the sighs in our chest that emanate from a different kind of
breast cancer*

wrote these words prior,
then, certainly uncertain of the exactitude of their meaning,
clearly unclear of their useable intention,
yet the too real wrathful sensations
that inspired their caesarian creation,
the sigh's very own exhalations,
floatations devices for the interned-no-longer emotions,
escapees via the crevasses of chest ribs splitting open,
return to glory thanking me for freedom given

let posterior eloquence suffice, let brevity guide
my self's interior diagramming,
lengthy explications and deep analytics, I leave to you,
the astonished medical examiner and the horrified mortician

chest ripped, my hand reinserted, the blighted scourges,
the abscessed cancers, the obsessive relentless cankers,
asking shamelessly why have I returned to the crime scene

the sighs are air-borne, ready for air plucking,
all cloud seeded, deeded for poets to seize and commence,
to plant and invent, a mountain top trickle to a mighty
river of poems to be recovered and discovered,
unrehearsed and unleashed

but you and I have unwished, unfinished business,
as of yet unwritten, one last poem to honor our
mutually assured destruction,
for this day will be
rewritten differently

"Who writes poems like these?"

She, Miss Patty,
from Missouree? Missouruh?
asks me this question
round about a year ago,
after eavesdropping on an open poem line,
about a conversation,
a dialectic chat between me and the big guy in the sky^

(yeah, him, the magic marker Maker, who graffitis our lives only in
ink that just never goes away, cannot be erased,
talkin' bout this 'n that, ending, in a request from him for a
love poem personal (denied, fyi))

my answer:

come, sit for awhile, in poet's nook, upon soft pillows for our
tired sighs born in chests with a different kind
of breast cancer.
and upon these tough worn Adirondack chairs hard,
by the bay, we shall coverse in alternating verses

if too hot, the poetry's temperature.
we'll slow drift to the sun room of lace curtains and
heated suicide poems,
and after cool drinks
we'll observe the water, the rabbits, the cacophony low
of all the noisier creatures asking the trees and the
shuckling cappuccino frothy leaves
where did all those poets come from?
~
so to the question at hand and heart,

Who writes poems like these?

answers scarce, confessions plenty,
evasions conjured,
but tried, tired, and true, indeed
always ask myself, my sole troop,
that very same question every time,
the brain chimes poem time

'tis a truth, sort of, for the question is
asked by me, so oft,
should I, would I,
dare deflect the inflect of the eyes who cannot lie
and write a poem like this,
knowing it ends always only in tears,
or quit while ahead,
while my heart is slow beating,
and the pounding is temporarily,
halftime shelved

when
I ride the bus, open the kitbag,
find messages so privy
with and from the other poets,
(it is a privilege to be so councillor entrusted,)
picking up the gleaming gleanings of
fellow earth-extraordinaires,
reading the tales of the mad lunar lovers,
each of whom believe the moon has been following
only, each of them individually,
from childhood

when
exercising the muscle memories of love and ache
when watching the little gestures of my babies, my loved ones,
clues to who they are,
clues to who they will be.
after I am not

but let me be measured for measure by this:
Who writes poems like these?

well, after every writ complete,
weep and weep, if not laugh uproariously,
for though the question earnest, and I too,
never ever let adulthood interfere
with actions of my eyes, my mouth, my gut,
they all, masters now of me,
forcing me to write with abandon reckless and yet,
slicing off choicer cuts of me, carefully crafted, into
word etchings, painted water colors coming from the body's oils,
for my ration of rationality
has left town
for the summer, following the little drummer
boy,
perhaps, for the (double meaning) good

this each, a parcel of me, writing beguiling amuse bouches
of cache and cant, of poodles who speak human,
long legs in bed, high heels attached, conversations with moons,
crying to my lovers, I am a little boy, so needy,
and then the left foot turns to face
any and all gods who permit their names to be abused
for muddying murdering purposes,
as if we, all humans, all poets, were playthings,
bowling pins and not poets of some, any, the, way,
coming from the place
to where we all speak words, in our differing dialects,
accepting the blessings & curses thereof,
words but never fists

have I answered the question?

suspect not,
cause I am the suspect prime
in the crime
of low poetry
and high mis-demeanors,
and the authorities have been asking me the question for a lot longer than you, but no longer than one peculiar man,
Who writes poems like these?*
and they haven't caught me yet
and I haven't quite caught
the plain answer

does the moon get tired?

