there is no river
without the shores,
two hands guiding

no left poet
unless a right,
to believe in

let magic dragons
all the live long day,
sit upon my shoulder

whispering bad jokes,
always showing off,
with whistling fiery

demonstrations,
still there, old man’s
boon companion

didn’t wake to write
this, but Puff nudged
me awake, his heart

so big it lives, loves,
me still, always will,
for the little poem boy

could not dream, now
that history leaves its
handiwork tell tale signs

upon his carriage,
but look closer,
twinkling eyes, yet scheme

and my dragon licks
me wet face, every Morn,
and I tuck him in every Eve

he is my friend, my better half,
and likes this poem very much,
watched me write every word

dragons purr, laugh out loud,
at their own jokes, makes me
happy, because old men die
happy contented knowing that

dragons will always tell jokes
even when a little boy lover
must go

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…

~A grimy, grimace of a grungy summer day~

Good Morning!


let the un-fun sting,
as the ardor never begins,
forecast a grimy grimace of a lousy
day ahead, at best, a clouded mess,
just to differentiate between bereaved
periods of rain, that train you in windows~
avoidance, for a grunge gloomy invades
all six senses (including the brain)
where all are concatenated),
and you can actually feel
the pallor descending
from brow to the bow
of your container,
feet swelling,

and you
in addition
to avoiding windows,
put some towels out over
all the mirrors, lest your pallor,
ah,

too late,
the grim grimace of grunted day
arrived even before the poem
was conceived, I deceived,
once more, the bore drill
drives a tubular of
despondency into
my spinal seam

Whether Weather Wither Whine Wailing
*****-Nilly  Wade  Why Why Writer

Why, Writer?

"Don't Pick A Fight With A Poet"
by
Madeline Peyroux

When you're walking on the street,
and the people that you meet,
make you want to start a big fight,
'cause they talk as if they're so right.
There is one thing to remember,
in case you haven't heard:
You can **** a mighty emperor,
but you cannot smite a word.

So, don't pick a fight with a poet.
Don't raise your hand on a whim.
Whether it's wrong or it's right,
there's a lesson in life,
and to learn it, you have to give in,
cause the poet knows you can't win.

When you're twitching at the bar,
No one knows who you are,
and you want to prove them all wrong,
you think you are so strong.
You can try to make them listen.
You can try to be the boss,
but the storyteller is the one
who calls the toss.

So, don't pick a fight with a poet.
Don't raise your hand on a whim.
Whether it is wrong or it's right,
Whether it's wrong or it's right
there'll be a lesson tonight,
and to learn it you'll have to give in,
'cause a poet knows you can't win.

Over there in the corner with a Cheshire grin
making rhyme out of broken hearts
cryin' the hymn.
And two tokes from a good time,
a toast away from fist flying,
congregating the world
with a paper and pen.

Don't pick a fight with a poet.
Don't raise your hand on a whim.
Whether it's wrong or right,
there's a lesson in life,
and to learn it, you'll have to give in,
cause a poet knows, you can't win.

Madeline Peyroux

where do a good man’s dreams go?

they leech, from brain to fingertips,
they fall & rise slow to the toes, no,
not gravity, but the weightlessness
of good dreams, up and down,
lets them invade our extremities,
so the migration is a transformation,
from dream to possible, from ephemeral,
to hardened becoming, to a realized

dream retold, nay, foretold,
in deed,
indeed,  
always, better!

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

what color is hate?

think hard, answer, not easily up-conjured,
obvious choices, careful be, exclude not, some voices,
no rush, think upon it careful, after all, hate hates variations,
it, as old original as the Garden of Eden

you desire answer, something quick, *****,
look to very nature of hate, so easy spewed,
after centuries of construction, yet, there is
nothing quick about hating, tho learnt early on

some variants of millennium length, eons short,
oh weep, at this great irony of ironies, hate is so
innate engrained, is it in the red blood, cells of the
white colored brain apparatus we all share?

unnatural impossibly genetic. don’t believe it.

hate is colorless like air, like clear water.
how else could it be so easy given, taken.
innocent innocuous is the color of hate,
easy transmitted, and never to be a vaccine

until it can be seen how we implant it within ourselves.


