a truism, an overused, abused entrée to the first poem of the day,
they always are night-born, from a slow passage of dark to a light-triggering recording event, a 6 hr. poem period, gestation, incantation

and a sort of relief, temporary

many the miles voyeured, a mentaller feasting sated,
simple rhymes to covet, rephrasing the complexities of
our other lives, where our sub-selfs exclaim, out loud!
this is me unchained, this is me chained, this is...someone

besotted by the rottenness of honesty, once air-exposed,
eyes fixed, no away-turntable, all that well hidden spoilage
in dreams reverent, forsaken, my ashamed-ness, is willing
taken to the scaffold, and by daylight first, perceived, conceived

we may examine the half of me, nay, the all of me, open-face
secrets secreted in my nighttime travelogue, of crimes, revelations,
insects, drownings, strawberry moons, all the fraying edges of a
linen covering, my cadaver pouch of well used words

inscribed thus:

”human born from a sac, and to earth returned, in sackcloth

~for his biggest fan~

beloved, cause it is faithful,
comforter, sponge-grateful,
a travel companion, but more,
accepting foibles, base urges,
bad poems, acts of pettiness,
intolerant of self-deception,
it blankets with comfort, pulled
back when exposure required.

the holy dark, many named,
call it what you will, those who
read this, name it now, out loud,
what you call it, and I will hear it,
and bless your courage, and look
for you on pathways of embrace

strange professions and true confessions from a lockdown town (4/17/20)
————————————————————————————-————-

not a great idea,
in the not-yet-dawn,
to write
a poem entitled
strange professions,
true confessions

dried stains of prior leakings
upon old ‘n yellowed linoleum,
no need for more friends,
for sure, for sure,
that’s the smart play

you see! right there
I’m professing age
old wisdom,
confessing my sorry face is
well acquainted with
floor coverings,
where even the
soles of my shoes
won’t admit they been polluted,

having stepped in rooms
of low and ill repute,
those them there,
right in here
poetry writing sites
where there ain’t no
guideposts, reminding
what’s in the heart
pretend stays in Vegas,
but what the heck,
since I’m here already,
might as well,
ready go and spill,
things you don’t
need to know but...

help the time pass
in this lockdown town,
where total silence is
the loudest sound around

wine, empty beery bottles,
bad rhymes give me up,
just before I start a hey look!
it’s a brand new
sunny rain afternoon

the governor pronounced
we all gotta be masked,
24/7 inside and out,
the women complain that it
musses hair, the men say,
who me? nah, got
nothing to say about that,
We, don’t make no con-cessions...

when you can’t see
my lips moving, or my
one good eye be winking,
means it’s likely that I’m lying

they say, I’m going
stir crazy,
not me says he,
unlike  some guy who
wanted to blow up the
Alice-in Wonderland statue in
Central Park, hell,
u could look it up!

guess I coulda call this
here epistle, official “Lockdown Blues,”
but I jes heard gotta stay inside
till June Seventeen
that’s the good news,
plenty o’time to set
my affairs in order,
burn the poems nobody
needs seeing, those them
there with weirdness galore,
say no more,

you can whine, it’s fine,
no caring, no hearing,
past way the point,
where running or returning
is an option viable for nut jobs

them, with strange professions
and true confessions...

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