The color is pearl
With an undercoat of dread
Of what was really said

There is lead in the subtext
Mercury in the water
Novichok? Check.

I wasn’t there
I don’t remember
It didn’t happen

Supreme denial
With poison pen
Here then is


INCANDESCENT

: 0

Blogs can slog
As long as they like.

Toot-sweet tweets
at 37 + 100 + three.

Twit a bit with only 3:
Emoticon with me.

; )

A day now gone
6 to 11am through 2pm
Highs and lows
Successes with some "No”s

Elysian sleep awaits
REM put to work again
Memory library awakes
Sorting the daily bits and chits

Discard, discard, KEEP!
Put it front or center
(or bury down deep)
(Free-diving to below)

Anxious awakening …
Sound remembering…
Scratching a high-pitched itch—
Did that really happen?

1.  Shoot *****
2. Ski
3. Free-dive
4. Sky-dive
5. Vote Republican
6. Eat raw fish
7. Play naked volleyball
8. Eat haggis
9. Walk on coals
10. Yodel
11. Visit Somalia
12. Jell-O shots
13. Learn Klingon
14. Fish
15. Sell *****-wigs
16. Drink Genesee Creme Ale
17. Run a 5K
18. Pay mortgage
19. Divorce
20. Shoot ******
21. Go to Tupperware party
22. Drink Gatorade
23. Visit Poughkeepsie
24. Tend bar
25. Serve on a ******* trial
26. Eat glass
27. ****
28. Trump rally
29. KKK rally
30. Watch Sally Fields in The Flying Nun
31. Attend a MegaChurch
32. Listen to Death Metal
33. Watch American Dad
34. Moonwalk
35. Eat brussel sprouts
36. Watch Fox News
37. Turn 20
38. Turn 30
39. Turn 40
40. Turn 50
41. Turn 60
42. Turn over in my grave
43. Eat a tern
44. Teach Fall term
45. Terminate a solemn vow
46. Take a vow of silence
47. Disavow core beliefs
48. Operate a snow plow
49. Forget that I do know how
50. Insinuate
51. Dissemble
52. Lie, cheat and/or steal
53. S'Mores
54. Wet my bed
55. **** my thumb
56. **** a duck
57. Watch Little House on the Prairie
58. Rent a yacht
59. Not rescue animals
60. Not neuter pets
61. Not give to Food for People
62. Not appreciate Public Radio
63. Not appreciate Public Television
64. Knot like a Boy Scout
65. Play Parcheesi
66. Pay credit interest
67. Feign interest
68. Pinterest
69. Instagram
70. Eat spam
71. Exam cram
72. Karaoke
73. Jet-ski
74. Snowmobile
75. Pretend what the ******* are going on and on about matters (whoops; that’s number 67)
76. Blame my parents
77. Not take responsibility for my choices
78. Invest in oil futures
79. Renege on promises
80. Waste my time listening to telemarketers
81. Waste my time listening to zealots
82. Waste my time listening to racists
83. Waste your time
84. Waste my time, I hope
85. Not seek truth
86. Not seek answers
87. Not be authentic
88. Not be xenophobic
89. Accept lies
90. March lockstep
91. Buy the latest and greatest
92. Be consumer extraordinaire
93. Not be present
94. Not be conscientious
95. Not be good to my fellow human beings
96. Consume too much
97. Waste too much
98. Boast too much
99. Post too much
100. Not think about consequences
101. Not be me

Three digits
With tiny circle
Right, and a bit above.

Three digits
Never here before
Not cool, not cool: HOT!

Watch widget
Says it’s only eighty-seven;
How hot in 2097?

I have a low variable rate. I
Know enough through the cuff
When it is too high
And then when lower—
It’s variable

So, detox on the decaf
Binge Flix clips on elliptical
Keep to no salt diet result
Take the lesser stressors
Before anything else begins

Gathering of the gaderene
Deep in the region of legion
Headlong rush to destruction
Obfuscation obstruction

World gone crazy political
Satirical take on societal
Evolution of revolution
Time to shake the snake

Page not found
No longer around

Page has moved
You’re still here?