11:40pm
Sat Jul 11

_____


another mourning morning, usual signs of warning,
wanted to wash away the distress signs of no sleep,
turned on the tap, out came only troubled waters,
my only friend, the voice from the mirror, pretending
to be coming from me, speaking: Oh Lord, Oh Lord!

is there no surcease for me, somewhere, can I find,
little bites, small plates, pieces of peace, the kind
of kindness that eases, repairs the dividers of mind,
the country stone fences that been growing wilder,
when, troubled child of 10, window breaking, beyond
youthful mischievousness, evil streaked, so deemed

Give me a boat, give me a bridge, give me a road, a home,
one of those things poets, songwriters about, wax lyrical,
Oh Lord, give me time, 45 seconds, even two or three,
Being strong, being confident, am I not entitled to that,
a boat, sturdy mast, cause sailing from storm to storm,
just glimpsing dry land, is that too much, a pale beyond?

love, nah, a bridge too far, not even on the menu, not blinded,
I am off key, not well enough, between the peaks between,
I am out of sync, bubbling discombobulated, a **** besided, behind,
lend  me a finger, not even a hand, a kernel, not even a cob,
a string, forget a rope, a washcloth to bathe and dry,
lay me down, lay me down, to live, even just not dying.

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

I was never told about the sorrows

Bill of Goods,  after 5 beers confesses
that ‘hopes and prayers’ was his boss’s construct,
making a ***** business, an easier swallow

the born babies soon forget the special instructional
video they watch before departing for the lower earth
that reminds of the bi-polar nature of  being human

the script pre-provided each descendant gets rewrites,
because of choices, false described as free, yours, for
there is nothing free in the decisions, each costly difficult

did you ever wonder where the next line comes from?
create it, you mislead only yourself, because you were
told about the sorrow, but just forgot, too too painful

<>

i know you got a gazillion on your plate

know that i think of you often

how u r doing

juggling  just a few huge

balloons,
(that when the kids slap them up to the ceiling)
metaphorically meteors don’t travel in any foreseeable future path,
you’ve coulda predicted

be well.   and if needed,
      just ask

<>

she raw whispered, edginess deep in her throat,
combo of delighted annoyance coated in
wary weariness of she-wanted-wonder,
what he wants that I can keep/take?

my untold secrets he knows how?
needy aches unsatisfied uncovering,
his knowings creates unfamiliar needs,
accentuates secretions of secrets discovering

did not ask for revelations without no resolution,
how dare he tense me in private places hid,
my properties aren’t his, my neck, eyes,
tonguing my senses is crazy senseless

this schema, this tracing of a figurine,
braising my body in his, its own sauces,
while perfume of mine unrequested are mined,
taken away in railway cars to his treasure houses

left utterly gagging and gasping
to hell with him, unbounded gone,
to heaven by him, I went bounding up,
giving me that everything I never desired

but only knew him as the my-mysterious,
tales unwritten yet tensed in the familiar,
poems elucidating, all that I didn’t
write, knew,  but never uttered

now, now! all are freely spoke aloud,
outed, foundering, highlighted and now
decomposing me, I’m honestly betrayed by
what he calls the sense, the knowing of the unknown




Friday, March 6th, Twenty Twenty,
2:47am

“many who are first will be last, and the last first.” Mark 10:29

the mixed drink of finance terminology
my stock and trade, or,
used to be anyway, when I was gainfully employed,
intersects with a place I don’t habitually frequent,
seeing as I am an Old Testament kinda guy

dollars to doughnuts,
this errant thought makes me smile,
the devil and me (a/k/a the devil in me)
have a warm milk with KAHLÚA,
in the dead of night, across the kitchen table,
doing repartee and bad poetree
and biblical textual emendation
on the verse in question

having been present, the devil likes it just the way it is,
but the old nitpicking me always thinking,
a little editing makes the ‘milk’ go down easier,
suggests a reversal of emphasis:

the last shall be first,
for many who are first, will be last

less threatening and the point better made

lead with your right, taught my boxing master,
and the last shall be first is
very right

you see, many call me,
the lender of last resort
which is true enough,
but my preference is best
when addressed as

lender of the first resort

this is a depth bomb cutting,
a midnight message for me,
a Zola accusatory,
“You make me think about death and doorways and sleep”

no mere paper cut incision,
bandaid and triple bacterial,
a forehead kiss
and an-on-your-way

nope serious business

death and doorways and sleep
and all that is in between,
nightly rehanging the me-moon,
on that curved tip

the onerous tasks of child raising,
you, the perp, the perpetual kid,
the holy version victim trinitized
too?

