slept and soaked
the sabbath Saturday away.
the body, achey breaky,
cranked and croaked,
slewed by a slew of common miscreants.
one, a stitch in my side,
feeling like someone's inside,
wanting to be born, feet first,
coming out the side of my chest,
instead of my ******

so,
promised poems and bills to pay,
put aside for a more poetic bill paying day.

awoke once near midday,
an unusual wake up call,
my nostrils do attend,
when the honey odors of
cinnamon and vanilla invade
the french shores of my subconscious.

I love three things French:
the elegance of their language grande,
their frenchified fries and frenchified toast.

was fed some french toast,
bathed in vanilla and cinnamon,
thus drugged,
went back to bed again.

as I drifted off for the third time today,
heard the woman dramatic say:
"must have, must have,"
two words that I from my past,
consider a curse,
a grave phrase of choice of my ex-wife,
her way of saying I didn't measure up.

must have
paprika
to roast your chicken
for Sunday dinner.

relieved beyond measure,
as I to dreamless sleep dispatched,
vague recall a poem forming about the
spices in my life.

these two hands, small, stubby,
nonetheless,
invite you to come aboard,
all, the unselected
all, the unprotected

the pretenders, outsiders,
hallway cool, self-collected,
girls who wear dresses,
boys who write in diaries,
Camus, Sartre hangers-on,
never-removed sunglasses wearers,
24/7

trip time,
comb your eyes,
system cleansing,
you, self-affected,
you, self-selected
you,
step away from the gallows,
get down from the scaffold

come to, for you, to get collected,
the unaffected,
the undirected,
road trip to the unexpected,
place where the disconnection is
disconnected,
where the unexpected, that's you,
expected

I know you well
I know you all

you are my desirables,
my touched untouchables,
wilderness voices,
no longer crying,
bound for greatness

from hands to pockets,
my chosen ones,
now my protected

No more unhappy birthday parties
that no one comes too
no need to pretend, sell love,
to the takers of advantage,

now on you breathe in an atmosphere
I've collected,
100% exhaled relief breaths,
purelled oxygen, fresh start air

no more disaffected,
now fuel injected,
now that you are
in and among the
touched, carried,
the affected,
the every poem read...

for H*

let us write for one,
one another
~~~~~~~~
let us premise.
we are much the same.

despite the fact that we are all genetically
different,
we come with the same equipage.

this is the miracle.
this is the strange.

at the intersection
at the corners of
Strange St. and Beauty Avenue,
the street poets slam,
drawers chalk paint Chagalls
upon the sidewalk,
street musicians sing songs of
Beethoven and Billy Joel,

let us agree.
we see with eyes, we hear with ears, we tongue taste,
voices, make swears and tunes.
soldiers with a standard, life-issued backpack.

you have vocal chords, but can you sing?

some see a village.
some see a fiddler.
the artist see the fiddler on the roof,
sees the strange in the ordinary,
and from this makes the beauty,
that in its differing is its uniting.

we all know words.
then we unite them in different combinations,
and A Tale of Two Cities sits on shelves,
in different alphabets, even dots and dashes,
wherever, readers read.

it is always,
the best of times, the worst of times.
it will always be that way.

it will be the strange among us,
that see the music,
taste the words,
dance the paint,
sharing it with us,
purging the the common, the ordinary,
yet making the common, the ordinary,
extraordinary,
giving us beauty of art,
in an uncommon but shared vision.