Every parting in life is sad....so was the demise of my dear sister! Yet the knowledge that there are others also to share my grief is the greatest consolation for me at this moment of loss. My sister's death was sudden and unexpected though she had some senile ailments. Through your kindness and comforting words, you expressed your kinship with me. I am so happy to be part of this community consisting of members who are able to feel for one another. This is my grateful reply to all my friends who found a little time to say a kind word! It means so much to me! May God bless you all !

Fire !

so it goes with anger

a ballerina

the forest

or my Catilina when she is jealous

for the moth

it is the gate to eternity

but for the wise moth

the secret to life

is to come back

with singed wings

The lonely lighthouse full of the sea and of its salt
In the distance ship horns can be heard
with their loud billowing swells
Up above the grey gulls cawing with their wings
fluttering looking for any crumbs
None will be found here and no happy visitor
greetings either only sad dormant farewells

Why do I feel so dull, Why is it I feel myself as just half a life and just half a light
Please help me find my light that once shone so bright from within
Help me find my purpose and to feel useful again

This lighthouse beacons for me
~ can hear him and can feel him
I could see what he use to be
what he could still be so easily again
I could see that light that shone from within
After all, I knew how he felt I too
had built up a lonely darkened wall

So I went to this lighthouse told him
your light has been there this whole time
You do not need a new light you are already
a brightness a joy for all to see
All you needed was some help to find it again
All you needed was me

I hold him and tell him close your eyes
Look up toward the sky my love
Feel that cool sea air tickle your face
Let that enormous sense of calm descend down
match your breath to that of the sea and all else shall be erased

~one more for the r man~

almost Monday
and its weighty five day oppressive lead poisoning on the horizon,
is but a thirsty thirty six minutes away from its fortified Sumter, first shot to be fired at midnight, how we love to mark the commencement of hostilities and killing

but I am already wounded, a casualty of having spent evening with pleading, pleasing timer eating, reading of your work,
r

the sounds of inestimable admiration and infectious jealousy
make this old man eager to discard a lifetimes work and
begin fresh, but only as a copyist of you,
r

I know you’re thinking "what in the hell is he blubbering about?"

so I willingly will my confessional offering in the dark of the
holy bedroom; for you make me eat my words, and
spit them out as wastage, in dumbfounding humility

god you and yours, make me frail and blessed that I stumbled
upon your abbreviations of the human life,
r

shut up and accept my three r’s
reading ‘riting and rising
up to sing hymns of praise
for a man with a historical perspective and
whose few occasionals
are carved in the granite bench
of what makes my life
worthy of load bearing;

more than bearable,
all are soul-enlightened by
baring our humility, our admiration

11:24pm 4/15/18
nyc