what is the what, this simplicity, the great difference?


                                                ­  ~~<>~~
he reads certain words,^ then

the poet uncovered, stumbles upon, a rhythmic bearing, provoked,
his own bearing now  lost in contemplation, exits the cottage, wandering on the always wet grass, observed by animal menagerie,
espy him watchfully, a human directionless wanderer wondering, asking himself the meaning of it all, knowing answers reserved not him

we celebrate subtlety, process the minutiae of extracting an exactitude of  the precious précis of each momentary why, only when he honest confesses his ineptitude, can he truly begin to pluck words from the airy atmosphere to assemble them in format that mines the great difference in everything, the differential veins

the creatures, unshy, wish to contribute, suggesting editions, subtractions, this turn, this twist, this nuance, always clarifying, valuing utility beauteous, making the meaning perfectly clear in ways that make you gasp at words, their powerful, to define, then refine, then just plain be, be fine, finding, exploiting, drawing freehand the lines of distinction exacting
this great differences
                                                  ~­~<>~~
^
“and next to nothing is everything, all worth knowing,
you, write my poetry, as I write of you with breathless
ease and comfort, for the thoughts of all men in all
ages and lands, are original to where our eyes espy
each other, where our lips kiss to cross, cross to kiss,
what is the what, this simplicity, the great differences?”

“of late, I have been falling in and out of love with words.” (Pradip)

Dear Pradip,

yeah had them symptoms too, pizza and penicillin, lost my sense of taste and smell, but neither helped, guessing gets tougher, when older, all those associated, assorted, amazing never ending, abracadabra, baptismal-bathing-broadening, buttered-up jobs & responsibilities when your suddenly taller by a new generational addition to the family tree, which means much more concerning, burning worrying words, you dare not say aloud, cause Shiva is too interested, and has too many arms, in interfering with your many small pieces of composure in pandemic days.

Sorry, buddy got no solution, maybe rubbing alcohol, maybe hard liquor, prayers on knees to a 57 variety of deities, try a different temple, start the week on a Wednesday, learn to rhumba, practice meditation way out loud, be annoyingly concerned bout everybody else, offer to do all the kids homework, buy the wife a new dress so you can have an argument regarding wasting money, so you can kiss and make up, heck and ****, you could even write crazy words in any order your personal dictionary commands, reorganizing them in reverse order, and then slapdash them together and call it stew,

don’t matter as long as you got the jaw jawing, the eyes winking, the people looking at you like you gone cuckoo mad, tell your children how much you love them in the middle of day, wave to a neighbor across the street, the gossipy one who always spying on you, sing some cowboy ***-on-little-doggie lullabies, interspersing a Yellow Submarine, croon A Long and Winding Road, and Do Not Forget to include Let It Be, preach with a whang damnastic fever to the street peddlers, then ask for a better price, by now your not-so-well repute will precede you, everyone be offering a cool drink, or hot tea, fresh paneer, really big discounts, the most comfy chair, asking what else ya need, tell ‘em a pen and some paper, please, and everyone will be relieved! cause you back to merely, plain, ordinary crazy, simply composing that wonderful poetry you love to
w r i t e
and everything is
r i g h t
in the world.

other than that, got no consoling words. Sorry.

Sincerely,

The Natster

the remains of the day, of lost chances, opportunities gone astray
and now irretrievably demised, a quiet day, of writing, thinking,
letting emotional waters fall over me, draining away the oils of mischance and in the few minutes before the morrow commences, the eyes tear, and the heart too, for there is so much pain and confusion that cannot be done away...and there are needs unmet...one feels lost by a wayside, at a remote railway station, awaiting a once-a-day train, that is always late...

