<>


so she says...

your mouth suddenly goes Gobi Desert dry,
somehow manage a single swallow,
sounding as loud as if you've cracked
all twelve of you pistol-toting open carry knuckles simultaneous

****, as ridiculous as I sounded,,
it can't be worse than my succinct, elegant,
pithy response of a choking, but interrogatory
                                                   ­                              ahem?


(translation: excuse me, what did you say,
are you crazy, and did I hear you correctly
and are you completely crazy?)

then that awful pause
as you wait for
further guidance
from her mission control,
a scientifically measurable and
unendurable two shakes of a lamb's tail
(10 nanoseconds in atomic scientist lingo)

while that interminable wait drags on and on,
you manage to prepare an Old Testament long
and truly impressively worthy sing-song
list of variegated absurd follow up responses,
including:

- **** those ten pounds that summer slipped on so quietly
- is she really that crazy
- does she really think you're that crazy
- really? naked naked? (as opposed to just naked),
   or just in a, uh, a bathing suit?
- hot ****! there is a first time for e v e r y t h i n g!
- mmmm, what's she really after?
- am I going to be an Internet instantaneous super star?
- but I'm not tan down you know where
- she's just making fun of a really old man
- that's gross (or more accurately,      
   "I am so gross looking i.e. **** those ten pounds")
- yeah baby
- and the concluding eloquent summarizing thought of:
"make me an offer I can't refuse"
  which sounds suspiciously
  in your aged brain sadly like
                                                                                "you talking to me?"


then she laughs sweetly and says,
not naked, naked pictures silly,
just those poems where you bare your soul,
reveal more
of your core,
ones where we get to peek
(peak? couldn't resist) inside,
that comely come, studded,
(surely she must of meant studly,
says my semi-wounded pride)
that brain
you try to disguise
from where you draw
equal measures of pleasure & pain,
revealing yourself and so,
revealing us as well,
in a publicly secret way

cloyingly, subtly, adding
in a man-killing seductive  manner,
"after all that's a kind of love poem too,
is that not so?"
dancing me into submission, knowing,
that when Wanda-Goldfish like,
elle répète en français,
est-ce pas?"
there is no question who's the master
and who will be role playing the obedient
slave to poetry

oh well...

Sic transit gloria mundi, all glory is fleeting..

but still,

that's a not half bad compliment....

so I reply

you know there is a very
steamy seamy dark side to me

and as proof,
and in fulfillment
of her request,

I gave her this love poem

                                                and no telling what happened next

<>

Hebrew calendar says Summer Sabbath,
the day of rest has, as scheduled...arrived

wryly, ironically, bitterly,
poet rhymingly thinking nowadays...survived

more apropos,
#even survived alive,
for therein is a concomitant, under-the-surface implication,
of the uncertainty of forecast  future,
for no matter how theoretically normalized and organized,
even a trip to a shopping mall...deadly

survive - a far, far bitter...but better fit

not sure of the why-well of my being here,
poem composing scheduled, always on this day of pause,
this week-ending demarcator of the who I am

I am among the many of little understanding,
who having garnered no solace nor rest,
that a seventh day supposedly, is purposed to beget,
for the world is in a ****** awful mess

with neither the rhyme or the reason,
the single breath I expirate, as proof of life,
is this season's perfect, sufficing hallmark,
symbolic of the reign of unceasing confusion that has left our minds
damaged and contused,
secretly selfishly thinking to oneself,
#my life matters


this Sabbath, I speak German,
the language of my father and his father's,
all my ancestors, even unto the years of the Age of Enlightenment,
today, spoken in the ironic dialect of Munich

Am Morgen borning glorreiche
the morning borning glorious

poet seeks an answer, mission to permission,
to rightly explain
how he visions in unsightly confusion
how he divines loving in Munich's tribulations

sitting in the poet's nook, upon the ancient Adirondack chair,
nature listens to the poet discordant chords
of musical tears upon musical chairs,
wet-staining flesh

all around, the other noise makers gone quiet as well
for they are pityingly, eavesdrop listening for what happens next