The past disappears
One page then two

Manuscripts decay
The web dissolves

Cursed, cursed consciousness
Keeps me up at night; right?
Or I’d dive into deep oblivion
Of blessed, blessed sleep

To dream, it seems needs more than
Shuffling off this thinking coil
I need easy entry to Elysium
Get me to the dream gymnasium

I need to sleep a
Deep sleep to

Un-cement
Intent and

Turn around for
Rebound

I need sleep

Still I am up
Left over pm

Awake mistake

Wherefore the Monarch
In orange and black
Will you nevermore
Gently flutter by?

I knew a rhino
Dressed in black
Not coming back
No horn intact

Horror scene
This Holocene
Us? The way of the dodo?
I don’t know

A small step
A giant leap with
Chirps and tweeps
Tween Houston and there

Playing on the RCA
Console color TV
In the living room
When I was eleven

Something stirring
In my pre-adolescent soul
An ache; a yearning
Still with me now

Every launch since
Plumes of vapor and smoke
Lifting humans that
Challenge mortality

Every view of this blue mote
Seen from afar dazzles me
Earth rise from the moon
Dancing auroras from ISS

I could see the Milky Way there
Lucky rural boy I was
I can see the Milky Way here
Lucky rural man I am

I want us to go
I want us to know
I want us to yearn
To learn “Are we alone?”

A kid then, adult now
I want to remove my glasses
As Cronkite did then
When we set foot on Mars

I love this life,
Right here
Right now.

My deck.
My lawn.
Summer sunshine.

Peaceable kingdom:
Buddy boy is smiling
Ms. Black is sprawling
Lucky is strolling.

Fred…
Is just being Fred.

Relaxed Annie is
Asleep there
In her chair.

It’s 5pm
In July
In Freshwater and
Still 80 degrees.

I’ll take it.

“I’m out of here”
I scratched scrawled
In the warehouse of a
Fantasy Pool factory

Pre-med dropout
No-dread ***-head
Sure my third decade
Would be elsewhere

Bondo *******:
VW van finally sold
Mustang cross country trek
Then, californicated

Going back there
At the end of my career
Just a visit; I’m still here in
Land of fruits and nuts

Cold-slap reality:
I’m still home right here
From the summer of ’89
More than half to the rest of my life


The past
Finds its audience
In the future

With rabbit hole logic
Place the eight
straight on its side

Tesser-react to
Come sliding
Back

Every micro-gression
Drips into the
Bucket / depression

***** girded
Lines drawn; it’s
****-show WWD again

As you sink into it
Mine your mettle
Find your spine

Remember:
WWD is cyclical
Even when biblical

I don’t have to
I might want to
Then I will do

Inspiration might
Strike
Or not

Door 2B or
Hackneyed allusion
Art collusion

I may, I might
If not, alright
But, yes:

Sensing them
From only here

Honest empathy;
But knowing, no.

Raise the sails
Cross the gulf

I wait for Godot
He won’t show
This I know

The scene is between
A meme and me
What does that mean?

Do it now or don’t
Doesn’t matter if you won’t
It’s not known in the unknownt

Bless me Padre for I have sinned
My last confession was 3 poems ago

Padre, I watch ****; food ****
Lamb shank in a garlic fennel sauce

Pig parts unknown wrapped in bacon
Tri-tip and tripe marinated in marrow

Padre, I eat my veggies
(caramelized broccoli florets in a Béarnaise sauce)

But **** that man Bourdain!
Again and again and again!

I find myself drawn to pork stewing
In decadent assorted sweet-meats

Padre, I need a chlorophyll cleanse
Please accept my humble supplication…

What? Three kale martinis and one cauliflower?
I repent! Let the cleanse begin!

Navigating the now how
Leaving but the then when
Not knowing where began

Going to the there then
Hoping to find you, friend
Seeking safer harbor again

We are old now
When they are gone

We are on our own now
With journeys strange, long

We go our ways now
Whistling solo songs

We be who we are now
Elders—right or wrong

10s: mewling, puking
Then again an adolescent bridge
A human being finally forms.

