might surprise, but among the few
in my posses, my oldest,
frequent
visitor by night dream and
    occasionally,
a summit by daytime scream,
why of course,
referencing the Angel of Death…

now for safety reasons,
we have never met
face to face,
(nor have
you and I)
but we are in
frequent communication
these latter days, though
our friendship began
decadent decades ago,
in my teenage years…

after Alexandra Leaving, a song by Leonard Cohen

<>

to go where?

to a city self-consuming in madness,
giving every excuse to stay, and yet,
it came to me just now when the poet
must be leaving his redoubt, with doubt,
and return to the concrete and anomie
of a different kind of splendid isolation

when the last leaf meanders slow down
to the battlefield, and the falling terminado,
and the tree branches are stick figures, each
finger pointing skyward in an j’accusing manner,
accussing & conceding defeat, begging for mercy,
their pleadings too much for me to bare and bury

when green has been wiped clean, and deleted
from the dictionary of colors, my moth eaten soul,
can no longer be granted a stay of execution by
merely looking at the landscape and seascape
to admire their friendly contrasting schemes,
their installation in me of the awe of a visual
quietude, that was an astonishing injection
not truly appreciated till now, too late and
still early, the awe colorations of nature’s vibrancy

The gods have come, my soul hoisted upon their
broad shoulders, the dead-appearing tree branches
can no longer keep their poet safe, hold him back from
meeting his fate; now, he too is a leaving but
floating upward, unlike like the fallen crowds that have
come to rest upon the soil that born them, now to be buried,
all saying: Goodbye Island Poet leaving,

Island Poet
has no poem, no good understanding, no vision,
had no plan, no foresight, only a hope against hope,
that safety was/is not seasonal, Van Morrison reminds,
“These are the days of endless summer,”are memories,
to be held onto tightly, until when if I pass muster, angels
will return to my island abode, where my natural friends
will greet me again, with a flowering and new births,
and The Island Poet can once again revel in ideas in words like
future, sanity, when boarding the ferry with a one way ticket smile.

typo of the first degree
meant to type passed,
better to letter the error,
write the poem you knew
was the one of the litter inside,
stewing & brewing in the internal
of you, regardless of the woulda
shoulda coulda of poetic eye~hand~brain
trinity of discombobulation…

we passed a 110% good-god-
another-glorious-day—perfect
in every aspect of deep respect,
lazing in sun and shade, no
matter, for the cool customer
of gentling breeze comforts
the global populace and each
draws comfort, deposits solace,
from the timeless day that slowly
slips inside us, a blessing for the
senses, that are inadequate to
praise it properly, ‘cept with a
nod of appreciation for the great
blessing that on us has been
bestowed…

we read, I write, bring her a
coffee unasked, for the chip
secreted by me in her temporal
lobes, lobs me a silent alarm:
snacks required!

we heartily dinner debate,
turkey burgers or mushrooms better?  
Bun, No Bun?
Salad ingredients  consumes a
de minimus 5 minutes before the
holy silence of our total environment,
soothes the phony discordiality of our
pretense, that there are two sides here,
not just hers, no matter what🙄
any diplomatic observer might
think…

the bunnies sense our presence,
emerging from the cool dark
of the shaded burrows dug beneath
our redwood deck, & get fed baby carrots,
that they pretend not to see until the babies
are summoned, from beneath the ledge!!!

the deck, that is now in its forty fifth year,
grows ancient stronger with a good annual,
steam blasting face lift, bettering with age,
keeping pace with the creatures resting on it,
just above the bunnies below’s steerage deck,
though the humans graceful age with no
artifices or outside help, except the air,
its salty flavoring, and the panoramic view’s
total encompassed comforting…

so the day passes, and it’s added
to our cull of perfection, distinctly
better than the day prior but who
can be sure, not I, for the poems
come easy, the music delivers delight,
the books read, additive to the engine
of the human body of know-more-ledge,
weighty matters, but zero caloric, and
thus, well deserved and served for dinner’s
chatter banter + desert with caramel M&M’s (1)

and the poet signals that the poem near complete,
and the trad sign off, today unnecessary, no need to query,

Where is Shelter?

for we are all a day wiser, and smile,
the answer before and inside us,
and the only open question remaining,
can heaven be better, and we secret wink,
cause the answer is. too obvious to we restees,
here, here is heaven, and go back to giving thanks
for our lucky stars…