(the gate is a crowded mess, please no special requests, be thankful you got a seat, this flight is sold out and I’m beat.  
I get up and stand on my chair and say)

I give thanks for:

the uncommon greatness of common sense

for the steady approach of that wondrous day when
kindness is neither random or unexpected,
but the rule, not the exception

for our opinions and deeds, that are our own,
derived without coercion, born from our thoughts and observations and that
we are equal to both
owning them and to
changing them

that we live in a time that friendships can grow just through the quick exchange of words leaping bounds

for eyes that see deep deeper than skin,
ears that hear
what those ashamed wish you didn’t, hands that grasp regardless of distance,
the taste of  kisses that come easy sweet  

for the  day when I at last knew,
the pleasure of giving
so far exceeded receiving,
that giving and receiving became
synonymous

that I learned that the best skill to possess  is
to anticipate
the needs of others

that my lucky position in this world permits me
to act on the things for
which I am thankful

that someday I will need no longer inquire,
are you my poem,
for the answer will be self-evident to us both

making love with no love
(kissed her with his freedom)

<•>

a new person in an overnight stay in a strange,
aptly named,
bed and breakfast

and

you do all the same things that just feel good, careless loving
that comes from practiced renewable remembering,
kiss her neck for hours, drink in her crescendoing cooing

rename her Appalachia, bemused, wondering why,
she gasp-asks, when your tongue traces her odyssey body
from her Georgia to her Maine, then no need to explain

it all feels familiarly strange, imbalanced, shaky, loving the thrill
of your first solo bike ride, an invisible hand letting go,
the wow of walking the line of new freedom and
old responsibility that you have walked on both coasts

carry on, love is coming to us all lyric, enacted-recalled,
loving yet another
long cool woman in a black dress with unquestioning

how to explain to her, how to yourself, loving with no loving,
and the best you can stammer is it is like writing a poem
with too many commas or none at all

she laughs you up with one mouth lingering,
then one amazing kiss on your heart
and nose,
grabs a piece of toast and gone girl,
then you are returned to alone, to the dreams that
may or may not have occurred and two hands overflowing with
too many commas
and none to keep
<•>


11-18–17 2:54am, somewhere

she just shakes her head

she meets me on the street-corner, me from work, she from dance,
in the grayling dusk of a thank god it’s a freedom Friday night,
I greet her with words semi-adventurous -

“come with me, few errands to run, keep me in good company”

to the candy store we go for to purchase my weekend eve
lottery tickets and blow-pop lollipops, just in case some
kids appear, a surprise omen as they come
trick-or-treating just before Thanksgiving


the Bangladeshi candyman calls out a long prayer
in his native Bangla

she asks “what’s that he’s saying?”

“Oh, just wishing us a pleasant Sabbath and
may his gods smile upon our good lottery fortune”

she just shakes her head, from side to side

emerging from the store, walking home in the
now doubly ***** darkly dusk,
a set of white teeth from a passing shadow-man says to me
“you’re home late and have a great weekend,”

she asks, “who is that?”

“why,” I reply, “that is our very own personal postal carrier’

she says:
“he delivers mail to ten thousand people all in buildings tall,
yet knows your name, your face,
where you buy your lottery tickets,
your coming and going hours,
how came that to be”

but waits not for an answer
she just shakes her head, from side to side

I show her my secret entrance to our apartment house,
the fast route to collect our mail, dry cleaning in one fell swoop
a secret door, secret elevator taking us directly to our apartment

a secret elevator which is under the direction of
Bimal from Nepal,
who I greet in Nepalese, (my tutor)
I, asking after Brian and Bryce, his 100% American boys

now she says nothing, but before our door, as I go key digging,
she just shakes her head, from side to side

later she says:

“let’s order in, apprise me of  your expertise,
some exotic fare from Manhattans First Avenue,
known for its aphrodisiacal powers
afterwards,
you must tell me each dishes name,
in its tongue’s nativity,
but much, much later,”

and as she speaks, grinning,
she sticks out her tongue,
while she just shakes her head,
but this time,

up
and
down

she,
a salty say
right direct into my fine cut
lines,
to wound and to love,

how ya doing,
what's new,
slipping in a well hid second base pickoff move,
seeing anybody?

you know me too well,
don't have the courage  
to lie or ask you the same
being an-in-love-no-more liar,
I turn around to reveal
that I'm now just a silent salt pillar gazing back,
my salty tears just adding,
replenishing my body's mass

<>

No, He said.

I want you
wanting.

I want to taste the miracle of your desperation,
need,
lick the sweet sweat of tense from the hairline well hid
on the back of your pleasuring neck.

I need your needing constant completion,
but not succeeding.

The airborne aroma of your desires are fiery, arousing,
stimulus sensating me by the unending beauty of dissatisfaction,
this virus desirous, infection, makes my perpetual wanting  
for an incomplete perfect woman,
forever seeking betterment,
perfectly complete.

<>

still be on my feat*

oh Joni you showed up at my door once more, Saturday morn,
blonde bangs and ***** voice, two octaves below shrill,
right about where the register intersection of
heart piercing, me humming, memory smiling,
poetry inspiring, yeah memories crying, that too

together, we have had more than many,
one case of you, a million sips, and I am writing
to see *how you're feeling and to let you know
I never drank a case of you that left me,
being still, left me standing on my feat

my feat?

drank de-feat like it was the sea, boundless but not soundless,
sweet waves repeating, sea tears tinged with bittersweet cries of
Tupelo honey,
cause you were one of my angels,
lifting me higher when love was saying
not!
this time kid,
place, babe, not this peculiar particular apparition,  
wrong rendition,
and at last, finally, long time later, sheepishly, sweetly only,
what was her name

your voice stood me up, your words still slap my face with
cases of kisses upon my neck, tune-turning prophetic notions of
what's next still  be only just around the corner,
waiting on a new, simple twist of feat,
another song, poem, lover, and yet another,
case of you, so we can always see both sides,
and when I think of you Joni
my mind seesaws,
and I, still be on my feet, and thanks to you
ready for my feat

<•>
10:59am 10/28/17