~~~

the wind of correction

*those invisible currents
for which we create labels
like most everything,
comes in shades of vagaries,
colorations of fierce and gentil

some bear the names of hurricanes,
gale forces, and those, the knotted stiff ones,
welcomed by man's power mills and sailing ships,
and the softest of summer breezes,
caressers of my isle sheltered,
for which I must winter~survive,
that have far too short a half-live,
those summer winds that rejuvenate my sinking soul

but the wind that gets no acclaim,
is the wind behind us that straightens the hunched,
the wind that has no illustrations of its un-famous name,
'tis the wind of correction
that lifts
the wings of the becalmed,
the bewitched, and the downtrodden,
the one that lifts chin from chest,
the one that energizes,
cures the curvature of our spines
to make us sally forth, clear eyed and optimistic,
leaving behind the residue of debris of destruction

when blown off course, be patient,
for a course correction by a kinder kindred force
will set you aright, push you into flight.,
for this wind comes to everyone,
someday, sometime

you do not know the wind of correction?

unfamiliar where and when it blows?

perhaps you call it something else?

I have heard it said,
that its other,
more
correct,
truer name is
love

Aye Aye
(Poetry is the Adhesive of Our Lives)

6:33 am

for Joe*


once again,
in a strange bed,
in a strange city,
left a cold snowed city climate
debtor-in-possession,
owner of a carryover question
of yours,
what was a
winter prior posing,
is now a plane plain ride over
have coming with me
awaking,
by a sun provoking,
the answer,
now strange composing
in a visually warm city where
beautiful tanned bodies
are mined in beach sand

and
this,
my answer,
it too,
mine,
it too
being mined,
subconsciously working, coming,
f o r m I n g
in my always busy,
overthinking,
daily nighttime shift of
repositioning from a
dark night ended reposing,
into a
sunny day answer deposing

t'is a tricky one,
when one poet asks another
straight out,
after the the fashion of the day,

of my poetry,
whattaya think,
whattaya know...

about
my very own
words,
this communal place,
HP,
an open bed,
where we lie down with strangers,
where we lay down our words,
wake up lovers,
or worse,
ignored,
wake up encouraged,
(can one make hallelujah a verb?)
or refuted,
disputed by
the either/or
ignorant silence of the masses,
of what's truly good,
or sunk
under reedy rushes of swamping
despair,
at the ignorant adulation of the
endless trite, puerile

not one
for shooting from the
hip,
on a subject so
delicate,
that my paused,
slow mo response,
to you,
of course,
misunderstood,
as a red badge of no courage,
a refusal to answer
in this demanding age of
virtual, instantaneous any and every
stray dog thought

multiple shades of a Miami sunrise,
burnt oranges and Van Gogh blues,
frosted strawberry internal pink toppings,
whitish cream cappuccino streaks,
makes one wonder about the
creative design team that brought us the
universe and this all over
sunrise,
all natural, organic visual breakfast
that comes to remind me that
your answer,
you...

for all of us,
in our lives
there is always poetry infused,
there for the seeing,
and
for some,
even
adhering to our
private places

for you, Joe,
there is always poetry,

in this work,
is the continuous process,
self-recreating,
and this sir,
aye, aye, sir,
this one writ,
hopefully a satisfactory answer,
perhaps...
one of resolution,
of adhesion,
silicon bonded

for such is the nature of
this particular Joe,
an inquiring soul,
a nurtured one,
another poetry-partial-birth
child of mine,
born on-line

so,
requiring special handling when
creating, crafting,
******* lines of my presumptuous presumptive
"expertise"
in all matters that
our emotional heart
is the make-up-the-rules-as-you-go
rulemaker

thus,
peril,
fraught, and
simplistic excessive
frugality of word/feelings,
dangerous and inappropriate...

I loke (love + like)^
your poetry fine
the slow revolution of the screws
of growth so readily apparent...

But,
always,
a but,
my demands upon you,
so great,
the expectations of expectations,
greater for you than I dare share,
only since your quest
is my bequest
so shockingly that you dare
directly request

herein,
asked and answer attempted,
yet the risks are I lighthouse beacon
angle too high,
becoming too troublesome,
an Excedrin headache

You don't see,
You don't comprehend,
the way I do,
how far you have come,
your train,
upon which
I am a windowed, winnowed,
passenger,
a pseudo parent
in Loco (crazed) HP Parentis

so it breaks my heaVy heart,
that I want burdensome you better,
so much better...

Oh Toolmaker!
from your
as of yet
swelling unrealized
r e a l
blood sweat and
tears

I want to be forced
by you
to shed my own
tears,
gasp, intake my own
bloodied breath,
sweat when reading yours...
hopelessly selfish,
wholly unsatisfied...

I want
your refreshed wit  born in
Whitman
winters

tales of your Connecticut icy hot
Frost
should lay me low by new poems as good as
Lowell's

tease me, seek me
let me beg,
make me yours,
like Sara Teasdale's
"I Am Not
Yours"

I will you!
will you be,
recreate anew
William Carlos Williams

make me gnash my teeth
when you limerick like my first hero
Ogden Nash

moor my heart like
Marianne Moore

be a new American Master
of this awesome trade,
accepting of this modest tirade,
make new tools still invisible
that will become
more powerful than
any man's hand
can mechanical design...

most of all force me to
reside inside your adoms
locked in my soul's firmament,
until you have fashioned me
into
an obedient tool,
forcing me,
to weep my own
r e a l
blood sweat and
tears
that your words
backhoe excavate
from their hidden places

be mine own
GI Joe
poet~hero

hopefully,
this answers your question,
what I think
of your poetry voyage
to levels of heaven
you are yet
unacquainted

looking forward to an
aspiring spring,
a robust salute of
Aye, Aye,

for I  have fixed the spot in the sky
with the adhesive will keep your star aloft
tween you
and the rest of us
plodders

but now be bounded to lift
us to
unbounded highs
on the wings of the highest
expectations*

of all of us who
admire your journey so...
will not e v e r be satisfied,
until
you exceed,
you succeed,
until
we are such
so sated, so satisfied...
that we see the music,
dance to the words,
in places where the silence
of listening
is the greyest gift
one can give...

"I suspect that the way I feel now, at summer’s end, is about how I’ll feel at the end of my life, assuming I have time and mind enough to reflect: bewildered by how unexpectedly everything turned out, regretful about all the things I didn’t get around to, clutching the handful of friends and funny stories I’ve amassed, and wondering where it all went. And I’ll probably still be evading the same truth I’m evading now:
that the life I ended up with, much as I complain about it, was
pretty much
  the one I chose. And my dissatisfactions with it are really with my own character, with my hesitation and timidity."

Tim Keider^
~~~

