"Sing your heart out...:)"

Lalalalalaaaaaa...

                                      thud

thumpthump  thumpthump...

oops.

o splendid child most whOlly pure and sweet (
angelic, come to claim your worldly place)
de
    scend
              ing, born to mother of the street
Leda to some (on the                  
                                   down-low) Zeus
effervescent incandescent  eYe  s
illuminating darkened cornered souls
of passers-                                                  
      ­            >snappingsnarlingstomping< 
                                                            ­        by                 
with savior's grace found now(here)
                                                       ­      perfect whole
unearthly beauty neon ((halo)) glows
               mirrored
                               on her palest golden hair
from reddest lights and bar signs
                                                         Her steps float
above the concrete-footed walks and stairs
to which we're tied.
                                 Just child's play (yet it seems
that in her wake a cityblock's
                                                  )re­deemed

Burnt-tasting breaths hang
near the back end of my throat;
toxic good riddance.

He hums his happy-making tune,
she ***** a brow, one dimple shows,
then slyly spreads across her lips.
She knows full well what is to come.

Hiring me to repair
and prepare the old rental
for you to occupy
after you sold our house,
I found the collection
of carefully selected snowglobes
bought for you over years
and the original copy
of my gift poem
left with the tenant's trash.

slinking down the canyoned street
stalking, nylon-smooth to prey
on predatory eyes who meet
her own. some smile, some turn away.
some know she'd eat them to the bone;
they know that they would die to let her.
some'd use her, drop her like a stone
and say that she deserves no better.
the first she calls her daily bread,
grazing as she culls the herd.
the second brings a smile instead;
male ego, cocky, brash, absurd
to think that any man could claim
to beat her at her chosen game.

We are awash in
love and many die of thirst;
learn to drink it in.

I was stupid and starved when I started;
my feral fangs snarling and bared,
only fit to be fed from a distance
by a few brave souls showing they cared.

So slowly by slow I grew human,
so slowly by slow I grew strong.
When I tried to repay all their kindness,
"Pay it forward," they said, "move along."

I can give only what I am given,
small wisdom enough for the day;
if you find something worthwhile for taking,
that would mean more than poems can say.

Graying, overweight,
powerful bearish
body a-crumble from
years of bullwork.

Didn't matter what
the day job was
when the stage was mine
four nights a week.
Now the voice cracks,
and crowds giggle or
avert their eyes
when it blows up.


There was a time when
whatever I put my mind
or body to, got done.


I got a standing O from an orchestra
and carried a waterbed up 3 flights of stairs.

This morning, I put word to byte
because it's one of the few things
I do better now than then.

Stephen King was not
trapped for a week in a car
by a rabid dog.

Casting my craft out
upon creation's shallows;
pray to pull in art.

Hamlet wandered Elsinore;
saw father's ghost appear,
"Son, stick it to your uncle
who stuck it in my ear."

We're both aware that I'll be first to go,
but don't think for a minute that I'm done
with life and time.  Although end game's begun
there's too much left, too many things to show
the daughters, sons, the grandchildren, and you.
The few uncurdled dreams we still might grasp
and reach, the promises that will not lapse
expired, without redemption will come true
in what years we have left.  Let's make our plans,
adapt to new realities, accept
the finish of the roller-coaster ride,
dismount regretfully, again to stand
on solid ground, content to know we kept
what fragments tired love and peace provide.

Every poet a
taxidermist, preserving
their beings with words.

i walk a fine line
drawn between challenging read
and scrambled word-hash;
incomprehensible and
sharp-edged cutting clarity

The sheer power of your words
the cascading beauty of shimmering
images crashing upon my very being
erodes a deep pool of peace
where I float finding respite
from the triage of living

lay down upon a spread of softest down
on shore nearby perfumed
with blooms of memories shared
fascinating, lovely, thorns and all

an exhilarating walk along jagged cliffs
built from volcanic eruptions;
emotions buried for years
beneath the surface
given fiery breath and freedom
their peaks frosted with
gentle cooling snows of perspective

rolling meadows of gently whispering
reads roiled by imaginative breezes
subtle sweet-grass intimations
soothe an overheated mind
and balm the inflamed heart

this is the world we have created;
rejoice, and be glad in it.

He staggers in, bellies up to the website...
"What'll ya have, bub?"  "Whatever's fresh...";
takes a good long pull from the draft on top.
Pounds down shots of shorts, savors
a good 12-year old sonnet with legs.
His wife knows he's here; doesn't approve.
She just doesn't understand...
but you do, dontcha?

