morning contradictories: mourning our poems, falling stars


awaken to a sunshiny Saturday,
the lazys, their coverlet of flowers,
inhibit our movements, now, as it nears
high noon, we have yet from our bed stir

August has be-come, the grass pockets
of gray and green, swaths of sunburn brown,
reveal how far along the North American
summer has poetry passed, irretrievable

reading your messages and notes from
world over, lazy licking you poems so many,
delighting, ponderous and oft heroic, as well,
weeping as too many become fallen stars

each grass blade, from earth born and returned,
the nutrients preserved in our sandy soil, intended
to nurture next summer’s poesy new birthrights,
green+browned, weep+smile, mutual contradictories

these poem best friends, passing by each other at lifecycle’s
multi-paths, metaphors for our too many morning stirrings,
most to be falling like stars that, though in motion, need not
come to rest ever, their movement attracts a one…lasting look

it nears noon, it nears this poem’s timely finishing touch,
straighten its tie, smooth its skirted pleats, a forehead
implant kiss goodbye, sent on its way to find its own weight,
no parent ere admit, it leaves, with tear-burst showers falling…

August 1
2020

noon

~flickering~

like love. like time. like her.

little flame quivers and sighs
she glows a warm amber,
and her light is welcome;
it awakens plumes of dust,
casts shadows on the
walls and floors
where memories forever sleep.

the table is piled high with boxes bearing
clothes she had sewn and hemmed
for growing legs,
broken and mended china,
and boxes filled with
a volume of aged letters –
written in last year's bleeding ink
and sealed with a memory.

and her last syllables form words in mind:

~“we will all burn away,
but I will be with you until morning arrives,
on its withering arms of gold,
and I will be standing there,
rose in hand,

and I will give to you in death
what I could not in life.”~

she said:
you are a man knowing cruel, knowing hard,
with strangest soft skin, a funny way of talking,
lick my face with your words so I’ll learn,
to be tough and tender too, this I want, wanted

he replied:
life gave me splinters, broken from rough edges,
left under my exterior to fester, blister, and scar,
life licked my face, taught me mean, and the words
that came with that, were sand papered on my skin

she answered:
I’m not blind, I can feel, smell your contradictories,
want your antibodies in my blood, survival skills,
to be what I am not, and keep too, what I’ve got, to
be infected and protected, knowing words defensive

he listened:
what you desire, is the health that comes after,
after what you don’t understand, until you’ve
loved, lost, been beaten down so that getting up is
miraculous, this unteachable, this licking by words

she insisted:
your arrhythmic rhymes, skinflint perspectives,
this is what I ask, what I need, what you can give,
what is in your possess, what you need to unburden,
making me better for making you lessened

he wept:
and said nothing.

for nothing taught appreciating silence and that,
was the beginning,
of what she wanted,
of what he did not,
of what he gives reluctantly


8:16AM
Wed May 20
Isle of Mind

After John Prine:
“There's flies in the kitchen,
I can hear 'em there buzzing,
And I ain't done nothing since I woke up today”

Mr. John Prine

                       <£>

There's flies in the kitchen,
all around my eyes and head,
they’re just gossiping bout me,
why most mornings
I’m still laying in bed
at almost near
noon-time, why too, them
angels and their a-fluttering wings,
a-flapping, still hanging around,
when they’re so far from home

truth be told, I kinda like new combinations,
the musical vibes, magic incantations,
boogie woogie, fuzzy buzzy eyelash sounds,
bluesy background harmonies against the
harps them angel wings are playing,
I’m getting every note writ down so,

I can play it well on the morrow, on my
following them higher up, all the ways up
on that glowing shining stairway to heaven,
guarantee-****-teeing entrance through the
pearly gates for the flies and a lazy, no-account
worthless S.O.B. like me

I like
my shoes; they are
the only pair
I have.
I've walked miles in
them.
They have
got me around for years.
My shoes are
falling apart.
They should have
quit on me a long
time ago.
Strangely enough,
people compliment
me on them.
They don't see
that the soles are
worn thin, or that they
smell like cat **** and
rotting flesh.
They don't see the
blood stains on
the canvas and the
piece of broken glass stuck
in the heel.
Nope,
they just say,
'Nice kicks;
they look good on you.'
I can't afford
another pair right now,
and even if I could,
I wouldn't spend
the money on them.
No, I like my
shoes, even with
all their imperfections.
They have seen
a thousand sunsets and
carried me away
from many heartbreaks.
My shoes have
run
walked
and sauntered through
snow
rain
and all kinds of ****.
My shoes have
saved me and
betrayed me.
And they have
tasted every type
of ***** known
to man.
When I'm dead and
gone
I hope someone
burns
my shoes and throws
the ashes in
that long lonesome
river, under the bridge,
where men
live and fight
and dream.

no fame, no claim, no name


who shall we say is calling?

I am a man of
no fame, no claim, no name,
an average sinner, absent glory

a few seconds of rustling bustle.

did you ever write poetry?

once. but everything of earthly substance,
destined to fade into the ignominy of forgotten
vaults, where time takes it time and erodes all
into dust.

here, every word preserved. there is no time
in the dominion of creators, and you friend
are numbered in their midst, enshrined in many
hearts and eyes, and with every reading, each
reimagination, you are a reincarnated being.