~for Ernesto, with love~
these last days, so recently arrived
to nag/remind, pre-commence,
the celebration
of mine fast approaching,
significant other mileage marker,
the day that is the in-between mid and seniority,
finds me asleep by nine,
only to be turned hard a starboard,
startled and startling,
sharp awoken at midnight,
a headful of dreadful and most colorful dreams,
my ever faithful midnight alarm clock
so I find myself alert and inclined to be
urgently communicative,
answering queries from friends,
catching up on comments and likes
to my poems that once penned,
are then penned by me themselves,
surrounded by fences,
put away to be ignored and enclosed,
my flock of sheep unshorn
that upon occasional re-reading
then become hairless, all pink and white skin,
newly denuding of me
by the reminder of public exposure
this travelogue
through heart and mind
is journey for journey's sake,
I have discarded older outdated notions
(the "outdated" conceptual
begs for a poem all its own)
of commencement, beginnings,
ends, finales, terminals. even periods.
instead I conquistador land upon a new
plateau, familiar but confusing,
where my muddled thoughts
have lain for several days,
cloudy in a accumulating cumulus of realizations,
the "compare and contrast" of
life and death,
their gravitas diminished,
understanding them to be but modest signposts
upon the path of this
stewing, brewing, yearning to be free
poem
~~~
The In-Between
all day, I too,
am penned in a museum auditorium,
listening, hearing, applauding a gorgeous gaggle
of writers, musicians, doctors and dancers,
security guards and comic book authors,
falsely accused death row prisoners,
sons and daughters
and yes,
even a poet laureate
all assembled to contemplate this connective notion
of curator-as-written
with capitals and hyphen (most appropriately) as
The In-Between
of course dear Ernesto,
everyone defines their personal in-between
personally
but all these artists corral my thoughts
onto and against a canvas blank,
awaiting the portrait painting
slow cooking in my oven
of you,
who lays dying in Texas
surrounded by family and
the notions of reconciliation
and thus birthing
in me
these words,
something new ironical,
if only to prove a point
You,
my self-appointed
mentee
ex-drug addict, father,
self-savior of yourself
make
I,
your mentor, cheerleader, steadfast critic armed
with
just encouragement enough to give your self-propelled
poetry an occasional push
of your hand-carpentered, tree swing
but this is a poem about
in-betweens
two words,
separate and equal
but when combinated by a
hyphen,
a dash that leaves no spaces
in-between
making two into one
for you and I
are both
in
and
between
each other
two-in-one
only a few weeks ago we talked about
you coming to my new york city,
and now life deserts you,
and you,
me?
here I pause and smile
for I hear you thinking,
natty, too long, too much,
wrap it up and connect that special and peculiar,
in-between,
-
*but I can't stop
for each hour of the last 72
has witnessed a new poem
in-between
minute one and minute sixty five
written for you,
writing for life,
writing of this moment
this space so gulf and so narrow
in and between
the unity of
us
the poet laureate talks of spaces,
the poem she reads out loud,
is emitted light from her body's mind
exhaled into the room,
and now designed to be placed
in-between
her and us,
purposed to successfully connect
our in-betweenness
I do not like this notion of
rest in peace,
as if peace was a desirable end in and of itself
prefer rest in pieces,
for what follows and precedes peace,
is pieces of ourselves
torn from the notebook
where we write down our poems unique and
secrete our secrets
rest in pieces!
