“your children not to do what I have done”

long has this phrase from that old song,
to wit, to which,
we all knew it complete,
that phrase

and this one too,

teach them well their father’s hell will slowly go by


any parent,
knows instantly their secret experiences
validating these pregnant phrases to
unification,
combination and definition

our looking face down
on the children unafraid,
and
our looking back
at the mistakes we ourselves made,
that no one could have warned us of in advance

can we warn them well,
dare we tell,
make our lore their history,
make them
too careful and too afraid
not to repeat our mistakes,
but be not fearful to
make their own?

doubtful.

I am a young woman, and pappy says all parents have eyes in the back of their heads, and it still don’t help much

~for she who will know~

the Mother of Muses came to me

on bended knee
come for to confess
a lie so grand it boggled
the heart

we bring you nothing more
than what you already possess,
the jewels of rose gold are emplaced
in your dual ventricles,
the veins stained with blue green sapphires to
feed the right and left hemispheres,
where the emerald heat and the yellow gold,
raw melt the alpha word-finery awaiting,
the pinpointed pinprick of an eyed glimpse

to release the oxidizing words atmospheric
we are not needed, just proceeders,
*** stirrers? no. *** watchers? oh yes.

all contained within,
this then, the art of the human heart,
where the external stains rest awaiting,
completing, complimenting, coming
to fruition in a reforged new birthing

see how the child looks with adoration,
perceiving the art of the mothers heart,
the spilling of time at the precise moment
when the exchange is as long as an eye wink
and as short as an entire lifetime

We the Muses, not teachers, nor inspirers,
just peddlers, collecting thimbles of words,
polished with hued syllables of tarnish,
experienced watchers discerning the exacting,
the interactive interactions of the cells,
the DNA concoctions of singers and sinners,
priests and the unforgivable, trying to tie
what deserves untying, which is an everlasting
poem that needs, laughing, an original act
of the art of the heart, yours, permission to say
The End

11:14pm
nyc
Sept. 18, 2019

"Colours" by Donovan.                         
“Colors” by a False Poet.

Yellow is the color of my true love's hair    
sun dapples her gold shadings
In the mornin', when we rise                        
sun searching for the truest color
in the mornin', when we rise                      
peaking, she’s peeking, we waking, uprising
That's the time, that's the time.                  
her best time, sleepy doe eyed, all yellow,
I love the best                                                
bangs tickling eyes, I write of sun sparks

Blue's the color of the sky                          
blue is the primary, the selected color,
In the mornin', when we rise                        
that’s chosen to be a lovers greeting,
In the mornin', when we rise
a cloudy white pastel of blue,
That's the time, that's the time
that’s the days first part, our best parting
I love the best

Green's the color of the sparklin' corn
green Granny Smith apples, ****
In the mornin', when we rise
our mouths pucker, drool, chin juices
In the mornin', when we rise
that’s the days first part, a best parting
That's the time, that's the time
that’s the days first part, a best joining
I love the best

Mellow is the feelin' that I get
mellow is with me, all de day
When I see her, mm hmm
seeing her first eye blinking smile
When I see her, uh huh
the feeling infused, all de day,
That's the time, that's the time
she grants me loves freedom
I love the best

Freedom is a word I rarely use
except when I look upon her
Without thinkin', mm hmm
with knowing, full complete
Without thinkin', uh huh
with knowing, fully, completely
Of the time, of the time
of every time our morning glances meet
When I've been loved

The poem was inspired by a particular photo of the WT C, and after that by my first visit to the 9/11 Memorial.  On the day of 9/11, I was working about a diagonal mile away, and from our windows, we could see people jumping to their death.

Open sky annulled
to bordered lines of
uptown edges,
worldview momentarily
forcibly redefined by
memories of buildings and sadder days,
recollections of pillars of biblical smoke rising

A photograph
makes me look up,
and sit down historically,
need to catch a breath,
to rest mentally,
upon a storied small bridge's steps,
that I well recall,
a disappeared street stoop.
all were rubble then and once
upon that day.