A line begins,
is drawn,
ends.
An endless,
infinite number
of waypoints
between.
Lines leave no legacy;
a small black streak
to be erased.

The last of my line,
I leave no legacy;
my poems are my children

She does not ask for much;
a piece of paper,
a few markers,
time, and a mind at peace.
Her patience is maddening.
Dot by dot,
fantasies form,
sprung from her forehead
fully grown and armed
with the colors she imagines.
Her gray eyes clouded
with concentration,
for every jab of her hand
must strike true,
a felt-tip Seurat.
Her life a study in pointillism, too;
each day filling in
an outline, dark and light
commingled, colored by
those who come and go,
the users and losers,
the bruisers and the healers.
Self-portraits abound;
the smiling face and glowing eyes
she will show the world
painted over the pain
she has known
from loss of blood
and faithless friends.

A word to the wise:
Though her unicorns and pegasi
are strikingly beautiful,

her demons can be quite real.

Cooked two meals at once;
"do the large while it is small".
Clean house bit by bit.

Come, take my hand and walk with me
into the blinding darkness of
unspoken fear, unfelt, unseen.
I cannot hope that you would love
the journey, only pray that you
will stay to love the company
you've kept.  Your touch, your comfort through
the night which rises every day,
and darkens daily will be needed.
Fevered fear enflames my skin,
constricts my throat, a breathless plea
to stop the strangling from within.
The Spirit uses you as peace
to strengthen me for what I face.

My secret life, my dark iniquity
Is best kept caged behind a gentle smile.
For though endowed with suave propinquity,
My heart lurks in the weeds, a crocodile.

when living in Jurassic Park
one learns why we become extinct
our heads are turned by well-turned words
instead of legs   when out for drinks
we'd rather chase a line of thought
than cherches le femmes   our passions shade
toward learning life and less to love
our broken hearts healed and remade
so aching, tired, we lick our wounds
inflicted by the patient years
and seek a resting place for bones
to bathe in tar the end-game's near
and offer meat to those young furry
new creatures as they hunt and scurry

Every day is once again too precious;
a journey, step by step of thirteen years
evaporates to salt like drying tears.
The salt not wasted, rubbed in wounds so specious,
wrapped in bandaged memory, bound tight
and bloodless by layers of adhesive time.
A wish, a prayer, a moment from my prime
when all could be accomplished, all was light.
Each morning wakens heavy, trudges on
Promethius's odyssey to night
still hoping rolling stones may be diverted.
Reality re-dawns; all hope is gone.
The uphill climb remains to make aright
what gifts that born in grace became perverted.

There are no more bad days.
There are moments
          of ingratitude
          of rage
          of self-pity
          of hatred.
Those do not last.
There are
          friends
          family
          caregivers
          kind strangers.
These are evergreens.
Bad moments need not
become bad days.
The song of life
plays on between them.

Would you come with me and lend a hand?
I forgot to let the dim bulb burn
last night; the water in the well has turned
to ice, no longer flowing on demand.

The flow has stopped before, you understand;
you'd think that in that time a lesson's learned.
Well, maybe so...at least I have discerned
to force a trickle; not to let ice dam.

Gifts phenomenal
at fourteen, merely average
forty years later.

Is there therapy
enough for a whole nation
to heal its schism?

He awakens, sighs, bones acreak at every move.
Reaches for the boilerplate, straps on his rapier
wit (but half of once it was), takes an aching
hold of his rusty lance, and mounts the ancient keyboard.
In clattering, staccato bursts, they gallop through
acres of verse:  thatches of haiku and senryu,
prim English gardens of sonnet, manicured villanelles,
and mile after mile of untamed blank verse just like this.
All along the journey, he tilts at the ogres
in his mind, swiping in steady rhythm
at possesive pronouns replacing contractions,
your/you're...their/they're...its/it's...gah!
Set to charge full speed downhill from the
Valhallan heights of two courses of college English
at unedited mounds of unexamined thoughts,
he fetches up sharply; slows to a trot, looking uphill
at the hordes of English majors
eyeing him and his keyboard
with malice aforethought.

raskol tells me that
we don't have to live in a
mediocracy.

Enjoying my lair;
never knew I'm so ******
territorial.

