when you trim your ***** and your mustache with the same pair of scissors
when you hand over your entire paycheck to the bartender of doom and glee
when you write a bounced check at the grocery store
when you sleep with a girl who isn’t clean
when you’re young, lost, broken and poor
when your childhood runs hard and your luck runs out
when your best friend is dead and your other friend is ******* your girl
when your dog sleeps in the afternoon and dreams of the neighborhood *****
when your nutrients gets replaced with Xanax bars over the one who just left
when your tired eyes meet the brick & mortar of strenuous labor
when the smile is so fake that it appears genuine
when you go all in on someone you weren’t 100% sure of
when you wait on bleeding knees for the unreliable god
when you bet on the boxer that crashed to the canvas
when the interest is high and the banks are closed and the creditors don’t care about grace periods
when you understand very little and you expel a whole lot
when the cord of anxiety strangles your very essence
when you turn out to be just as everyone expected

don’t worry

it’ll all turn around

and find you again

someway

somehow.

except,
when the old eyes tear, with the greatest of ease,

hitched a planetary ride round the sun, more times
to know that the square root of the human is not
his exterior, which without fail, grows and erodes
on a timed schedule not of his own choosing...

but the mystery that never ages, the arousal of
his base metals, when the women looks upon him
with a intriguing askance, tasking a masking of an
invitational challenge, a whimsy expression of hither

confusion is the reigning ruler, mining for her actual
intentions, the push~pull of her contradictions and
her puzzling diction, impossible to interpret until I
admit, jingle jangle woman, I'll come following you

this is a familiar newness, a fresh candle lit for burning,
and every time is the first time, so there you have it,
I'm no ******, but born renewed, when the heated heart
quavers, with the anticipation of the known unknowns

and the old tears free falling, she finds its puzzling,
even troubling, till she grasps my smiling countenace,
and my head, two~handed embraced as she studies my line~age,
my map of wrinkled experiences that whisper yes, I understand

and she kisses my forehead, acknowledging acceptance that our
paths have never until now crossed, what a delightful surprise
will be the reading of a unexplored map of our conjoined palms,
the greatest wonder be that surprise has not died, and I

with one hand waving free, welcome it all, and she grins at my
exuberant silliness, and that we choose to be with each other, on
a treasure hunt for a poem as of yet unwritten, but so so wonderfull
comforting that its mere outline and its composition~completionition

familiarity speaks of the good things that experience has brought
and now, again, will yet bend time to our wills and what fun that
will be, defying odds, reliving new moments unique, hot created,
and this adventure reinstills the awe of wonder at familiar unknowns

*that early morn smell of
buttered brioche  bread,  
fresh, virginal,
like the  sweat
we have shed
and laughs we,
just baked this
day

Smiling in my silent screaming pain,
It's like pushing the wall of hope in vain,
Then my heart aches to the bone,
Freezing me in the room to be alone.

poems write me
in my slumber
and then i forget them
later. sometimes they
are so good i feel like
this hell is something else

Maybe my heart
was born too small
for the love
it carries...

That's why it
shares it
just to
give itself
breathing
space

WHY are you reading and writing poetry today?

why not?
**** straight &
just be the cause
that's right,

even writing
just keep it
short/\ sweet (self mocking Ha)
there are actual family members
who might require
a shocking paddling
to the
heart
when conducting their
year end review

as for us
the shock, the awe,
of so many fine
new poens opening
is a sufficient charger to the
parts that need restarting when
we wake up, no matter
our diversification
our diversions
and divisions,
reading new words ancient
in the Reforming,
are dividends and
that keep on after the electrolytes, caffeine
& other stimulies

stimulants that keep us going
a golden charging,
Plenty good enough

Ps
and I delight in many new ones
discovering my prose, welcoming
them like my newborn children
all my own, and raising them
and the new-for all-new combinations
to see their Forthcoming with/\ by
bringing them to your attention,
and that is my Jewish own creche,
my own scene of all of god’s chosen
poets
nativities

and did not plan to go in & on
but nothing stirs the sparks,
like thinking that every minute
a birth is celebrated
and I am blessed to be among
the witnesses

nml

a single word,
rejiggered
refound in the endless, floundering
someday~possibility bin of my
unbalanced brain, noted forlornly
on March 13, 2017@5:28 pm, the
trigger unpulled, the triggering,
long forgot, but my sense of duty
quizzes me, howling,
“how long you gonna run
that body’s words~worthiness down,”
leaving it orphaned, I’m surrounded
by finger pointing, some grand waggling,
and my genetic J-guilt is overwhelming,

rejigger my schedule,
rejigger my responsibilities,
email excuse~me apologies

and think upon the vastness
of the worded task, an eleventh
commandment that requests
a close examination of your
life’s intentions, and begin to
curse my two thumbs stumbles
in to files, chapters, notions
best forgotten for reasons quite
good enough

**** this uncovery discovery
and my sense of injustice that
now condemns both of us to a
tirade of remorse reminiscences
removal and so many re-verbs
-erations shaking me up that
this task now demands is
an old battleship
recommissioned,
a ship now
forced from retirement,
wantingretrofitting,
when I’m, my useful life
way past
my/our sell/use-by-date

so I do what any good theater loving
fool do, start singing
“Tomorrow, Tomorrow,
you're only a day away”

and beg for a one day extension,
a 24 hour forgiveness pass,
cause pressing matters
demand my immediate attention, like
finishing my epic life’s œuvre littéraire!

“How I Procastinated My Life Away”

At the sight of my rotten roots
people usually turn away
“you’re a lost cause”
“it’ll be a waste of time to stay”
they say.
If they listened for a minute I would tell me them:
“If you’re gentle with me
and water me with low pressure
mist me and let me breathe
those drops of care
slowly seep into me.
And if you lift me and begin to untangle me
I will love you freely
and I will grow
and my rotten roots will not be
the death of me
trust me and you will see.”
But by then they are already on their way
and my words are delivered only
to my rotten roots.