just an ordinary Sunday newspaper feature,
on the summer's fast approaching
summing up,
an essay,
that you read and exclaim
***,
what's that you say,
Keider,
who ya kidding?

are our brains cross-wired?
am I so prototypical
that my scheming privates are presented with
better clarity, superior style, and

and you just don't know what's worse

a) that we shared the similarity of dissatisfaction
with our lives,
that a season of unexpected leisure unexpectedly
(an unforced error, I'll call it)
opportunitized
a  soul train review that time accident-afforded and
summer sweet lushness conduced
or

b) is it that you say it so much better

only one diff kid,
entire we deux,
that makes me major league,
and you still, a sorta minor,
with a career ahead

I am at
trend end
of my life,
skiing breakneck at the steepest part of the
downward ***** of time
leading to the flatline gate
knockdown finale

but I still can't let us off the hook,
as I write this
open outcry

did life's press offer us
convergent excuses,
the connivence of convenience
that let us write our own
sad, sneering, almost denying tale
that our lives were
"pretty much"
the one chosen

will that truthfully ever going to be
a genuine smithy's mark
of
a twenty four caratexcellence of
sufficiency satisfactory?

the question cannot be begged off,
when Father Time is breathing down your neck,
accepting one's character flaws,
acknowledging, not even querying,
if I am a failed diamond,
I, the cutter,
could not shape my facets
flawless, or even well enough

point passed,
now why me worry
about hesitating,
timidity,
so no evasion,
instead ****** head-on 
invasion

the life chosen
was oft the product of
wrong fork chosen,
lazy and safe courses that
cuckolded me into a
blindsided acceptance

last verse I swear!

going outside to
come back in
pervaded

let this declining season,
be not
seen as an ending
but a fresh bloom of a flower,
an all-year-long bloom
that opens up every morning
of every day,
readying us both
for the
and to
fall,
open to  
setting the pushed, not pulled,
record straight

"good enough"
is no longer
good enough
when  answering

my life, was it any good?
was it what I desired?

when I took the wrong fork
almost every time,
though purposely chosen,
was it cowardice complete,
laziness course of least resistance?

for if that's the case,

no matter how late we linger at this bad food table,
of inactive actions,
choices taken but not accepted,
I need to change
the diet
that creates
who I am
and eat truth,
raw,
and keep it down

~~~
dedicated  to the three, who read this first
(S.B, J.A.,  & T.M.R.)
and know it all too well
~~~
more than ever presumed,
more than ever thought realizable,
indescribable attainable,
a modernizing magic powder,
synthesizing my intemperate body
~
at last, all ego falls away,
now but corn husk mulch,
detritus, non-toxic nuclear waste,
for growing better visions,
fruits undiscovered
~
write for me,
my recordings, my blog,
not to differentiate,
to substantiate,

to integrate

your gasps imagined,
mine realized,
exhalations upon lips grazing,
the soil of our rainforest
wetted by
living smiling,
eye droplets,
forming a singular stream
~
write for you,
sharing too close,
are you my first or second skin,
for there are no spaces
~
satisfaction discovered that is insatiable,
this pleasured seeing,
this pleasured sharing,
this poetic reason,
to exist