what the difference if the ***** coffee cups
in the sink get washed now or later or never,
the stains of each imbibing are added, wearing
is a tearing down, cumulative, so refer back to
your calculus practiced on a shooting range,
the long distance to target is an accumulation
of a thousand points, wind, light, eyesight,
combinatory

many short runs if you wish to hit the bullseye
repeatedly in the long run

life is best when you sum up each day for the accurate totality

”And everyone has a heart and it’s calling for something
And we are all so sick and tired of seeing things as they are
Horses are just horses and their manes aren’t full of fire
And the fields are just fields and there ain’t no Lord
And everyone is hidden and everyone is cruel”

“BRIGHT HORSES,” NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS 2019


<>
some of us got a heart, that tries with us to reason,
some of us got a mind, that doubles as a hearse,
taking away, e-thots that were dead on arrival,
electrified by their unacceptable eclectic nature

some of us got word games to pass the day, doublespeak,
some of us illustrate, words that try to litter the literate,
seed the atmosphere, make it rain, confuse our ****** tear railroad tracks,  
those without final terminus, mixing them in, as a subterfuge

reality *****, even bites, of that the philosophers have no doubt,
some say they died for us, never having asked permission,
some say they saved us from ourselves, claiming cursed credit
that historians will purposely ignore, non-truths worthless

what is, is what I got to write down, to remember, to make
my Case for saving grace, is my only purpose, to make
my Case that a woman needs loving, giving her & man the
only Trip-Tik road to living, & children, nothing words, liquor can do

May 12th, eyes opened of their own accord, made a treaty with
them thoughts and prayers hanging round, needy for a go to place,
cause they well aware, their welcome ain’t, so instead wrote these
words purposed to give me reasons to rise and try to make sense,

a Case, that conversations tween my five senses that can be enCased,
that anything I got saying may be worth hearing to one or two, hell,
may get lucky and reach ten, socially distant max, forgetting fools,
now acquainted with my Case, your Case, calling for something

that makes real OK, seeing things as they are, ****, even passable^






9:39AM
nyc
Tue May 12

~for VB~

<>

“A child said What is the grass?
fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?
I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition,
out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners,
that we may see and remark,
and say Whose?”

Song of Myself (1892 version) BY WALT WHITMAN

                                                §§§

­there is special delight for the city dweller,
when the first clean flushing of brightest spring green
disrupts the unending graying city ribs of worn concrete,
the alternating lifelessness of blasé brick, pretending
off-beige, ***** pale blue, a sooty furnace red,
well done,  a good pretense that they are, of color.

I am among thousands whose as a child my breath
gave way, taken by gasp, when first made
entrance to the green diamond sparkle oasis of
Yankee Stadium, hid by the urban dreariness of The Bronx,
near sixty years vision sustained with perfect clarity on
retina-implanted, a shock, an earthly con-trast.

today, an old-timer, a first timer, I’m gifted Whitman’s Song of Myself,
from a friend and poet, who lives hardy by a Port,
another islander like myself, surrounded by wet roads and
pathways to the Northern Pacific, amongst timberlands of
forested and natured grass, a differing kind of stadium,
both of us silently saying, thanks Lord, for lending us yours.

even temporarily, this day, your emeralding grass handkerchief,
equates our dispositions, so differently identical,
your name, our initials, in opposing corners, embroidered,
your grass tapestry upon this troubled earth, a scented, joint, poetic
remembrance, that though it’s but words that bind us, we! we know!
the songs we sing of ourselves, we sing in synchrony harmony.

                                                   §§§§§


Wed. May 13, 2020
Manhattan Island,
by the East River

<>
“Stop this day and night with me
and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun,
(there are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things
at second or third hand,
nor look through the eyes of the dead,
nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either,
nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides
and filter them from your self.”

Song of Myself (1892 version) by WALT WHITMAN

                                                      ­§§§

*These admonitions are the ten conditionals
commandments of straight talk,
boy,
you’ve spent a life lessening and lesson-learning
and all laid before you for taking, gaining,
but for what? for naught?

Start this day, having spent my night with you,
possessing less than what is my now
completed,
this,
my unfinished commencement,
provisioned, a simultaneous beginning and finishing,
emptying a void of
fulfilling questioning.

What does this life desire of me,
that it granted and then removed,
the knowledge of perfection?
leaving me striving, writhing,
shivering unceasingly,
in my saddened, bursting, hacking
and hackneyed chest.

I walk the same cobblestone streets,
observing the descendants of your ancestral tugs
portaging, paying homage to East River tides,
carrying those goods,
the origins of all poems,
from where? to where?
unknown,
but always past our conjoined eyes.

And yet do I look, with our merged eyes,
filtered by a century’s discoloration,
forgive me Walt, for now recalling sights
that you first observed,
that I witness first hand,
100 and fifty years later,
sharing a stolen wisdom with you.