20s: GOLDEN!
"Look at me!” Said the clown,
Nothing can stop me now!

30s: circumventing adulthood…
Sailing the shoals of marriage…
Navigating career uncertainties—

40s: doldrums. I survived cancer.
Uncertainties no longer fun.
Depression on the run.

50s: Nifty! Chances taken–
Meeting meaningful men;
Reclaiming who I am!

60s: a wide horizon!
From experience and wisdom,
And with all of you, I dive in!

Acknowledgment first
Atonement follows after
Actions matter next

There is no comfort zone
As a ****** alone
Traipsing and tripping
Calles and zocalos

Estranged stranger
Taller, whiter, foreign
Trying to fit not blend in
Stuttering sputtering sentences

Finding right words
Taxing not relaxing
But rewards every day as
Friends show us the way

I want to go back in time
A little bit, somewhat, a lot

I want to go forward in time
Somewhat, a lot, exponentially

What really happened?
What conceivable can be?

So I: get up, get out of bed
And drag a comb across my head

“WHATS MORE,
THEY’RE CROSSING OUR SHORE…

HOPPING FENCES;
MIXING ******

DAUGHTER FROM
ANOTHER POOR

REFUGEE SPOOR WITH
ILLEGAL INTENTIONS!”




(this is satire;
if you thought otherwise—
seek immediate intervention)

Here’s something silly:
This ***** likes CW’s Supergirl!

Sassy, strong and successful
Word: She’s Super!

Simply, Sublimely subversive
Saving aliens from all areas

Me and she
Right here, right now

Laughter flirting;
Younger selves.

What a ton of stuff
We drag behind

All the time

How nice when we can
Enter the right boxcar

At the right time

regressive country
past progressive

rights human
redefined denied

your civil right
to be uncivil

polemicized
ploiticized

you essay
your world

topsy-turvey—
orangey

eulogized

Ready the ofrenda
Remembrance membrane
Twixt here and there

Loved ones lost
Closer now
Summoned

They come
We pause in
Their presence

A sad laugh as
Wet grief tracks
Down cheeks

We say hello
Then we say
Goodbye; again

Bubbles from below
Urges, regrets, shame…

Id, ego, super-ego:
Take your cape off—

Relax; sit down a spell;
We’re not going to hell.

Oh, polluted-full with noxious skies
Of coal-born ashen rain
For awful earthly travesties
Undone the truth is plain

America, America!
Trump sheds his waste on thee
And rapes thy good
Your motherhood
From sea to oily sea

Once, a
Pangolin
Met a
Penguin
North or
South of
The Equator
You’re bird?
You’re mammal?
You’re funny!
You make me smile!
One waddled away
One rolled away
North or
South of
The Equator

THE END

A poem percolates
Urges unknown rise
Seeking wording
Needing knowing
An idea switch itch

Write right
Purge urge
Woke spoke
Do truth
Be me

“I am right here,”
He said, in a Spock-like voice,
Trying to defuse the situation

“Even as you endeavor
To agitate me
By being unpleasant;

I am sorry that you are feeling unwell—
If you need me to assist you in any way,
Please, use your Comm."

Come on, comma,
#hashtag, pound for pound
Embedded endash–
WHIPLASH!—EMDASH!

There’s the exclamation!
But the crux of the biscuit:
Zappa’s apostasy
Is the apostrophe

Suave semi-dash-colon-
A change of ideas, but not;
Punctuation as comedy:
And th-that’s all, folks…
Period.


(don’t get me started about the $#%¥!ing little upper right circle degree thingy)

A kitten sits
Between his paws
Mewling; little thing

He, stoic, sniffs
Gazing left and right
Guard dog on duty

Interspecies romance? No.
Cat and dog detente? No.
Beings caring? Yes.

https://www.facebook.com/SimplyBeautifulPage/videos/691408344341610/

Yesterday, a poem fluttered by
Fragile clumsy moth
Colorful, felt, smelt,  
It had something to do with
Light, shadows, and
A hint of vanilla
From ponderosa pines

In the breeze
From the trees
In a Mary Oliver forest,
“I thought the earth remembered me
She took me back so tenderly.”

