read a thousand love stories,
pause, rest awhile,
read ten thousand more,
and then deny equality.

If you ask for no more than you can give,
you ask for not enough

love is imbalance not an equation,
with a single solution

love has both constants and variable factors

so you write of tribulations and tributes
so you write of lamentations and liftings

you think you are on the same page
perhaps
but do we not all read at different paces?

one of you is solid, one is dotted and dashed
one of you is straight, one is bent, forever curving

when you think you are
in balance
in the same place
in syncopation

perhaps you are for a moment
a calculus of one point on a trajectory

and you say I can only ask for what I give
and am given
and no more,
you have miscalculated

this flux
flummoxed
when the old terrain is flayed flat
but thru the windshield you see the
plateau ends, the geography unknown,

when you see unknown
when you seek the unknown
when you give from places you did not know
you had to give from
when you kiss a hand
for  twenty minutes more than than the one minute you intended
when you give more than is asked
when you ask for more than you can you think you can give
the imbalance is the only concert
the imbalance is the the only constant

how do I know this?
what are my credentials?
you are not a teenage girl,
what matters of what you know of these matters?

I am who I am
a diversity of man and manner
I am past prime and in decline
but this I know
for having failed ten thousand poem times
you must ask for more than one can give

but that's not fair!

silly one, still wretched confused,
even after one hundred
thousand poem times

you must ask of
yourself
more than you can give
and ask no less
demand no less

a body in emotion is not a body in rest
when the imbalance is too great or insufficient
then you write a poem
look in the mirror that cannot lie
and move
on
or
move
off

and begin to ask
yourself
to whom may I give myself
more than is asked
then you have finally asked
the correct solution to the
unsolvable equation

Cliche about love.
Cliche about depression.
Cliche about death.

Semi-clever play on words.
Stolen line, weak metaphor.

Trending in T-minus
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Mediocrity complete.

whipped cream over red-ripe strawberries
a dish-full with a spoon the size of Texas
yes this would be summertime in heaven

I take from every day
  laying down only
after what I want is done

every day just

  as the last
I walk the worn out
  path

acquaintance with buzzy bees
  hummingbirds
and colored things

red ground has my footprints
  worn
flowers trees green and brown grasses
   nod at me

I will not say their names
   as we are just passing friends
tilting our caps
   in frequency

Subtly we say hello
    

I go up and down
    to where after what I want is done
only then,
  do I lay down

and rest.

weary of mothers and friends
losing their children,
before their time,
weary of failing
to achieve reconciliation
with whatever one nominates
the force that regulates,
fate, Name-Your-God,
deity of your choice,
nature, laws of physics,
the "whatever"
that controls, interferes,
that you think to believe
wills these event's occurrence
non-randomly

cessation of formalities,
one sided truce
signed and delivered,
unafraid to call this
what it is,
**** and damning fate,
for no god
could be so cruel...

If only there was a
Dislike button
for life and the poems
wrenched from death

at 5:00 am
this thought is my
sole inhabitant

once again,
nature's bosses distort,
another friend's grief
asks, cajoles me
to betray my/thy belief

banish it or me,
for we both cannot be
cohabitants
under the one roof,
of this limited mind,
where flailing
poems
never good enough,
failing
to express my
sorrowed rage

for pennies, an app
to do the heavy lifting,
rhymes, pentameter,
all the quatrains ya ever needed

strained fever, emotions rampant,
insufficient and unnecessary conditions
for poverty poetry evocation,
even autocorrects insipid
really bad tiresome love poems,
après endless generation (degeneration?)

who needs you

you think
no such animal

you be write

for the art of life
cannot be mechanized

wrote a poem,
a wistful sad lament
on mothers losing children,
a prayer, a yelling, a condemnation,
the app was,
on this subject
uncommunicative,
un étranger
of silence
in all languages

you can buy love
but you cannot buy pain

too costly and
3D printers
give you plastic, disingenuous
wholly unsatisfactory

for a lousy $1.99
I'll write you customized,
supply the situation,
a few descriptive phrases,
60 minutes later,
et voila!

am you app,
am your scrivener,
don't do roses or violets
but yes to
rhythm and blues

will take
PayPal
PenPal
but no credit cards

you may take my words
as you own,
take my credit,
but I won't take yours...

I am app human,
bring me your lush, winsome,
plain vanilla, tutti frutti,
all acceptable,
for where the real stuff
comes from

I have only mined
the surface,
the veins beneath
richness for the asking