Todays new millionth sunrise bids me stand,
observe the river traffic from my kitchen window,
accept that my takings are debts,
a few, even paid back,
yet, most still owed,
for the origins of all my poems,
are oddly and oddity old,
unoriginal, second, third handed
as I look through the eyes of the dead,
and yours too,
this my unoriginal,
original sin....
(pretending  I am a poet)



                                                   §§§§§

6:24AM
Manhattan Island,
By the East River
Thu. May 14, 2020

<>

“I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat,
gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals,
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the
day and night”

Song of Myself (1892 version) by  WALT WHITMAN

                                                   §§§

Irony great, some say unto delicious, for my writing,
be a fusing of surroundings of silences, admixture of
inconsequential noises, atomic horn and geese honking,
sun rays speaking in tongues, my skin translating, both,
the sounds of the city, those of out of city, merged, both,
accessible, instant recall, stored for tongue tasing upon

these blank pages below, needy for wordy fulfillment,
copy and place these mishmash of cacophonous,
on a single page, simmer, blend and sauce, of course,
salt to taste, mine, author of this recipe being born,
born in the night, prepped by day, the lovely sounds,
kettle or pan, broiler, fryer, slow cooked on full flame

they are the melted butter sweetness crossing the span
between the body of the heartbeat, the ache of the brain,
shot out in rapidity, error’d and stain’d, their state natural,
for this mess of beans, collection of noises, stir my soul
where they contain’d, aromatic, fanatic, exotic, sticky hot,
only a singular harsh invades, the shrill of the voice human

this piece, this poem, a flavoring, a dish-not-to-be-repeated,
once consumed, spoiled milk, molded with Jello mold green,
back to hiding in place of unseen, of bravura masked as cowardice,
when crackle of easy wasted word cowards, daily spewed,
so precious these ingredients, these artful sounds, easy ruined,
chitchats of nothingness, parlous blasé wastrels, seize! cease!

take thy tongue, let it memorize all the oddities that fill your ears,
ecrivez! the cooing, smacking, the alliteration of snap, crackle, and
yes, pop! and if you can love the human voice, of that too, tho not me,
more beloved, the exterior symphony of kettle drum, soft cry of violin,
timpani tingling, guitar plucking, the voice of men, too oft abusing and abused by untruths, emboldened lies, they are the sounds
I love least, love to hate.  a shrill disease, the TV liars...

                                                     §§§§§



May
Manhattan Island

if you don’t know by now,
going to early mass is not my thing,
as I am one of those peeps of the tribe
that for your sins, died and then, again, and again

‘bout 6:00am, exchanging messages with
my fellow Indians (nooo, I’m not Indian) poets
on mundane subjects like tradition, grandchildren,
nagging wives, profits, revenues and earnings, expenses
(of that, more later)

now that we are living on the isle-no-elation,
the distractions are numerous though varied,
so I find myself unloading the dishwasher,
chopping, peeling, red, yellow peppers, cucumbers

then to a puzzle I am sent, how to fit in two
big cases of water into a Manhattan-sized
closet which shall we say, with largesse, isn’t
large-esse, comes pre-crammed from urban foraging

which means it’s coffee prep time so more
cleansing of yet another device, which happily
annoys by providing step by step, non-negotiable demands,
what me, just another human pretense machine, must execute

ménage a trois, three poems are pre-forming in
a mind that says concentrate, please don’t slice a fingertip,
but if you must, that romanesque nose, certainly
could use a trimming, if you are so energized & inclined

and it’s Sundae morning and I deliver the coffee,
making the route I’ve been plying for many morn,
this one is black, this one is oat milk, extra hot,
this one is awake, cause she’s giggling at **** emojis

oh yes indeed, a liturgical motet, a prayer to a lord,
I’ve never seen, but who insists on interrupting me,
when the mood is upon him, as if we humans were his own
coffee machine toys, don’t forget to make him herbal tea

and you say this is not a poem, and you whine,
overly long, and I laugh and say please, please,
don’t read it, I’ve got plenty others that garnered
accolades of multiple thousands and love this one better

feeling so holy, feeling so hollywood, my tasks nearly
completed, return to bed, when the nagging begins,
what have I forgotten, ****, my own coffee hides,
in the microwave and by now needs a reheating twice

and while I must off to write of Indian traditions,^
the gains and losses of grandchildren, grandmothers,
a new debate rages, how shall I end this morning-prayer,
and
I offer myself
three choices,
in a language I speak in the original,
Hallelujah, Amen, and Selah.


8:49am
Manhattan Island
May 17
2020

no plea here tendered,
long time are we past
the boundary of cooling
cooing brotherly tenderness

reason has been Joseph sold into slavery,
nary a Moses, who talks to God, is answered,
be seen or heard, to reconcile the divisive souls
of our fratricidal words

a morning’s reflection,
soon to be gone, passing,
of two pockmarked differing clouds,
scratching this morning blue drenched sky

a white, rotund cumulus rose,
one gray, rough, tumbled, worn,
ill tempered, of rain possessed,
but both clouds, each purposed

but this Sabbath day,
as this pale land reopens,
to bitter cries, minor rejoicing,
wise counsel, foundering, ignorance prevailing

forbearance, a weighty silence, circumscribed,
daytime highlights, disregarded, heads closed,
nowhere to found, just, a colorless pallor, a rasher
of fratricidal words