well, you don’t hear much these days
regarding Adam’s fall
how his frail, human ways
****** and ******* us all

all he had was Paradise
imagine that embrace
with just a small sacrifice
he could stop our fall from Grace  

he must have felt the touch
what the French call ennui
the Garden didn’t matter much
it was just another tree

he could never know the pain
that knowledge was his sin
or what the ages would contain
had his Father taught him discipline

the wind is a ghost, the sages agree
but their argument snapped on a technicality
the spirits that flow in silence, sincere,
will never deliver what just isn’t there

I am sitting with some of my possessions
by the steps and stone shadowed lions
outside the New York Public Library
there is a fellow there selling his poetry
in bound books
he has a table small with a sign:

Meet the Author

he is warm and personable
offering his hand with a wink and a smile
to strangers of the great city
and sharing lines of his verse with zeal
he appears to be a perfect match
of my dear departed friend
Jack Nuthall
mannerisms
enthusiasms
and I wonder
now that I reside in this poem
how many Jacks are still in this world roaming ?
I mean the exact person
how many of myself are brooding in the shadows  
believing that we live individual lives
when we exist beyond count

there is something
keeping me away
from walling through this door
it is like there is a line of standing arguments
that must be satisfied
before this simple action can be completed
and it stops me in my tracks
standing here at this very moment
writing these thoughts
within the world
as it passes by

man with wooden leg
unwrapping a gift of a stone of some kind
offering it to a man in a crushed felt hat
in a coffee shop
this circumstance beyond any comprehension
to this observer

by the universe crooked
we contribute to what we disown
there is a silent discourse
that props imaginary
a list of ideals full of missteps
high thoughts, base intentions
the draw of the common
the acceptance
of anything popular
but pay a visit to the sum
of our invented truths
no comfort remains

since we are not much more
than the sum of our days
let’s go back to childhood
that emotional blend
of terror and comfort
where hardly a day passed
that was lacking discovery
the air felt different
on the skin
colors and reflections
were stronger in depth
silliness was just around the corner
and mysteries dropped clues
like breadcrumbs on a trail
we truly live when young
and we share with the budding rose
the confront of actuality