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“Are you okay?”,
my wife asks
when I cough.

“No. I’m fine.
Yes. I’m not”,
I respond,

stumping her
in the poetic irony
of words that

encompass the
yes and no
and the in between.

She flips the finger
at me and I return
the bird to the nest.

We go back to our life
and our tablets,
the drip, drip of my chemo
and I wonder about okay.

“No.  You’re fine.
Yes. You’re not.”,
the bag stares in response.
Hey someone, in charge, I’m talking to you
across a vast ocean of errors numbered 502.

Please, put a quarter in the little slot that dispenses the feed,
so, the little gray squirrel gets what he needs,
to spin the little aluminum wheel that generates
the Susie-Bake oven light which facilitates
the solar cells powering the 1984 Tandy desktop,
that’s the Hello Poetry server - it’s ground to a stop.

We love that squirrel, and if we sound cloying,
it’s because we find the constant 502 errors annoying.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Cloying: excessively sweet or sentimental
 Sep 2022 Kyle Kulseth
Lily Audra
I can hear the sea bed,
I sometimes think I can hear whales and eels,
And pain escaping my body,
I feel so much all the time,
I sometimes think you feel very little and watching you succeed makes me feel worse and isn't that awful?
Eels are covered with a slimy mucus  that allows them to slither around without getting scratched,
I keep dropping myself into water,
For a second of relief,
Healing isn't linear,
And did you know eels can swim backwards and forwards.
Like some kind of Irish David Lynch
I awake, words fuse together
As my synapses spark

Nanosecond choices
Picosecond bonds
Served up to me
Shall I offer to others to see?

Phrases of alien tongue
'The Pernapalise principle'
'The Goodwin ghost'

The day goes by
More synapses fire
Less frequently this time

Normality resumes
I give in to reality
Time for bed
On a daily basis words fire off in my brain and I love the surprise they give me. I love creative people and am shocked when I meet people who don't live in other worlds outside of ours.
What I have learned
is your body,

the fluidity of it
like drinking

a burgundy glass
of pinot noir.

   Forgive me for this February
   pink rainfall

   but the stars of you
   make an exquisite ellipsis,

   your touch
   my private voltage.

I dream
your eyes at night,

sea-sprayed freckles,
salt-blessed lips,

your smile a welcome echo
on my own face.

   Is love
   only learning?

   If so, teach me
   so I learn and learn again,

   hand be the compass,
   the heart an atlas.
Written: July 2020.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time that was a project of sorts with a good friend of mine (@writingbysa on Instagram), based on a prompt. This is my 'half' of the poem, with the other piece called 'expectant, breathless.' All feedback welcome. A link to my Facebook writing page can be found on my HP home page.
it’s a daiquiri colored morn, countlessly
as I, gazing never tiring, of a vista I’ve seen,
awoken to, endlessly changing, voyagers of
birds and boats, the redecorating minimalists,
moving pieces on a latticed shadow lawn

the Sun eastern, asking the trees to turn and bow,
hence the shadows their branches cast are a waffling,
hopscotch pattern irregular, so jumping from/to
yellow-green sunspots, the children are delighted by a
new game, moving to and from and between an ever
changing crazy chessboard of light-patches unsquared

described, written of, yet here I am, once again, a servant
despairing, looking for new combinations of superlatives,
though I never spoke before of it as a vista,
until today, wondering why, perhaps because
it’s here, one lives, one doesn’t conceive of  being
part and parcel of a vista, humans, just visitors,
pawn observers, gallery visitors, art appreciators,
transient hobos after forty years, truthfully claiming
that they’re merely still, passing thru, passing by

9:40 am, respectable hour to meander over
to the throne room, the four Adirondacks, them,
the year round poetry nook authorities, are equal
sunned, shaded, simultaneous, stately shadowing,
observing, advertising as perfect for composing,
willing to make verbal suggestions, rhyming notions,
especially when the poem pays proper obeisance

and so it does, and so it is, as you can clearly read


9:53am Sunday Jun 14
Year of the Pandemic
see cover photo


neglect and respect do not rhyme,

{will grant you one,
will give you none.

will demand one,
will send you some.

you poets,
always thinking
you can get away
with murdering
the English language.

***** of assonance,
you do not fool me,
I’ve killed a thousand
men’s “original”rhymes,
while you’ve been
fast sleeping,
they’ve been
fast seeping.

I’ll give you no quarter,
won’t spare a lousy dime,
my spare change,
is poet-unaffordable,
cheap suited hucksters.

work and ****
do rhyme.  
you can be one,
if you do not
put in some.

work by day,
slave by night.

awake to the sun’s
inquiry, what have
you done for me
lately?

IF

all you have to show is this
scribbilus miscellaneous,
tear up your lice-ence,
poetic and DMV, you
ain’t going nowhere.

was branded by hot iron,
early on,
brandy channing.

your best nightmare,
guidance counselor,
extraordinaire,
great big fairie,
poseur, exposer,
m u r d e r e r
of awful poetry}


WHAT,  
what do you stand for?
neglect and respect
rhyme,
you stand
I curse the thunder
that tore us apart

I am drowning in the storm

the rain runs cold,
right down to my bones

you used to be my anchor
but now you’re just a ghost

haunting my heart
In the dark of the night
I go to bed
And feel purgatory drawing me in
Say no more

      In the dark of the night
      I don’t trust myself
      Alone with my hand
      When I should stand up to Him
      Say no more

            In the dark of the night
            The storm drain overflows
            I should really get going
            So I don’t drown
            Say no more

                  In the dark of the night
                  I call all angels
                  Take me closer to Heaven
                  And farther from Him
                  Say no more

            In the dark of the night
                  In the alleyway running
                        Please forgive me
                              For not being brazen
                                    Please forgive me
                                       For not being brazen
                                             I will say no more
The ever-revolving door of the emotional spiral
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