We cannot take
a good, hard look
at ourselves
without help;
our own perception
a fun-house mirror,
twisting our foibles
into grotesques.
We become too big,
thinking we loom large
in the lives of others
who could not care less,
or we shrink into nothing,
disappearing from those
who miss us dearly.
Judge, jury and executioner,
we condemn ourselves
as not worthy of the air we breathe.
We cannot take
a good, hard look
at ourselves.
The look is rarely good,
and often far,
far too hard.

Good thing Buddha found
light; ascetic had but ribs
to rub for good luck.

there is a vast peace
in the respite
of disease;
aware both of
infinite time
and finite life,
giving notice to
what endures,
what passes.
each moment hangs
glowing in
the sunset of eternity,
perfect,
ripe and juicy
as the strawberry
growing
from the cliff.
tiger of living above,
chasm of death below,
hanging by a
breaking branch
with red-stained lips.

those rarest times
you leave me
to my silences
i shut the TV off
and i am sure
whenever i go
no music plays

i savor the quiet
as much as
you welcome
the white noise of game shows
which fills the chasm
where your children were

i know as stone fact
that if you go before me
the first thing i will do
after placing
the urn upon the shelf
is turn on the television

promise me
you'll play me a song

When the future
holds no promise,
the past will ******.

La Chanson Triste* is played from memory
and the heart. She catches his eye as she leaves,
letting him know he caught a piece of her self;
he places it carefully in his valise
as he packs up to go home alone,
wondering why all the fine women
are taken...or gay...or both.

Life revolves; a door
which spins from my heart to yours,
soul to soul to soul.

Traveling back to humanity
from a place where there is hopelessness
beyond hopeless,
where one believes in God
and will not trust God.
Lost in a spiritual wilderness
for twenty-one days,
by grace alone not forty.
There is no fear quite like
the fear that your fervent prayers
are being ignored,
or put on celestial Hold:
"...your call will be answered
by the next available Higher Power;
estimated wait time is
approximately three lifetimes."
There are times
when I must founder,
battered, shattered
against the reef of my ego,
baptized by drowning in self-pity
before emerging, reborn
on a safe shore in sheltered harbor,
pulled in by willing friends
who miss me when I'm lost.

Do we not carry
the echoes of the only
in every new love?

Brutal truth is the
last resort of a best friend
or a patriot.

Suppose
life is an old man.
He's the type to thank
all the gods he knows
when his eyes first open
for the gift of another day.
Shrugs on his robe
and pads into slippers
without waking anyone
and starts the coffee.
Showers, dresses,
heads to the park
for his walk with the birds,
who flock and coo and chirp
for the crumbs of stale bread
he carries.
He has a lovely porch,
where he rests
in the afternoon
and after dinner.
He watches the neighbors
bustle and unwind.
You're always welcome
to join him in
the other rocker
and talk of whatever
the gentle breeze
blows into your mind.

Listen to him well.

The old man has learned
the small joys and adventures
fill our days
and are miraculous.

Have spent three years
of mornings
listening to
voices of reason,
observation,
quiet humor,
a spot of civility
amid a scorching desert
of screaming,
argumentative
bloviators.

A concept
created in reason
was great
while it lasted.

The universe loves
being loved and love's echoes
ripple through being.

Forgive me
if I don't wait for you.
Pray that I get there
long before you must.
Travelling always trumps
arriving,
hopeful or not.
The terminal of one leg
of the trip
is merely a
point of departure
for the next
(so it's been said).
So let's pack a cooler,
call shotgun,
and ride with me
for so long
as there
is road.
When my stop comes,
say the words
and hold me
until I take off.
I'm afraid
you'll have to drive
the rest
of your way home.

I asked my teachers this for years;
no answer to be had.
Why is some awe very good
while full of awe is bad?

You get out of life
only that which you Putin.

your tears are ninjas
tearing my still-beating heart
straight out of my chest

Your ship, painted on the glass
of a five-by-seven picture frame
sails above my desk.
A study in blues, my favorite
as you well knew,
done by a man who knew
the blues too well.
The tall-master in full sail,
catching the reach
which exceeds my grasp.
The freedom of a craft
doing what it was made to do;
sailing in full faith
toward an unseen horizon
just as you were
when you came to me
with your divorce
and your truth.
I knew.  Your friends all knew.
But you loved children
and family so much
that for years
you could only paint the truth
to yourself
which ended up
in a closet(yes, too ironic).
When the man came out,
so did the paintings.
I look up every day
and know the world
is a better place for it.