connected by the in-between
which like
the
s p a c e s between e a c h letter here,
are the connective tissues of two parts
one, new
and the other,
created-crested by the transference
of every old reworked
I think of spaces differently
the gap between two fron teeth,
the space between two violin strings,
the V separating divider of the space
between our legs that is the baseline
of our torso entire,
the re-appearing and then disappearing space
between two bodies making love
all now remind that the
in-between
is a place of its own purport,
a parapet to stroll across from
one castle keep to another
so more and more,
mere mortal
are these discards,
I forsake these antiquities:
commencement, finale, terminal, ending,
even new beginnings
and all attention paid now to the recasting of our
happenstances and events
as a series of
in-between's,
the most valuable of our possessions,
connecting the only-seemingly
disparate days
but I must now return once more to the
in-between
of us
we uncovered something of ourselves
in
each other,
creating a causeway
between
for you and I are one big
differential,
so unlike in
life's
temperamental,
that
given the down easy to the shock and awe,
most happily easily,
our so very differing poems bridged the
in-between
us
the in-between us,
seen incorrectly as the timeouts
separating the fifteen rounds we fight
that is the thing,
the rub,
the main event on the fight card,
is not the fight itself,
but the crossing over
come quickly to our in-between,
my brother-in-words,
do not leave me
bereft and bereaved,
disconnected and despairing
let's follow,
both of us,
the trail
of dividing and connecting hyphens
---------------
I, given every advantage,
you, given every ghetto gang disadvantage
yet your voice soars
while mine aches and creaks
and breaks
I am better now
understanding existence as
a series of connected in-betweens,
but the not knowing when we will meet again
for the first time,
stretches me thin,
for without you
in
me,
between
us
the space flickers wider,
and the next in-between far far distanced,
further for farther,
and I worry,
who will love my poetry as you did,
who will be my encouragement now?
your passing shall not come
in-between us,
this I swear
~~~
in your honor of
your cellphone misty typo pings and compulsed hurried style,,
I do not edit this edifice that. I have lain down just now,
it was writ in slow haste and
fast forming eddies of ideas,
full of typographical errors of
omission and commission,
just
put out down as it was born,
just as you and I
we were put out as born,
only to cross and combine
to be a single
in-between
3:24am
Sept 26, 2015
------
The DedPoet
5 hours ago 3 hours ago
A Final Poem
Though I stand at the precipice
Of eternity's brimming cup,
Filled with hymn and speech
Alive like a livid wound
Gasping for more heavy minutes,
I wonder at the things left unsaid.
The sun mounts the coast
Consuming the resurrection
Of my forsaken throat,
The penetrating odor of certain
Death,
Still in this fragility
A certain voice I still call
To in dreams that come ever stronger
In the gentle atmosphere
Where night is born
And the dawn of her smile,
Here destiny can be seen
With continuity of life.
In this memory
I feel the calm of a faraway star,
My journey to he taken among
The densities
Which petrifies the brilliance
Of my shining fear,
My great love like my life
Should become an omen
That flies out of my hand
And becomes an actual presence
While the world is suspended
As I leave for the transparent skies.
And my life with her was a harvest,
My memory drinks of her
Forehead lit by the moon,
My lost time in a repugnant solitude
In my unmajestic life,
I arrive at forever
Because I loved her,
And yes because she loved me back.
The world is a mystery to me,
And I will leave as a question
Filtered by words
In a journey of galleries
Visible by the days I was alive,
Among the corridors I will see her
Face,
Among the words I will
Have given to poetry
What life had given like pillars
Of magic,
Taken by the arches of light filled
With enduring gratitude
For my greatest sorrows,
Simultaneously my greatest joy.
Like a song in the wind
I voyage the flames
Fanning the fire of words,
Because she loved me these words
Were born,
Because I loved her,
I birthed a poem.
And upon my death
Collect my fragments and place
Them under the tired sun,
Swept away by the ocean tides
Full of anguish under the flowering
Of my death,
I will be a poem remembered,
Nostalgic and scattered.
Here in the flesh,
My eyes see,
My hands touch,
I seek the say to live as a bird,
I search without finding,
I pace the shadows off the lonely
Walls ,
The day ends, the minutes end,
These heavy seconds
Of walking onward to the next life.
Where is my life without her?
And the poem absurd and short,
Death makes one know the worth,
The drowsiness of these poets,
Awakening when something ends.
Unleashed is my word,
Flawed and with no center,
I am a dying man.
Angry and bitter,
Tempered by the words
Never spoken,
The words I will never say,
Though I die and go to a body
More golden and transparent,
To a land with tiger lilies
In undying meadows where the sun
Dances on the outskirts
Of the night,
I know I have lived,
I lived because she lives now,
And she loved me.
My persecuted ways are done,
I relieve to you all
This final poem,
Filled with her grace,
The love of my life,
A final verse to say nothing more
Than goodbye,
Where the writing is done
By living,
Death shall remain but a word.