No job no dignity no cry.

look again at those words,
please,
with all deliberate speed.

dig.

just a little more, a little deeper.
scrape off the foolish pride topsoil that
looks (are) rich and fertile.

god bless the child who plants themselves
roots in the ugly, hardscrabble earth.
they cannot be uprooted.
never.

you have not ever seen my picture here,
of my face,
only once I showed a single hand,
well worn from
Digging
with only fingernails.

the hands of babies are soft,
easy to kiss, easy to love.

but the hands of responsibility
are usually worn lined scarred sometimes even
nail bitten from
**** digging for dignity.

Woke up with children in my mind, wrote two new,
then stumbled on this...
I give this poem to an orchestra leader I know, who understands better than most, that conducting and being surrounded by many, is oft the loneliest task and who knows best the meaning of
"finally, all synchronized in time and space, on a single continuum, within, without and through."

Thanksgiving Day 2011

Through
the picture window,
watching
restless generations,
multitudinous compilations,
children's backyard runnings,
all about, hide n' seek,
uncoordinated coordination,
well calculated randomness,
perfection in its
discombobulation

Within
my bloodstream,
chemical changes,
blow thru my veins,
direction home,
like leaves,
on a November weekend,
windswept from a thousand directions,
endless energy, noise, and commotion,
results of internal tremblings,
the side effects of satisfactions,
in ways I could only dream of...

Without
knowing, nonetheless,
the knowledge rests within,
footage of future days of
quietude and satisfaction,
recalling earlier simplicities,
records recorded somehow
before it happens,
records recorded now and then,
but only for
future consumption.

Harmonies of times,
well deserved,
to be future spent,
now, finally, all synchronized
in time and space,
on a single continuum,
within, without and through.

They say that Einstein erred,
time cannot outrace gravity,
therefore it cannot be
that I have seen the future.
Yet, I know with
unerring certainty,
these truths
posses the gravity,
that thanks,
I have and
will again,
gave,
and will give

The remainders,
the children,
the net of our gains and losses,
within them,
        my thanks lives,
without them,
        I am lessened,
through them,
        I am whole,

I need to sleep but want to keep awake,
and as I yawn it dawns on me, that what I do is what is meant to be
but it's all the same to me
I need to sleep.

She weeps beside a photograph, a young man laughing in the diner,and in the light,this black and white reminder,reminds her of a different time
when she had all the time or so it seemed
but now,
she weeps and keeps his picture by her bedside lamp beside the letters that he wrote,and in behind the goodbye note.

He wants to sleep as I do too, but minds that race must stay awake and face the demons of the night.
She was right,he knows that now but it's too late to make amends and so he sends another note,something else he wrote,which she won't read,she doesn't need another break to break inside her broken heart.

I want to sleep but need to keep, these two lives of mine apart,for I too have a heart and in my heart I know, that I was wrong to go,to leave her all alone,but then, my heart was made of stone and I was hardened to the days,to woman and her ways,
this thought stays with me as I lay down and see the ghosts arrive,looking at me from her dead eyes, and there's not a thing that I can do,
I wish I knew then what I know now
if only it could change somehow
but
I need to sleep
and have to keep
awake.

The fact factory where you can act out little, or well known facts,backs onto bridge street,which is another fact from the factory which is full of facts as you will see,
call in on me anytime after five or before nine and you can see the facts stacked in lines,though not always all the time,another fact you will agree
brought courtesy of the fact factory.

Ethereal: A Commissioned Poem


This one knocked me Askew! What do I know of
"an ethereal world created through the poetic imagination."

I am a flea of simplicity, a blunt and direct man, who scribes the small, cherishes the little, grabs the middle.
So many here are so far linguistically superior, when matters light, airy, and heavenly are involved.
Hell, I even call god, my buddy, by his first name when ****** stops by to make confession.
But first take a nine minutes, patiently, to listen to this, all the way to the end.
http://youtu.be/xxTF2umRtqY
Then, and only then, read.

— ethereal (adjective)

light, airy, or tenuous; "an ethereal world created through the poetic imagination;" extremely delicate or refined: ethereal beauty; heavenly or celestial; gone to his ethereal home; of or pertaining to the upper regions of space.

My ethereal is:
Autumn leaves, piled, wet and slimy,
stench rotted.

Human waste smeared,
in the the diaper
of the olden, enfeebled.

Burnt flesh,
the sulfuric acid kiss
from a rejected hand.

Cigarette smoke stains
yellow post-it's stuck on human skin.

Men who live in cardboard boxes,
knowing this is
the all of their days
existence.

Scowling smiles, a
coin of death,
on the faces of those forced
to sell themselves for money.

Cursing accident traffic,
until you pass the overturned car,
see the car seats, teddy bears,
just litter now, amidst the
safety glass highway tree decorations.

What did you expect,
some of your favorite things?

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages ******* with strings
Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs

Ethereal is Sandy swollen-springs
drowning mother and child in their SUV.

Froze dead vagrants
under white pristine,
suffocating,
beneath lovely snowflakes
that ****,
no strudel for them.

Mean ones pouring punch
on pristine prom dresses,
ruining dreams,
such a big scream,
put it in the yearbook,
don't forget the smiley face,
*******.