hanging your self right on that shining orbital,
leads to unquestionable answer processions
ahead of the unanswerable, they ask,
what’s behind the screen door of

death and doorways and sleep

life is hard,
but without questions,
it is unquestionably
harder

find the doorways.

this explains so little
and so more much.

reminder: make doorways - open them

11:10pm 4-10-19 ~ 10:31am 4-16-19

~for AH~

a thousand brilliant lies
(Hafiz,  Iran 1320-1389);      (L.F.P., USA 20~21st century)

- Hafez -                                 - Left Foot Poet-

“I have a                                  if only, in my meager possess,
thousand brilliant lies,          but one lie when easy asked
For the question:                    the simplest damning of,
How are you?                          are you generally happy?

I have a                                    what is god you ask,
thousand brilliant lies.          no lies required,
For the question:                    many answers upon my face visible,
What is God?                          unsure if any worthy of believing

If you think that the               8 centuries separate us, yet
Truth can be known,              you lie; we poets - you, I, all believe

From words                             in the divinity of words

If you think that the                a thousand brilliant sparkles
Sun and the Ocean,                 when Sun loves the Ocean,
Can pass through that            each one a poem passing,
tiny opening Called                my mouth, my wide eyes,
the mouth,                                uttering a Cohen's hallelujah

O someone should                 So we gleam, mirthing in glorious
start laughing!                         and gleeful delight at ourselves
Someone should start             for your brilliant happy lies easily
wildly Laughing Now!"       
                            
                      
­                            unravel into a thousand laughs

(seep yourself to leak away)

all reveals are feints;
I take you right
but I am moving left,
always left,
then left again

when I turn the faucet of me on,
brown, rusty pipe water comes out,
never turning clear,
even if the flow
went on for a millennium

someone traveller passerby
reads my excellent explicit illicit words,
with kind sweetness
observes a valid conclusion:
Poems take.a lot out of you

correct+wrong

not take, give
they are the slow seepage
of my overburdening
which is
yes, yes, I know, all relative,
but perspective is a
sometime summer thing,
and all the springtime streets
filled with filthy frozen slush

having  come from some rusty water leakage,
never turning clear
no matter how long the street runs away
from you

so you take yourself to give away,
seeping and leaking

ah words;

so useful and so inadequate
crushed petals from the Tree of Life

you ask me If I have read my brother,
the prophet-poet Jeremiah?

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

When your words came, I ate them;
they were my joy and my heart's delight

Then the Lord reached out his hand unto my mouth and said,
"I have put my words in your mouth."

these are those words

at 11pm in nyc
one sees what
you need to c
what you don’t want to b
what’s c-ing you
all the aleph bets
are ghosting words in your
brown i’s and clear fingernails

then when and why
you are under the
dining room table
cause you don’t want to be
a real person
it’s so oh much easier to be
in the under, the table dark thunder,
so when until you need to be a visibility,
until then a ghost is a fine impossibility

do we believe in ghosts?
girl, you crack me up
W ooooohoooo W you who?

11:16pm
the witching wishing h our

in this crazed business of flighty gods and flitty humans,
this trove of love need,
this two way street for persons blind in one eye
thus they can see you,
the one who loves them
only when they squint real hard,

well it is a far better thing

to be next them,
to be seen and be seeing
than have the
ceiling be your horizon,
a pillow oscar-acting as a long lost love,
cold sheets and space heaters each losing the battle,
for when the moment occurs that

loving usurps loneliness
even for a moment’s moment,

it is a far better thing you do
than you have ever done before

8:41pm

cellphone to heart, mobile to immobile, electric dead to living

you know that sleep and I are but passing acquaintances,
when it drops in, to heavy my lids, it is through a cracked window slivered, just enough for a Pan boy to grab me and away me to Almost Neverland

when the alarms sound that it’s sleepy time,
(quite like that quiet verse)
no time to delist the “those pre-shluffy to do things,”
cell drop upon my chest, like an open mic,
then the raging observatory tapestry begins!

