Fish jumps from water
onto dock; thrashing, flailing,
inches from relief.

Time takes from us.
What do we take
from time?

We take
nine months
of the life of our mothers.

We take
every sunny hour
from everlasting days
of childhood.

We take
sleep-time from our parents,
waiting up for us.

We take
each
agonizing
second
of last day
of school.

We take
the suspended moment
as eyes lock from afar.

We take
all the precious minutes
when falling in love.

We take
our time
to lift the vail
and kiss.

We take
nine months
of two lives
creating another taker.

We take
the rapidly
evaporating time
of raising our children.

We take
sleep-time from our nights,
waiting for our teenagers.

We take
time slowly,
watching our daughter
walk the aisle.

We take
echoes of times past,
ringing through
empty bedrooms.

We take
time lightly,
years skipping past
incomprehensibly fast
until...

Time takes us.
What, indeed,
do we take from time?

to whittle away
the extraneous, slough off
dead skin which hides the
one who will not force a change,
not compress, contort a soul

Sapphic poems call upon mathematic
skills, as meter meted out over three lines,
groups of two feet followed by three, again two,
                              ending with five beats.

Even this old formalist, prehistoric
in his method, limps along through elevens,
just like playing Jethro Tull, Lynyrd Skynyrd;
                              seven-four, five-four.

Hear the roar of dinosaurs in the tar pits,
stuck in sonnets, villanelles, rhymes and rhythms,
sinking slowly, praying for preservation;
                              creative fossils.

It takes a special poet to
write solely for themself;
so much better to be read
than stuck upon a shelf.

The poems flow so easily
when they're so easily shared.
The love, the dreams, the angst, the rage
all satisfactorily aired.

I do write for an audience;
it's true to some extent.
Readers tell me if my words
express just what I meant.

Still it's for me to judge my poems
effective or effete;
that's why God made the keyboard with
a button named Delete.

An embrace of words,
voices singing over void of
miles warms heart, soothes soul.

Just three years ago
this week, I found these pages;
poet's eye gives thanks.

You will have my words;
a cozy throw of a thought
to wrap about me.

Humans being are
the inconstant animal
;
at face value
you rarely know
what you're facing
.
No tail-wag
for happy
or angry,
the perfect smile
hides the bared fang.

Emotions ebb and flow,
friends come and go.
Small wonder we
love the ocean;
consistent, insistent
waves of mother-water
soothe our tidal souls.

An affinity for
tight spaces;
bears like cubbyholes.

A quiet park inside the urban sprawl,
it held a wooden walk where lovers stroll
and old men totter by as mothers call
their children closer, reaching hands to hold.
Sick of heart, sick in his heart, he walks;
a man not old, not young, not in his prime.
Inclines his head in passing, will not talk;
each step a war on body's soft decline.
What used to take ten minutes takes an hour.
The humid heat hangs heavy in his chest.
A bench invites beneath an oaken bower;
perhaps a moment's respite would be best.
His aching legs won't do as they are bid,
so he sat down to rest, and rest he did.

Comes a time
when the mathematics
of the years
becomes more about
- than +,
÷ rather than x.

When wisdom gained
< vitality lost,
and dis-ease > health.

A good night's sleep
and some energy ≈
happiness.

Living is
tangential
to survival,
and not
necessarily
congruent.

Wait for shoe to drop,
torn between alive and well;
suspended in time.

The house of my soul
has many rooms,
foundation poured
over many lifetimes,
the layout determined
by some master architect.
Each room has
its own view
of the world.
Cannot say I've changed;
can say
as ages pass,
the rooms inhabited
are not the same.

A hard lesson learned
by proud, independent man:
For help, one must ask.

My fear sleeps so far
tonight, cradled lovingly
in the arms of faith.

Having shot up
(with two flavors of insulin)
before bed,
I've been instructed to snack.

So I drop fifteen pills
with an ounce
(of water)
and wait for the subtle wave
of unreality
to flow through me.

Never thought my Eskimos
would be four doctors
and a dialysis nurse.