State troopers ringing doorbells
with so sorry sorry ma'am,
she is not coming home
any more.

Stop!
Why?
You all grown up, learn the real,
this ethereal is the real too.

Wipe that *** look off your face.

You want gossamer and lace?
Wrong poem.
Beat it.
Go whine about your heartbreak
to somebody else,

Ether is the aromatic odor and sweet, burning taste, derived from the action of sulfuric acid.
Look it up, disbeliever, if it matters, it is so
real.

If you gonna use a word,
then know it.
If you gonna claim
the title of human,
try being it,
earning it.

Ethereal is the orderly,
cleaning the *** of the helpless,
one more time,
softly singing.

Ethereal is a car seat
that saves a child, a teen.

Ethereal is soup,
hot hot soup for the
lying on the sidewalk.

Ethereal is miles of flags
receiving our dead
from overseas.

Ethereal is writing a poem about
someone else's pain
in your words.
just once,
straying away from the word I.

Ethereal is saying
hey to the blind,
careful,
wet leaves ahead.

Ethereal is human justice,
most un-divine.

Ethereal is not a thing,
nor even an adjective.
But a way of seeing the world.

Part II

Went out into the night,
back to The Village,
Bleecker Street.
where I used to live (#308).

Heard voices. Human voices.
A Room Full of Teeth.
They sang a Partita.
"A simple piece.
Born of a love of surface and structure,
of the human voice,
of dancing and tired ligaments,
of music, and of our basic desire
to draw a line from one point to another."

It was ethereal.
As I wrote these words in my mind,
My ethereals did not battle but blend,
the ugly and the beauteous.
They coexisted in peace?
I think not.
They coexisted in humanity
All that is delicate,
is only because there is rough.
All that is soft,
is only because there is hard,
Listen to the lines drawn from points on earth.
You cannot choose which points to connect.
For all point to
Ethereal.

Ethereal is not a thing,
nor even an adjective.
But a way of hearing the world.

Down came
the heavy rain
***** coal
coloured puddles

and you and Helen
stood under
the railway bridge

she clutching her doll
Battered Betty
close to her chest

you staring out
at the grey rain
thunder and lightening

making Helen scream
and clutching
your arm

her thick lens spectacles
steamed up
and hiding her eyes

I hate lightening
she said
what if it strikes us dead

it won't
you said
putting on

the brave boy routine
not while
you're with me

she didn't look
convinced
to a great degree

and peered out
through her smeary spectacles
when will it stop?

she said
it's not near
you said

you have to count
the seconds
between the lightening

and the thunder
and that should tell you
how far away it is

she took off her glasses
can you wipe these for me?
so you took the spectacles

and wiped the glass
on the end
of your shirt

until clear and clean
and handed them
back to her

and she put them on
that's better
she said

peering out
at the rain
and the puddles

on the cobblestones
of the short road
and the bomb site

nearby
you counted
after the flash of lightening

and the bang of thunder
10
you said

it's 10 miles away
she peered out again
at the grey sky

and pouring rain
seems right above us
she said

you gazed at her
standing there
drowned looking

with her hair
hanging over her face
and stuck

to her head
her dress clinging
to her tightly

her shoes sodden
you felt heavy
as if you'd swam

in a lake
and climbed out
fully dressed

with your jeans
and shirt wet through
clinging to you

I'm cold
she said
her teeth beginning

to chatter
her knees knocking
she clutching

Battered Betty
you put an arm
around her

and held her close
smelling the damp
the rain

the peppermint
on her breath
come

you said
let's go home
before we catch

a death
and you took her hand
and ran along

the cobblestones
stepping by puddles
and down Meadow Row

her fingers becoming cold
her hand wet
and slippery

and she beside you
clinging on
to her doll

by its swinging arm
making its one
good eye open

and close
like one feeling sleepy
wanting to doze.

This is for every sinking heart.
For every sleepless night.
Every set of lungs
gasping for whatever
will keep them from collapsing.
I know that air is not enough.
I guess my eyes couldn’t hold
my weariness any longer,
because it floods all my bones now.
An ocean inside each one,
and I’m still dying of thirst.
I cannot stop the pounding in my head,
the pounding in
my head,
the pounding
in
my
head.
I feel nothing.
I feel everything.
It’s okay.
Let me be.
Ghosts don’t like to lie down anyways,
they’re too busy filling my head.
The floor will feel softer one day.
It will feel softer one day.
I hope it feels softer one day.

Love is not four letters put together.
It’s you and me laying underneath the night sky
on a blanket too small to fit both of us.
It’s me wanting your eyes more than
any of the stars above us.
Love is not the words found on our lips.
It’s the silence I found your heart in at 3 am.
It’s the silence you found mine in too.
Love doesn’t live inside our hearts.
It’s carved into our bones.
It itches in our fingers.
Love is what keeps the pieces inside of me
together when I feel your hand brush mine.
And on the days that leave you at your weakest,
I will pull you close and remind you
that I’m still here,
and love is not just a feeling.
It was never just a feeling.
It’s the liquid you’ve put in my veins.
It’s the warmth I feel
when I wake up every morning.
I’m all out of metaphors.
To put it quite simply:
love is what I see in you.
And you are beautiful;
every piece.