I dreamt I still knew myself the moment you turned your face to me

you were about to enter a very personal space: a diary, a dream journal, a shoebox of love letters, a suicide note, the angry ramblings of a madman

Standing on the bridge where we're no longer suffering, the dream exhaled

and joy found eternity running over the closing frame, floating away in every direction where time intervenes

She sits in
the truck, quietly
waiting for her
husband.
Spring's broken
promise.
25 degrees.
She thinks about the
robins, and their sweet
song.
She can almost see
the daffodils,
butter yellow.
She thinks of pancakes,
breakfast with the
family,
and all those caged
animals at the zoo,
with their poor,
tired, glazed eyes.

miles davis blowing sad
and in the ruins of his room
among the empty beer cans

the room where the floor is tilted
like the fun house floor

he wrote his poems
on the back of over due bills

on paper plates flung out the window
like dying daffodils

on those orphaned buildings
on cookman ave


the click clack
and the sad echo
off his duct taped boots
drifting off empty stores

in the soulless town
he gave a heart

the man
axe in hand
chasing tommy down 5th avenue

too soon the night has found you

too soon you left this earth

we use or misuse each other
we don't ask as often as needed
the eye of the needle
the sky is closer
storms are wiser
waters sleep in the seeds of wind
everything so holy entangled
sweet deceit in lustry illusions
glamour for amour
cover up for unforseen
the unbearable unknown
everything so wise
like the eagerness of colts

So it goes, said Vonnegut

casually I am your anything
a strange causality a presence
this cocoon of desire
of course, urgent lover
next day another mirror
friend in the afternoon
a simple woman in the morning
slippery oblivion by midnight
unearthed hieroglyph
all night wide
foe and moan &
foam of laughter
SOS in a bottle
but not of wine
******* from time to time
not a dime piece, but she is
a penny for your thoughts it is
you can make and you can take
the cinema on/of my skin
let's speak with our ribs
for the sake of mimes
I could be your slave, but wait
when bus sirens fade away

incandescence is my name,
the patience of graves
of grapes

~for Lori Jones McCaffery who wrote me of:
“Her hands lay gently joined”

“So tenderly put”

<>
So sweet and tenderly put this trilateral phrase, a complement,
So sweet and tenderly put this lovely, geometrical compliment,
thus birthing this missive that was delivered in a mere 9 minutes,
a simple re-tribute to a poem scraped from eyelids, leaked from
my heart  
of what
I Witnessed,
of what
I Emoted

as my woman,
rustled besides me in the early morning sheets,
stirring my heart, as she astirring slowly awake.

love this title Lori has gifted me, for so few and far
are the in-betweens of the people, places and things,
that are so tenderly inserted in this banged up humdrum,
football game of daily living, pierced by primary moments,
even secondary seconds, of heart~glows that pierce the noise,
even-in-silence put a suffusion of the chest, kissing of the brain,
colored kernels that dare not go unnoticed, this eloquent, perfect,
thank you is a whispering tremolo note that

wakes me up again, with scents of gratitude, for those
who take care, those who give care, who value tenderness
in soft spoken gestures, brash and bold, smartly wisdomed,
so to honor her, to honor this moment of grateful inspiration,
I insert the exact moment these senses imploded in my chest,
ordering me to give thanks, take care, validate the valuation of words,

so tenderly put

2:10pm Mon Jan 30 2023