Ignorance adores
uproar; rage is all the rage.
To die a peaceful
death is anathematic.
Smile, nod. Ignore ignorance.

you can feel
the uncertainty in the touch
most days

long pauses,
trembling fingers...
perhaps a slight shake in the hands

a fair five minutes
looking me in the face
after each foray

hand drops from chin,
eyes grow wide
and the clicking away
becomes non-stop
and aggressive

head tilts
lip-reading a line or two
head shakes either yes or no

chair leans back
scanning the whole from afar;
a few terminal clicks

public, save,

then power, sleep...
and I see no more

The spring-head bubbled forth,
and ran in two separate streams.
One, sparkling, swift and cold:
the fount of eternal youth.
The other, unthinkably clear and deep:
the fount of age-old wisdom.
He was brought here by the elders,
and told he could drink from one alone.

Which would you choose?

He took the ancient wooden bowl,
dipped it into the second pool
and drank his fill;
saw with clarity and depth.

That day he became a poet,
using the gift of the second fount
to drink from the first every day.

wearing her tears
on my shoulder;
a badge of honor.

Tchaikovsky heard
the bipolar duality
of his nation
Rimsky-Korsakov
the mediator
between two
implacable forces
Stravinsky captured perfectly
the strident cacophony
of revolution
Shostakovich
screamed his love
for all his people
in the face of a dictator

can you not hear their music?

Whenever I visit the savage side
there's a hangover to be had,
drunk from the darkness
of uninhibited desire.
The streets there are familiar
but the characters have changed.
Not much human left in their eyes
as they glance sidelong at me,
sizing me for hunter or for meat.
I pull my trenchcoat tighter,
stand a little straighter
and emphasize each step,
staring them down one by one
with eyes hardened by
the memories of when
these streets were my home.

She doesn't start in the morning
like she used to,
and her gears are slipping.
Lost some of her pep
going down the street,
and is always going in for
something or other.

There's that clicking noise
whenever she takes off;
her chassis is sagging.
Leaves an inconvenient,
messy puddle
when she's parked for too long.

Maybe it's time.

Time to clean out
all her nooks and crannies
of the detritus
of years of family life,
and haul her off to the bone-yard.

Perhaps someday,
new life will come from
some old parts.
Until then,
let her sit and finish rusting
with all the other used-up
relics, loved once and forgotten,
compressed by time
into shapelessness
in rooms stinking of ***** and disinfectant.

There was no quiet desperation
in the riotous years of youth,
the grasping search for love and truth.
No, in those days there was no patience
for the faintest scent of dull
routine or rut.  It's just with age
that comfort's found in gilded cage,
no fires to set, and belly full.

Should a technicolor sunrise
strike a quickened spark of phoenix
from the ash of youthful pyres,
hopeful drops for jaded eyes
which, once refreshed, will then be fixed
upon millennial birds of fire.

if there is nothing human
about humanity
what's to save

it's not the pandemic
that keeps us separate
it's the dehumanization
and the demonization
the demoralization
we heap upon each other

no poet
can survive the lack
of friction
between their lives
and the lives of others

this artificial suspension
of everyday life
wrapping ourselves
in tight-lipped tolerance
or inflamed outrage
does nothing
but extend the isolation

the flimsy rope bridges
that cross the chasms
of derision
sway in the winds
of anarchy

those still able
and are willing
to communicate


must.

We gaze
upon the unseen,
give voice
to the
inexplicable.

A fresh start,
close of old business.
Father Time
reborn as a babe.
Promise made
and rarely kept.
Dreams are ground
to fine white powder
beneath the stone
of new beginnings.
Boy becomes madman,
father becomes ghost.
The haunting begins.

Rename a street
and believe you've
preserved a man's memory.

Close government down
for a single day each year
and dream that you are
perpetuating freedom.

Remember first and foremost

that

until every human being
is free in heart and mind
from the tyranny of color

two men
murdered
nineteen hundred and
thirty-five years apart
were killed
in vain.

Boss looks over my
shoulder; no morning respite.
Poems over lunch.

Email change locked me
out from my own words; glitch is
fixed, I'm home again.

