapestry,
colors aflaming,
workmanship intricate
intriguing, well deserving
of a place,
in the Metropolitan Museum Cloisters fortress,
that guards
the Hudson River’s Upper Valley’s
verdant stippled wider majesty,
near to where Washington’s
troops fled Manhattan heights
to safety in New Jersey, most
ignominiously

I’m told that tears arose,
then fell, when first she
read  this inattributed essay
on this jubilee day, a clarion
reminder note of her coronation,
to this great green planet,
Missoura Mama as she is
with great affection so known
throughout this glorious land

Ah, wax too eloquent,
never my style,
only my favorite sin,
when one begins
to pray tribute,
to a finer poet…and
mine own heroine

this aperture of insight,
this scrap of script,
why the papyrus turns
pinkish red, as she demurs
this ode of praise,
while the edges crisp
burnt, brown ~black
by the heat of her outraged
enraged protestation
of “way too much,”
a pretense commenced
by my opportuned
impermissioned reveling
revelation of this
datapoints accidental
dislocating disclosure

as is my sin actuelle,
go on too long says
my devil muse,
so a final thought

if this should somehow be,
the first poem you’ve recovered
in this land of words gone mad,
make to hers, and there spend
a day, a lifetime, in a lovely land,
where her words will slip through
your eyes and hands, like fine
grains of sand, each letter,
a pearl in
black and white*…
fair warning: if alerted to the daylight of your arrival, for five bucks we promise not to write
you up or down, cash in advance only…
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