We are members of a poetic society
A unique learning class
We may or not be good at other things
But mentally we kick ***

We value all our words
Cherish our thoughts not heard
We are on the road to self discovery
Choose only words that we feel tell our story

We see the world differently than most
The world makes us.... then breaks us
So we write for survival and to give hope

Some say our heads are in the clouds
It is safer there in our own creative playground
We are miles up and never want to come down

No use for conformity
We escape the constraints of uniformity
We break out from the box ~ find new ground
*And Seize the day ~ Unbound

as promised, a tip for and to nolly



•<>•

“Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.”
David Foster Wallace

•<>•

it is as if I've been stripped bare and their is no air or
barrel handy,
bankrupted by exposure of my less-than-clean ***** secret,
scrapped from under my tongue, my genuine creativity,
it is no different than yours or hers or anybody else, but

"I need to believe," he screeches, "say it ain't so!"

time again to tally up the wins and losses,
check the standings, the numerical columns,
nope, wasn't selected to be MVP or even loved by the
algorithmic ridiculous secret sauce
"poem of the day" blah blah blah

bottom line: "You’re Pretty Normal"

comfort or consternation, exhalations of relief,
or just another nail in the shutting of
your depression coffin calculation

this no longer unspoken arrogance undressed
brings me to a quiet place,
where you are welcome to sit beside,
this puzzle together, nuzzled,
perhaps more soluble

they don't make Advil for the mind,
so read the good ones,
and be reminded of this

your published spoken courageous poetry need satisfy
only you, and no one more

in there lies the rub, the vive la difference, we identically different,
no longer a secret,
every poem is the difference you make

August 2017
in the sunroom,
Shelter Island
<•>

BONUS POEM!!!

Nolly's Haiku #17/#70

with good knowing that
distress and forethought,
are its mother and father
that this poetic output but a derivative
of your unique self,
see,
maybe, you be
maybe
just wise enough

to curse the birth of poem at age seventeen

but just wait Nolly,
till you are seven tens, and poetry's folly,
make you even more practiced in cursing,
still asking, why
and getting the sendoff, kiss off,
of the one true answer,
nobody knows
so scribble a life time when you start at 17
and when the ripe and wizened answers in your old age
have yet to arrive

then you can call yourself an accursed
wizened but wise'ed old poet

2nd to rise, she enquires
you ready for coffee?

it's only 6:22am

if you're having, I'm having...

she quiet disappears

thinking coffee's coming,
when to this layabout,
it occurs,
she's making
coffee in the ****?

get up, make myself presentable,
track her,
the coffee aroma pulsating,
radar signal emitting

sure enough,
coffee in the ****,
grinding, dripping...percolating

but what I see is
contrast and
definition

appliance white
stainless
steel chrome gleaming,
walnut wood cabinetry warming in
Vermeer sunlight window in-streaming,
a Chagall and Botticelli duet,
freshly filtered
thru a Manhattan sky
and flesh,
freshly filtered

flesh
is not a Crayola color,
or
if it is,
it's more a spectrum,
than a single shade

but this moment morning
flesh is more realized,
as if recognized for the first time,
by a newborn old timer,
who senses the
comprehension tension of circumspection
circumcised differentiation,
flesh knowledge gradation gained

this poem,
a first attempt at
painting a ****
in words

appreciating  task enormity,
for there are currently
insufficient words,
too many striations,
all cannot be straitjacketed to the
vocabulary palette

this then,
but my first definition of many,
of
flesh

so many canvasses,
so many undiscovered shadings
awaiting
****** recognition definition,
composition