The power of music
and friendship
heals dead connections;
a well-meaning member
of a jam session
offers me a guitar.
I politely decline,
embarrassed by my disability,
and they shrug.  Your choice.
The familiar curves
beneath my arm
like a woman
from my past,
my amnesiac left hand
reaches for the
muscle memory
of fifty years' practice.
After an agonizing minute,
the G chord miraculously plays,
as I played it at five,
the three big fingers alone
strong enough to hold it.
The switch to C impossible;
so I play a variation.
Doesn't sound bad with the group.
My God, I might play a D7
by the next time it comes around
in the song.
The gang is playing old standards,
Ohio State music;
three chords and a cloud of dust,
which suits my present skill(?) well.
I almost cried when a few tunes later,
we sang A Horse With No Name
to my accompaniment.

Beethoven was deaf, yet heard the Ode To Joy.
Hawking is paralyzed, and travels the universe.
I have three good fingers,
and no good excuses.

The tired poet
lays thirty days' burden down
and gives a heavy sigh.

the cup of my palm
begs for the curve of your calves;
pulsing thigh muscles
striding confidently past
the years that separate us.

As much as I am nature's man,
in spite of all my hopes,
I'm just a walk-on in her plan;
the one who interlopes.

Can't explain the peace
when paradise's cold enough
for sweats and hot soup.

There is a
thousandandone
year old man

you'd never guess
to see him

for that matter
you'd walk by him
and never notice

he is old
he is wise
he tries to change
no one
but himself
and then only
on alternate Tuesdays

the few who know
will once and again ask
"how do you do it" and
"of what do you dream"

he will say
he will always say
"i wake, i live my day
until i sleep
i sleep, i dream
to live another day".

a thousandandoneyears
a day at a time.
he is a happy man

The iambs in pentameter will dance across the page,
But in fourteeners limp along, with extra two feet left.
Once in another lifetime, writing sonnets was the rage,
The iambs in pentameter would dance across the page.

It seems the sonnet-writer now will only show his age
As more and more write free-verse, leaving formal poems bereft.
The iambs in pentameter will dance across the page,
But in fourteeners limp along, with extra two feet left.

Hug: four arms carry
the glorious weight of two
souls' love and caring.

Enjambment: meaning
and meter bumping bellies
in holy union.

Now: yesterday's dread,
tomorrow's history; the
only time we live.

Empathy: watching
someone draining their venom
without sampling it.

The boundless end of universe is curved
and sharp, and where you've set up residence.
Unhinged and edgy, wary and unnerved,
your mind time-shared by madness and brilliance.
Both seeking, fearing being understood,
with eyes in feral dance avoiding mine
because a hooded glance told you I would
and could continue on through space and time,
by simply tracing notches carved along
a trail blazed, breathing vacuum, years before.
Think I don't know the way there?  You'd be wrong.
I understand the path you choose and more;
an understanding far beyond those bounds
that trespasses on love's unholy grounds.

Sacred waters pulse,
branches sway but not the trunk,
anchoring my back.

Naked, moaning softly, bathed in sweat,
jaw agape and panting. Such a sight;
a perfect beauty I'll not soon forget.

Charming evening's prelude to a night
where passion grinds your voice to feral growl,
jaw agape and panting.  Such a sight.

The gentle purring now belies the howl
from shattering release that takes you whole
where passion grinds your voice to feral growl.

Your strong yet silken legs enfold my soul,
as you recover life from petite mort,
from shattering release that takes you whole.

No need to contemplate what's still in store,
I'll hold this waking dream until we sleep
as you recover life from petite mort.

Tomorrow's work and worries all will keep,
I'll hold this waking dream until I sleep.
Naked, moaning softly, bathed in sweat,
a perfect beauty I'll not soon forget.

Naked, moaning softly, bathed in sweat,
jaw agape and panting. Such a sight;
a perfect beauty I'll not soon forget.

Charming evening's prelude to a night
where passion grinds your voice to feral growl,
jaw agape and panting.  Such a sight.

The gentle purring now belies the howl
from shattering release that takes you whole
where passion grinds your voice to feral growl.

Your strong yet silken legs enfold my soul,
as you recover life from petit mort,
from shattering release that takes you whole.

No need to contemplate what's still in store,
I'll hold this waking dream until we sleep
as you recover life from petit mort.

Tomorrow's work and worries all will keep,
I'll hold this waking dream until I sleep.
Naked, moaning softly, bathed in sweat,
a perfect beauty I'll not soon forget.