Wear, tear, and older eyes distill perspective,
but the hardy heart is hardly stilled
by the recognizable gray upon
bon vivant gray reflective surfaces of
memories of buildings and sadder days

So today, on a reborn street,
I rest upon reconstituted speckled curbstone,
the city's lowered down ledges,
the city's lowered down-town boundaries,
constantly redrawn, but
nonetheless, always rebuilt from their own
regenerated stony compost,
and the NY passersby doesn't even notice
a man, head in hands,
silently weeping, thinking that:

We throw away so much we should have kept.
We keep so much we should have thrown away.

Lose keepsakes, but keep our mysterious sadnesses
locked away in compartments that open only to
benedictions uttered in ancient tongues.

Make your own list,
be your own curator,
catalogue visions of sophomoric triumphs,
museum mile pile
those early poetic drafts,
be unafraid of memories
raw and ungentrified,
overlaid, buried underneath
postmortem of dust-piles of senior critiques

Finally went downtown to see
where the blessed water falls
into catacomb pits that once
were the foundations
of buildings that ruled the cityscape,
downtown anchors
for a modern city that exists
only because it was built on
million year old granite bedrock

Stone monuments are stolid, discrete.
Memories are of grayed, frayed edge consistency.
Negatives resurrected that survive digitally,
all blend synthetically, layer upon layer,
essence distilled in a single,
black and white photograph
that serves to
disturb complacency,  
awaken stilled pain,
reflections suppressed,
are restored

the woven intercept

the crescendo soft ascending,
commandeers our riveting,
we do not surrender, taken, nonetheless,
our deference to an elegant wand wave,
combo hopeful and all encompassing, the helplessness

both well understood

the progression higher, steady on,
a rapture going to a defined ending,
concluding voyage occluded, for now,
but the setting sun rays us a plan, a path,
teasingly, soto voce lips moving, “this way”

follow on the unsteady water

restraining resistance failing, flailing weakly,
it is both early morning and late afternoon,
the light warms, but each, a timbre different,
the pitch and intensity tho one and the same,
yet, order confused, still, we are given-in

giving in unwillingly

absolution unrequested, but awarded anyway,
shelter from the storm of safe and warm,
children begin first school day, but adults
know better, beginnings full of risks unforeseen,
the season changes, normalized, but would be refused

if we could

the waiver offered, the woven intercept read,
emotional intelligence so fragile, on and on,
sidekicks, lovers, connected by a dotted line highway,
the space between permitting anything we want,
but contradictories say, wanting everything, impossible

but the viable solution singular

how do we leave it then? we leave it thus, clarified,
separation is a kind of attachment, voidable, when,
kissing comes calling, from all around the world,
the crescendo ends, we each have read the intercept,
it concusses, interpretations differing, yet we don’t care

lying through embracing lips

our tune is a mismatched matching,
a vision ending and yet anew hatching,
this is love, understanding, undefinable, undefeated,
a changeling definition, paths possessing multi-endings,
loving is the unceasingly, desirable imperfect struggling

unique, singular just like everyone else’s

9/4/19 9:07am

nml
(she'll know)

the sweetest things to say

grizzled and grumpy,
old poets,
be wary, woman
they know all
the sweetest things to say

they know to use them too,
so well, beware their wellness,
waters cooling they will sprinkle
in your holy places,
willingly make your wells
refreshed

they are excellent
woman whisperers,
wise in the ways to talk-take
you inside, out of the sun,
and make you over heated,
nonetheless

just in the way exact
you truly see yourself,
granting the wishes you don’t tender
to anyone else, but the whispering angels,
hear all you want and grant you completions
in the way they say
the sweetest things

pity them, they have the insight,
the split tongue, to inside you
inside out, from outside they’ll come,
seeking all you have,
your inner wealthy they want,
not for greed, or useless using
not one bit

they
the sweetest things to say,
they
cannot help themselves,
the tricks they employ but tools
to satisfy the mutual melds
where need meets and the ganglia
intertwine and the synapses,
your mutual fireworks, explode,
in wine reds, blue sapphires, whiter diamonds,
ah the bejeweled colors of their words,
sugar cane and sweet *** perfumes to
persuade,
save,
themselves over and over
to know the love of the woman

was why the creator created them next to last,
for he saved them,
for his greater creation,
woman


so keep them too close and far away,
for when they knocking come,
you will surrender sense and speech,
in payment for

the sweetest things they say,
I love you,
meaning every syllable true