Accused of being generous, and my guilt at this false accusation, makes me tremble, for what I wish for all of you, is the small and the greatest, both be satisfied, but not by taking, but by giving...my poor clarity pains me, but I compose not knowing the secret chords required to please...but my thoughts are of you, alone, solely, my concerns have fallen to a siding. We are all so far from each other in physical distancing, yet so oft, when you write in poem, in message, in shotgun short comments, you evoke my depths, provoke my raw, unprotected, unmasked emotions to rise up from gorge and abyss...hear your cries, the spoken and the ones between the lines, well hid in the spaces between the words, where the kernels and the residuals of the important things exist.

it is almost 11:59pm, July 8th. it is already tomorrow for many of  you who race ahead of time’s relentless measuring, and for some the evening young, you puzzled at this nearly midnight missive, will wonder what has.overcome me.

pure unadulterated emotional fluids, many flavored, washing away the veneers, the coverings, and wanting to fix things that my intelligence says you cannot, yet the urgency of my desire is so great, that I can barely swallow.

perilous close to revelatory disclosures, I will cease here, seize here, what cannot be spoken of, and to think upon the notion of a successful life, it’s constitution, composition and break off pieces of me, that I can give away to you freely to patch the holes, mend the readings, via the ether of skin comforting even if imaginary.

I am drifting into the tender part of the night, when deceit is pointless, and I argue with conviction with myself that in our lives that it will never be too late, but I know I contradict my prior musing...somewhere between the fact that time is a wasting commodity, precocious and precious, lives this idea within, that there is nothing that cannot be navigated, recompensed, even forgiven...the argument goes on, the tide of battle switching back and forth, and for now I must be satisfied with the meagerness of I can’t give up, be at ease by acknowledging defeat, not just yet, and the fast arrival of a clean slate is a chance, a draw, a ticket to ride, and, reaching is a wonderful idea, full of compromise, extra effort, and tomorrow I may yet reach one of us, by reaching inside of what churns within, and have the perfect words you require, desperate need, come forth easily...

new words for an old day that’s just begun

even I, author of the conundrum above,
confused but let us sort it out as we
descend into the elixir that is our combo
of noises, prejudices, limited vocabularies

time noted, not even the nine o’clock mark,
so the day qualifies as new, but it’s an aged
sun rising, skills displaying, historical precedent,
ancient practice, adjusted for atmosphericals

the lawn is speckled, mottled, as light ray guns
through the defending battalion branches and
platoons of leaves facing up, to a certain death
later than sooner, no killing fields till September

the oak tree generals, wisdomed experiential,
prepare plans, take light a prisoner in sufficient
quantity to nourish the troops, yet, not too much,
for the sun can be fickle, a flame thrower machina

all that vision leads me to this pronouncement:
*Oh Lord, bountiful be provided, beloved, inscribed,
this day, its mega-millennium predecessors and
successors gifted precision amounts needed, then,

Cast me gently into morning,
For the night has been unkind,
Take me to a, a place so holy,
That I can wash this from my mind,
The memory of choosing not to fight.

Sara Mclachlan “The Answer”




9:18am Thu Jul 9 ‘20

the osprey flys overhead, but the baby rabbit trembles not

~for any grandparent-poet lurking about~


the osprey overflies, a regularity scheduled patrol over
our backyard emporium and all its hors d’oeuvre creatures,
he/she has parental responsibilities, beaks to feed, PTA conferences,
the pilot, a wary watchful animal-his-rights guy, catalogues their still living  existentialism, for though they are not fish, his diet of preference, but in a pinch a rodent  or rabbit stew will do, if the fish are running too deep for no warming sun beckoning them to the surface.

Motel^ the baby rabbit, who lives with his parents,
(who doesn’t these days?) beneath the deck,
chews the clover overnight sprung, blissfully i g n o r a n t,
unawares or ignoring the poet be-laureating (him-her) but a mere
few feet above and away, pays no attention to the Poppy’s (grandfather) lecture about the rules of the animal kingdom,
who, eats whom, and to be more attentive to flying raptors.

thunderstorms forecast for the afternoon, severe say
the textured textual phone-netical all green messages, which
of course is a signal signal to the sun his job is done and can
leave the untanned poet in his state of original sin, soooo deliciously
white that he earns an appraising glance from eyes of the osprey,
a privilege he would happily tan away to promote equality ‘n stuff like peace on earth.

Motel, with his thermometer-humidity nasal instrumentation twitcher, decides, after chewing it over most carefully, time to go underneath where the white half naked people domicile, in order to avoid bathing, not his fav pastime, but making the osprey quitter le ciel, which is French for get out of Dodge, they got babies of their own to shelter and protect, even feed.

The Poppy, contented, thinks to himself, god couldn’t be everywhere,
so he invented grandpas to be “En Loco Parentis”  which
Does Not Mean Instead of Crazy Parents,
but easily could,
for who else writes
poems like this?