the cell lies directly above my ventricular chamber,
and communication is live, the brain cutoff switch, well, cutoff

all manner of imps, devils, rejected poems, angels and
Greek gods and some Indian as well, stand in line for to make
free calls via a beating human message call center, utilizing my friends and family verizon plan to register complaints,
close out unfinished biz, or just contact, friends, family or other
mischievous imps or even you, in other time zone worlds

though my brain may not interfere, like the CIA, it records all
conversations and give me a list of new poem titles, notions, stories glories and wrenching heartbreaking heartbreak,
requiring “fleshing out” when I awake from my three fingers
of scotch, glass eye tears drops made me drunk,

damning this transmigration chorus of voices that offer up a treasure of divine humankind’s hopes and travails,
and the occasional call on the divine’s 1-800 confession line,
hear it all, my chewing out by one particular god of mine who does not suffer my criticisms well of his ungodly actions, nope not sweetly and

when else would he dare contact me, except when no edgewise
words of mine can appear to contradict his mealy mouth excuses

did you musty misty mistake  my poems  as the product of
the miracle water wages of my imaginary inspiration,
no, not, from the replaying of your desperate exclamations,
the cancerous shrieks of loss and prickly investiture of the aesthetics of soft whispers and solitary foot treads,
that is where my insanity is bred, and tumbling s-words, sworn

don’t consider it eavesdropping as there is no signed rental agreement, consider this unfair warning, if you should secret use my cellular line, your everything is now ******,
your genetic material is materialistic mine and my poems yours,
this bittersweet sentiment is a measure of our bloods commingling,
your tears and impish silliness, are shiny hidden within mine

somehow I feel compelled to state this unique statistic:

I love you

4:47pm on 3/11

who writes poems like this?
silly old boys with gray hair, standing on one left leg.  but you knew that, right?

the disagreement palpable
gotta seriously disagree
the reversal is the course proper
*** backwards you are, right back at ya
forward forward, never confuse what’s past infused
never go back to old, it’s a dead weight carrying
the past is now a pretense, what we saw, believed and wrote
shuck that mao shirt, those cowboy boots, older vista visions,
the capsule you saw gone immediately to forward the blessing
get some slim jeans, fancy sneakers, a new way of seeing seeking

then the music muse interferes interfaces!

There's a feeling I get when I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who stand looking.

Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune,
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long,
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.
And it makes me wonder.

“Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know,
The piper's calling you to join him,
Dear,  can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind?”

*exactly

what does the W stand for


my 2:00am friend?

left feet touching and yet I am clueless, unsure in what language I should compile the possibilities and

reread my poem and shotgun taken aback

you make my urgency feel so trifling

and I read your are back but you are more gone for,
love’s  misfortune has you, graced,
like a hole in the barbed wire fence,
had bled you dry and let the seeds for
the next planting go astray;
this is comprehended for my fences
are so busted in so many places that
all the animals escaped only to return
at feeding time, their curiosity of the outside world
limited

and W has limited infinite answers

for there are no names that begin with W
for farmers in our native tongues

suspect if you are reading this it must be after 2:00,
indeed it’s 4:07am, and the puzzlement is face flushing,
annoying and curiously intriguing...

and i remain,
“sincerely” yours

L.F. Poet




p.s. thanks for reading my stuff

<!>
inspired by a conversation with Maira Kalman


******* a name, adopt a persona, let my fingers do the talking,
place the instrumental sharp point tip upon the blankety blank paper,
maestro baton raised, coordinating,
the first sound, the vocal chords trembling,  
the first thought, the ultrasound image, entrance of a first violin,
coalescing into, into the initializing single primary phonation,
the stinging geometry of chance at last,
throwing  down the gauntlet, glove slapping, and the
tendons tense, the mouth opens, release and indentation,
a letter's curvature, a black and white downward stroking,
a sign is televised, revealed and released

a one way only sign

time bends knee, gravity suspended, terror morphs to
expelling rapid firefights of imagery needy for spacing,
even pauses mid-word  leave just this:

where is the in in
intimate?

are you the in in
inmate,
or the jailor at the gate?

you swear never again

until committing once more,

a sentence commutation, by committing a first sentence,

and the greater toll taken and paid for,

and the in in in-nate,
questions your sanity

happily


<•>

9/17/17 10:55pm

2am Friends

winter has set the boundage, bars of chill, escape-urge killers,
self-imprisoned by our ruthless timidity, that both comforts yet,
worse violates our truthful, unwanted inadmissible-neediness by
purging the touches and the knowing kindage, this then,
this preface, your reminding of-as-of-yet untouched,
half-invitational, half-regret, half-cursed, whole red need for
2am friends
to fill the void that poems can n’ere fill

1/1/18