What would it mean,
this inverse capacity
for finding the illogical,
a contemplation upon
an endless mystery

This life you find yourself in,
a planet,
a place you didn't choose

why perhaps this realm
of disintegration
presents such
complex struggle

to find peace,
to seek something
higher,
this insane desire
in a reality so fleeting

what a perplexing thought
this is,
to have tranquility
even amidst
the most violent
of worlds

solve this puzzle,
a prize to unlock
where meaninglessness
transforms into meaning
and pointlessness
becomes the point

Angels with broken wings,
frostbitten dreams,
morphine nights,
and gangrene schemes.
She had that broken glass sadness.
The kind that gets worse with
every slammed door and every
lazy moon mad night.
The light in her eyes was dim,
like a candle in the fog, or like
a frog that dreams of flying, but
wakes up to the same old pond,
day after degrading day.
God, every time I see her, I want to
take her home and give her a bath,
feed her strawberries and rub her feet.
I want to free her from the rain slick
suffering she's stuck in, wash away the
stench of the lonely diesel strangers,
but I can't save her, hell I can't even
save myself.  So I *** her a Midnight Special,
and light it for her, with a brief sulfuric blaze
of glory bereft of any lasting light...
walk away...Jack-O-Lantern grin
into the lonesome neon night.

Relax, relief, Steve, a short one, I do believe,
is coming down the turnpike, a simple
thought kernel that occurs me to each
morning, and then gets swept out to
the sea, via the sound’s currents them,
a reality check on weather.com, an internet
a daily compilation of mispredictions,
guesses and disconnectedness to our
reality… that we yet must read first,
always & nonetheless…

so, here it is, a golden buttered kernel,
that flys past my poem seeking radar
so fast that, it has escaped for now
nearly sixteen years…

this spring chicken, lies besides his woman,
who wakes traditionally secondarily, and
she sleep best then, shedding the dreams that
come unwonted, the review and recap of life’s
tumult…and finally gets the deep sleep that
recharges our cells with restorative justice…

as she sleeps, her face sheds, a morning miracle,
deep at ease, she breathes soft, clean and clear,
silently and a m a z i n g l y, every line on her
face
eases,
disappears,
and her skin, smooth, tight,
and I’m face flushed, by guilt for never telling
her, and that guilt that has not been yet here
recorded, and yet…

a reminder that a first poem of the day (a FPOTD),
like morning ***, starts a human off right, clears
forehead, like smooth writing, fresh oven baked,
blue lines on paper, begging, asking for fufillment
and satisfaction, that has no competition, for it is,
unique, that the first deep breath of a day, when
you take in all that surrounds, and observe close
the minor miracles, all an addition, that gives our
body, the reasons to wake up, with wet eyes, and
just…
a thin, curly, half grin, hall (half+all✅) whimsy smile…

natty
6:34am
Sat Jul 20

(and this one flies out the window, past the oak trees,
to the water and the wind grabs by its lettered bones
and is sending it out to Iowa, Travese City Michigan,
Missouri, Oregon and the great  Northwest Pacific
over the Pacific, to the Philippines, India,  New Zealand, Israel, Europe, the UK as in You Know) and back past Lady Liberty in the New York Harbor, along the Long Island shoreline, to a little house on a little island, where it recenters my body, asking why oh why, no way, natty, have you not offered me
my first coffee of the day, (MFCOTD)
yet, all this traveling, loving and thinking is

so very tiring… java, por favor señor!)

With Highway One almost completely to myself
North of San Simeon
I find a pristine ocean on my left
Green covered hillsides on my right,
And a warm sun in a light blue sky above.
The stresses of the city and my topsy-turvy life
Begin to fall away as I relax and revel in it,
All alone here in my faithful Jetta.

The path strewn with hurdles and gravels
40 years is a long way to travel
Two souls sewn with love and peace
Two hearts dipped in bliss
Two minds not always in same strength
But determined within to walk the length.

40 years of building the nest
Patience and endurance put to hard test
Before one day the saplings become a tree
Heart upon heart two becomes three
Through fall and rise and sun downpour
Years flew as the three becomes four.

It's no easy work to raise a family
In all sadness live strong and happily
Blocks are thrown doubts are cast
Moments of life try to break the trust
But we didn't bow continued the thrive
A grownup family now, we number five.