The Chair speaks:

"this day,
I am happily,
made of wood,
my living cells
long dispatched,
so that I can no longer
weep in time
with my poet-occupant's
struggling lines,
verses upon the decomposing
of the worst of times,
though in compathy,
my silence, by and to him,
is gratefully unnoticed"

the poet  has no visitors this fine day,
none human or divine anyway,
but not alone

for a gaggle of old ones have early come,
from Rebecca's and his mother's Canada dispatched,
my regular geese guests southbound have returned for their
summer stopover,
but so early,
for the calendar must be telling lies,
it says these are the days of July,
so named  for all  to recall
another murdering assignation~assassination,
that of a fallen Caesar,
another-man-who-would-be-god

my summertime flying audience comes yearly to share the bounty
of this, my sheltering isle,
good guests who in payment for their use of our facilities,
honk Facebook  "likes" in appreciation
for every writ completed in the nookery

this year of fear, the geese are newly self-tasked,
seeking solace to share and understand the world weariness,
so strongly encountered in the roughened atmospheric conditions
newly facing all of us

everybody's needy for respite from the next

where next?

a plump audience of eleven
on this grayed sunny day,
greet me, honking, feverishly, excitable honking, but!

auf Deutsch,
in German

full of questions about predatory man
which I fluently comprehend but of answers,
have none completed, none sealed as of yet,  
any writ by my hand to give away or
even keep

so when the temperature cooingly cools,
on their way further south, them,  it sends,
they will not be burdened with the empty baggage
of inexcusably and poorly manmade
naturalized, pasteurized, synthesized,
crap excuses

the poet's own reflection in the fast moving bay waters,
is not reflected,
these, no calm pond waters, but his own internal reflections,
beg him, explain this poem's entitlement,
this designation of confusion and its inflection,

confusion as something lovely?

no good answers do the witnessing waters or the winds sidebar provision,
the geese, the chair, all unfair,
only have similar quarreling questions for him to dare

foremost and direst first,
where is there loveliness in confusion the poems sees?

poet stands on the dock, as if in the dock,
noticed, the waters pause, the winds into silence, swept,
the gulls grounded, the geese aligned in rapt attention,
all to the poet, as jury, they steadfastly attend
to his creation, this poem's titled curse,
an answer even barely adequate, some solution?

In Munich,  ****** born and welcomed,
Dachau, the very first death camp,
sited a mere ten miles away

one could conceivably could demand that

this poet, this Jew, this could-be-Shylock,

having seen a pound of flesh extracted,
might accept this balancing as a compensation
of history's scales weighted by the concentrated demise
of millions of his very own flesh and faith

but he does not...

a nation takes in a million strangers and refugees,
not without peril costly,
visible now, these side servings of risk,
that noble gestures so oft bring

what he feels, why he cries is for the

loveliness of forgiveness,

he unashamedly honest borrows the words he confesses,

any innocent man's death diminishes him

now the winds kicks up, the waters refrosted frothy,
the gulls go airborne, the geese fly away,
searching for another poet to respirate, infatuate and inspire,
clearly, neither satisfied or enchanted with the one
presently available

only the aged Adirondack fair, his aged long time companion chair,
remains moved - but unmoving,
in the domaine of their unity, in the vineyard of
their conjoined, place of quiet contemplation

a woman observes tear stains upon his cheeks,
noticing them upon the chair's open arms now all-fallen,
tho a surface wood hardened,
the tears are softly welcomed and storingly embraced,
absorbed

the three,
the woman, the chair, the poet-me,
all as one, tearfully, no longer cry in vain,
having  found a white coal seam amidst the black bunting
that decorates their glum apprehension of tomorrow's tidings

<>

Saturday,
July 23, 2016
10:29am
Shelter Island

~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