for lovejunkie...amidst this parliament of words,
I am selfish,
but not always blind...

~~~


from our bed, I see witnesses,
a small stand of trees,
no parliament these,
but a scattering of
oak~men and birch~women,
who shade and defend us,
a few good marines on duty,
standing between us and
our beloved but ever
dangerous tempestuous changeling child,
the one we call,
with well-mixed trepidation and affection,
the sea change

this small stand,
throws all caution to the wind,
remnants of a once great army
upon my forested isle,
these proud stragglers,
refuse to desert their
human worshipers and century renters,
giving them aid and comfort,
from the sum of
sun, wind and the
ever encroachment of waves,
who would and
will
own all
eventually

they look out,
this stand of trees,
facing away,
lookouts for us,
watchmen of the day
and still on duty,
even when the day's nethered nemesis
returns

this stand of trees,
they look back as well, upon me,
even as I catalogue them,
distinct even now in the tomb of midnight dark,
facing me simultaneously,
self-appointed witnesses
to a man's thinking
of his:

binding and unbundling,
the tumult of the fusion
of the pros and cons
at the intersection of
love and memories

where ancient needs and memories
clash to rehash past victories and Waterloo,
all the while, the cries of the
perpetuity of future desires,
incessant demanders of
fresh refreshments of love,
shout out
"more, more,"
ever so softly

perhaps this is why they stay...

voyeurs,
to be amused by selfish humans,
denying their very built-in natures,
addicted to the elusiveness of romance,
wearing pretend masques of self-blindness
to the devil-may-care,
unpredictable seasonality of loves
comings and goings

and yet how clear recalled the
unconcealed passion and gleeful gratitude
when we tuck a beloved's locks from
their eyes, to the safety of the
crook of their ears

the stand of trees,
strong tall, plain big,
compare and contrast
to the infinite smallness
of merest seconds
of loving tenderness
etched upon the firmament permanency
of the
mind's eyes

perhaps this is why they stay...

perhaps this is why we cannot renounce
our never wreaking addiction to love
and its cocktail of
torments and fulfillment

trees - perhaps,
they better understand our frailty
than we do,
do trees love humans so much in return
for all this love we give them?

we chop in hurry fury down,
only to repent and replant tenderest of seedlings,
like human love,
we chop in hurry fury down,
only to repent and replant tenderest of seedlings

for are we not all selfish, all blind,
all needy, all defenseless,
all cautiously defensive,
so much
and then again,
not so much
not so blind or selfish,
that we cannot use our word tools
to grant ourselves,
we aching creatures,
grant ourselves
a few small chances,
to pry open both
recollections of our heart's delight
and the seeds
for its
renewal

perhaps we are all witnesses?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"but oh if fate threw caution to the wind
giving this parliament of trees their hearts' delight
how wondrous to these eyes would those boughs be
smashing through that firmament, that light."

"and oh if fate threw caution to the wind
granting this aching creature just one wish,
i'd be content with much less than your kiss...
for i am selfish, but not always blind;"

**from "wish I may wish I might"
by lovejunkie

I sit in the sun room, I am shaded for the sun
is only newly risen, low slung, just above the horizon,
behind me, over my shoulder, early morn warm

Slivers of sun rays yellow highlight the wild green lawn,
freshly nourished by torrential rains of the prior eve

The wind gusts are residuals, memoirs of the hurricane
that came for a peripheral visit, like your unwanted cousin Earl,
in town for the day,
too bad your schedule
is fully booked,
but he keeps raining on you,
staying on the phone for so long, that the goodbye,
go away, hang up relief is palpable

The oak trees are top heavy with leaves frothy like a new cappuccino,
the leaves resist the sun slivers, guarding the grass
from browning out, by knocking the rookie rays to and fro,
just for now, just for a few minutes more,
it is advantage trees,
for they stand taller in the sky
than the youthful teenage yellow ball

I sit in the sun room buffered from nature's battles external,
by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization,

and my thoughts drift to suicide.

I have sat in the sun room of my mind, unprotected.
with front row seats, first hand witness to a battle unceasing

Such that my investigations, my travails along the boundary line
between internal madness and infernal relief from mental pain
so crippling, is such that you recall begging for cancer or Aids

Such that my investigations, my travails along the sanity boundary
are substantive, modestly put,
not inconsiderable

Point your finger at me, demanding like every
needy neurotic moderne, reassurance total,
proof negative in this instance, of relevant expertise!

Tell us you bona fides, what is your knowing in these matters?

Show us the wrist scars, evidential,
prove to us your "hands on" experiential!

True, true, I am without demonstrable proofs
of the first hand,
my resume is absent of
razors and pills,
poisons and daredevil spills,
guns, knives, utensils purposed for taking lives

Here are my truths,
here are my sums

If the numerator is the minutes spent resisting the promised relief
of the East River currents from the crushing loneliness that
consumed my every waking second of every night of my years of despair
                           divided by
a denominator that is my unitary, solitary name,
then my fraction, my remainder, is greater than one,
the one step away from supposed salvation...

Yet, here I am sitting in the sun room buffered from
nature's battles by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization

I am a survivor of mine own World War III,
carnaged battlefields, where white lace curtains,
were not buffers but dividers tween mis en scenes,
variegated veins of colored nightmares, reenactments of
death heroics worthy of Shakespeare

Did I lack for courage?
Was my fear/despair ratio insufficient?

These are questions for which the answers matter only to me,
tho the questions are fair ones,m my unsolicited ******,
they are not the ones for which I herein write,
for they no longer have relevance, meaning or validity,
for yours truly

I write poetry by command,
by request, good or bad,
this one is a bequest to myself, and also a sidecar for an old friend,
who asked in passing to write what I know of suicide,
unaware that the damage of hurricanes is not always
visible to the naked heart

These hands, that type these words are the resume of a life
resumed,
life line remains scarred, but after an inter-mission, after an inter-diction, an inter-re-invention
in a play where I was an actor who could not speak
but knew every line, I am now the approving audience too...

But I speak now and I say this:

There are natural toxins in us all,
if you wish to understand the whys, the reasons,
of the nearness of taking/giving away what belongs to you,
do your own sums, admit your own truths
query not the lives of others, approach the mirror...

If you want to understand suicide,
no need to phone a friend, ask the expert,
ask yourself,
parse the curtains of the
sun room and admit, that you do understand,
that you once swung one leg over the roof,
gauged
the currents speed and direction,
went deep sea fishing without rod or reel
and you recall it all too well, for you did the math
and here I am, tho the tug ne'er fully disappears,
here I am, here I am writing to you,
as I sit in the sun room.

Memorial Day, 2011