~for the children who never tire of moon gazing upon the dock,
by the light of the fireflies,
till the angels are dispatched by Nana,
to sprinkle sleepy dust in their eyelashes so long and fine~

<•>
while walking the dog I no longer have,
a happenstance glanceable up over the River East,
there you were, mr. moon, in all your fulsomeness ,
surrounded by a potpourri of courtier clouds,
all deferentially bowing, waving,
passing past you at a demure royal speed on their way
perhaps,
to Rebecca's northern London,
of was it south to grace of  v V v's Texas^,
in any event,
the cloudy ladies, all bustling and curvaceous,  
all high stepping in recognition of your exalted place,
Master of the Night Sky

We,
the word careless, poets excessive,
sometimes called silly poppies, old men,
left footed, still crazy after many years,
most assuredly poets false all of us,
without a proper prior organized thought train,
outed,
bludgeon blurted,
an inquiry preposterous and strange,
strait directed to the sombre face,
to mister moon himself!

tell me moon, do you ever tire?*

the obeisant clouds shocked
as that face we all uniform know,
unchanged anywhere you might go  to gaze, be looking upon it,
watched the moon's face turn askew.

He looking down at our rude puzzlement,
with a Most Parisian askance,
a look of French ahem moustacheoed disbelief,
while we watched as the moon cherubic cheeks
filled with airy atmosphere,
then he sighed

so windy winding, was it,
so mountain high and river deep,
that those chubby clouds were blown off course,
from a starless NYC sky
all the way past Victoria Station,
only to stop at Pradip and Bala's
mysterious land of
bolly-dancing India,
on their way to Sally's Bay of Manila,
magic places all!

Mr. Moon looked down at this one tremulous fool representative  
(me) and in a voice
basso beaming and starry sonorous,
befitting its stellar positioning,
squinting to get a closer look at the
who in whom
dare address him in such an emboldened manner!

Mmmmm, recognize you, you are among those
who use my presence, steal my lighted beams, my silver aura,
my supermoon powered light, borrow my eclipses,
reveal my changeling shaped mystery without permission,
only mine to give, you tiny borrowers who write that thing,
p o e t r y

head and kneed, bowed and bent,
I confessed
(on y'alls behalf)

we take your luminosity and don't spare you
even a tuppence, a lonely rupee, no royalties paid
to you-up-so-highness,
and we hereby apologize for all the poets
without exception,
especially those moon besotted,
only love poem writing,
vraiment misbegotten scoundrels....

with another sigh equality powerful,
mr moon pushed those clouds across the Pacifica,
all the way to the  US's West Coast,
up to Colorado,
where moon-takings from the lake's reflecting light
so perfect for rhyming, kayaking,
and moonlight overthrowing,
once more, the moon taken and begotten,
nightly,
as heaven- freely-granted

yes, I tire
and though  here I am much beloved,
usually admired though sometimes even blackened cursed,
seen in every school child's drawing,
in Nasa's calculations,
of my influential gravitational pull,
moving human hearts
to love and giving Leonard a musical compositional hint,
and while this admirable devotion is most delighting,
would it upset some vast eternal plan,
if but one of you once asked,
you fiddler scribblers
my prior permission,
even by just, a lowly
mesmerizing evening tide's tenderizing glance?

yes, I tire,
even though my cycles are variable,
my shape shifting unique, my names so at variance
in all your many musical sing-song dialectical languages,
my sway, my tidal currents so powerful a deterrence,
unlike my boring older sunny cousine  who just cannot get over
how hot looking she is,
I,  so more personally interesting,
yet you use me as if I were a fixture,
on and off with
a tug of the chain string,
never failing to appear,
even when feeling pale yellow and orange wan,
and worse,
mocked as an amore pizza pie,
do you ever ask how I am doing?

yes, I tire,
of my constant circuitous route that changes ever so slowly,
but yet, too fast for me to make some nice human acquaintances, especially those young adoring children
who give me their morn pleasurable squeals when they awake and my presence still there,
a shining ghost of a guardianship protector still
watching over them

how oft in life do we presume,
take for granted
grants so extra-ordinary
that we forget to remember
the extra
and see only the ordinary

how oft in life do we assume,
the every day is always every,
until it is not,
only an only
a now and then,
till then,
is no longer a
now*

<>
oh moon, oh moon,
our richest apologies
we hereby tender and surrender,
our arrogance beyond belief,
what can we offer in relief?

silence heard loud and clear,
mr. moon was gone,
a satellite in motion,
so our words burnt up in the atmosphere
unheard

we did not weep
nor huff and puff,
blow those clouds back to us,
for we knew
the extraordinary
would return tomorrow,
we will be ready,
better another day,
to prepare
a lunar composition,
a psalm of hallelujah praise,
for mr. moon
of which
mr moon will never tire,
for filled with the perma-warmth
of our affection
for the one we call mr.moon