Stillness.
Warmth.
Water.
Eagles.
Paddling.
Friendshi­p.

Sharing food with
Campfire laughter
Loving this life:
Going far away
To come home again

49.3: Sustainability
      -b.2d: yoghurt
          • easy peasy!
          • scrape container
          • soft boil milk *(see Fu.2)
          • mix remains
          • wrap, keep warm, covered
                = several hours
                = viola!
                = yoghurt!

                          

                                * [Fu.2 -> get cow]

crushing through it
here comes Pruitt

promoting coal
he has no soul

what was protection
is now destruction

a man named Scott
the best we got?

the EPA; now EDA
our Earth, sadly, DOA.

Line three thrummed;
bisectional translateral
segments echoed sympathetically.

Eyes one through nine
snapped open
as all legs were put on high alert.

I proceeded down lines
two through five cautiously
to see what was disrupting.

What was I fractually perceiving??
Food, yes; but what—
The fly (but what? half a fly?)

twisted and twirled in my web a
s the homunculus shouted,
and the hairs on my legs tingled in horror,

as I heard, “heeelp meeee!”

Ten-act plays
Seems to be the way for
Today’s tellervision

Shakespeare did it five
That bard was the bomb
Comedy/tragedy aplomb

Still, new age of tellervision
Tells it in ten
Arc of plot and folks

Hulu, Amazon, Netflix
Hulu, Amazon, Netflix
Hulu, Amazon, Netflix

Doesn’t depend on renewal
Just the story, ma’am, just the story
Doing it in zen ten

It's not a debate to negate;
It's not one or the other.

Fallacy of false dichotomy—
Makes you think less of me?

He's dead.

How do we do this?
Thread the racism needle?

Carefully. Humanely. Sincerely.
Coltrane said "Supremely."

A love supreme.
A love supreme.

ARMCHAIR

The ugly chair
Is still there
Leave I say
It stays

The ugly chair
Is stubborn
Taciturn
Not feng shui

The ugly chair
Isn’t really
It just sits too near
In the way

eye of newt
dash of doctor
who?

pratchett hatched it
gaiman gamed it
netflix flinched

part python humor
jon hamming it
derek? can it be?

good, evil, in between
a constellation of stars
many tongues deep cheeky

dark discworld
don’t you panic
don’t discard your towel

witches
demons
angels

bell
book
candle

those silly brits with
ineffable end-times fun:
good omens!

Boat overturns
Immigrant swims
Trauma begins

Risking all for family
A life a little better,
A strange future

In a strange land
Living step by step
A survival dance

Different chance
Risking all
To be safer

Nox, nox…
Who’s there?
Fooled.
Fooled who?
Fooled you, sucker;
It’s Fall!

My hellcat wiffled and wharbled
As I fell through space
Dodging enemy discharge.

“Dispatch; status!”
“Status nominal. Dismissal eminent.
Dispersal advised.“

Swerving left and up, I
cut thrusters and
Bit down on the tube, hard.

All wrong, all gone as I dispersed.
I smelled peaches.
I saw a nascent sunset.

I might have puked.
Then it was over.
I took off the gloves,

lifted the visor and
Detached all sensors.
I needed electrolytes, stat..

Later, I checked my gradis.
I had died twice, virtually of course
But gained only 67 credits.

Somewhere, though,
Lives were lost
That actually happened.

I am a realist.
I'm an artist.
I'm a humanist.
And a humorist.

I'm an atheist.

Yet, I am gob-smacked, daily,
By the beauty of this ephemeral world,
I am flamboozled, daily,
By its dire contradictions.

Stories of people being horrendous.
Stories of people being stupendous.

On the cliff-ride of hope,
I hold tight to a string
That floats above despair.